A Room With A View

The view out Cameron's window this morning

Photos can't reproduce what we're seeing anywhere near well enough. They can't show you the colour of the water or the light, or what we can see off in the distance. Well, maybe David's photos can, but mine can't. I don't think Cameron appreciated it, but the view out his window at 6.30 this morning was amazing. Beach, blue water, pink sunrise and green hills in the distance. Wow.

A criminal stole my boat

A nice contrast to the criminal who stole my boat yesterday. What you can't see in the photos are the feral ugg boots he is wearing, and that he used to steer my pretty boat with at times. I can't work in these conditions.

Seriously though, the only real timings we work to nowadays are tides. We were both up early yesterday so we could get into Seventeen Seventy, 50nm or 90km from Burnett Heads, on the high tide. Conditions were fantastic up until lunchtime. No swell, negligible seas, 14-18 knot winds off our beam (Seasprint's favourite) and we almost set a new boat speed record. The wind dropped off after lunch and we motored then motor sailed for a while to make sure we would arrive on time, which we did. I haven't been to Seventeen Seventy before - it is so pretty and peaceful. We're staying for a few days - I apologise to the locals in advance for the Nicoll kids!

Extremes

We set off from Urangan Harbour on Tuesday morning (19th July) and had a great sail under spinnaker up the west coast of Fraser Island (Platypus Bay). It was fantastic weather - 10 or so knots of wind, seas at about half a metre, clear sunny skies, and deep blue water.




We were even lucky enough to snap this photo of a humpback whale breaching in Hervey Bay. Who would have known they could look so soft and cuddly?




We anchored outside Lagoon Anchorage and enjoyed some nibblies as we watched the sun set over Hervey Bay. After dinner though, the wind blew up, and because of the tide we were side on to the seas. It looked like we were in for a rough night.



Rather than a sleepless night at anchor, we all agreed on a sleepless night under sail. I did a quick passage plan, we battened down and rugged up, and set off across Hervey Bay for Bundaberg. The wind clocked 32 knots and the seas were about 2 metres, so it was not the most comfortable ride. Even under greatly reduced sail, it was a stark contrast to the sailing earlier that day. I took the first watch and Heather took over for two and half hours from 11:30pm, then I did the final stretch into Bundy - although neither of us really slept when we were off watch. Haydee snoozed in the cockpit, and was a little champion helping me do two tacks at about 2:00am and 3:00am. Cameron was comfortably curled up in his cabin all night and got the best sleep of all of us.

We pulled into the marina just after dawn on Wednesday 20th July. The rest of yesterday was spent cleaning up the boat, and catching up on sleep. We have decided we will spend two more days in Bundy, with today being a maintenance day and tomorrow we will do some of the tourist type things (read visit the rum distillery). We will then continue up the coast on Saturday. We will visit offshore destinations such as Fitzroy Reef, Lady Musgrave Island/Lagoon and Lady Elliot Island on the way back south. That will time our visit to these turtle rookeries with the nesting period of Nov/Dec.

Getting Into A Routine

The kids reading in our bed yesterday morning

We arrived at Urangan Harbour at the southern end of Hervey Bay yesterday afternoon. We finally had enough wind blowing in the right direction to sail and, with the sun out too, had a lovely day. Unlike the owner of Boomerang 7 who unfortunately got himself stuck on a sand bar off Urangan as high tide was ebbing a little after lunch time yesterday. The local Volunteer Marine Rescue got a crew together amazingly quickly on a Sunday but blew an engine trying, unsuccessfully unfortunately, to help him get off. They did take 5 people back to shore, leaving the owner on board until high tide at 10 o'clock last night - a long wait on a steep angle.

We refuelled and did laundry yesterday and will re-stock fresh food, water and gas bottles today before we leave civilisation again for another week or so. We plan to head north-east to Playtpus Bay on the north-western side of Fraser Island then back to the mainland to Bundaberg. Whale-watching season apparently officially opened yesterday and we've heard there are some in the bay - fingers crossed!!

We're getting into something resembling a routine. If we're on a timeline due to tides or weather, Shane and I are generally up early-ish and the kids are up when we start the engine which sits in between their cabins. If we're not going anywhere, we bludge in the mornings - reading, blogging or just staring into space.

Seasprint State School

Whether we're moving or not, Monday to Friday is "Seasprint State School". The first hour each day is mental maths, language, spelling and times tables - all revision and consolidation. Then we do some new english, maths, science or art. Haydee is "Exploring Literary Texts by the Same Author" (I chose Roald Dahl) and Cameron is doing "Quest Novels" in English. Cameron and I are reading The Hobbit, although Haydee recently stole it from us and Cameron is currently reading The BFG. I haven't ruled out switching their units.

We generally take turns cooking, including the kids once a week or so, and if you don't cook you wash up. The weekly menu starts with fresh food, then we defrost and eat our freezer stock, then we're into the tins. Food is stowed in our 75L fridge, 23L freezer, two small cupboards and under 3 seats.

When we're at sea, we use as little power as possible although the solar panels are doing a great job charging our 1 crank and 3 house batteries for us, supplemented by the engine for 30 minutes morning and night if we haven't used it during the day. The hot water system heats off the engine and I have been very clear about my need for a hot shower in the evening, hence the 30 minutes at night. 1 minute is a long shower - we use the time it takes for hot water to come through to hose down the head, then get wet, turn the water off to soap up, and then rinse quickly.We've found we're making full use of marina showers when we're berthed and judge a marina by their hot water system. No one has let us down yet.

Update from Cameron

Yesterday we went from Garry's Anchorage up to South White Cliffs. We didn't sail much on the way up because we went over some really shallow bits and didn't want sails up in case we bumped the bottom. We ended up bumping twice, but it was soft sand both times.

Today, Haydee and I went to the beach and had a great time climbing the sand cliffs and taking shelter from the rain.

Then I went out in the dinghy with Dad to check crab pots. The tail of our crab bait was no longer a tail, it was a plain old fish bone. Somehow, something got in, ate the bait and simply just went out again. Dad and I also had a fishing competition, who can catch the most fish. None of us won (except the fish).

Right now it's not raining but it's still dark and cloudy.

I can't not share the kids modelling their thermals

Toilets, Dolphins and Engines

We're anchored at Garry's Anchorage on the west coast of Fraser Island tonight after a day dedicated to toilet repairs in Tin Can Bay yesterday. The evenings and mornings are chilly but not as cold as Brisbane.

We had dolphins swimming alongside us for a while in Wide Bay on the way to the bar. The bay was flat and the bar crossing was fine - we crossed a few hours after low tide and got a bit of left-right rolling as waves came through but the kids thought it was great.

Today's highlight was an oil-rag doing noisy laps of our (my!) engine in an engine belt. Lesson learned. Tomorrow we'll move onto White Cliffs about 1/3 of the way up the west coast of Fraser, visit the Ceratodus wreck and top up our water. And do our Friday tests, of course! The kids are doing well with their schooling so far.

We're underway!

Noosa from Seasprint

It took us 18 months, and one extra day, but we're finally away. We said goodbye to Brisbane early this morning and arrived in Noosa a few hours ago, a long and quite cold but sunny sail. Better than the rain we had last time we did this run.

The kids have checked their email and we're all looking forward to the minestrone that has been on the stove cooking since lunchtime - yum.