Tin Can Bay Marina

We have spent the last 2 days in Tin Can Bay Marina doing the clothes washing and washing down Faraway. For a yacht she was starting to smell quite fishy with all the crab bait and fish bait that had been passed over the aft deck. The Marina is in a lovely location next to beautiful parks and nature reserves teeming with wildlife. My favourites are the rainbow lorikeets shown in this photo. When the tide is out in the bay the scenery changes dramatically and it is possible to walk and fish along the mud banks. At the moment the military is letting off unexploded bombs and flares on the nearby range so the sunsets have been pretty spectacular with the smoke in the sky. November is one of the hottest times of the year in this part of Australia and Ian and I are finding the days pretty exhausting if we are outdoors. Luckily there is normally a cooling breeze in the afternoon that we can look forward to.

Porky and Steely Visit

After Whitey left my brother Andrew and his mate Steely took the forward cabin! Andrew brought his motor boat down from Gladstone and the boys loaded Faraway with their food and bags then zipped off to set their crab pots while the tide was right. They met up with us for lunch on board Faraway at the Elbow. After lunch we all went to shore and pumped for yabbies. It was pretty easy once we found the right spot but unfortunately the fish weren't even biting on yabbies. We went back to Faraway and Ian cooked a great BBQ meat dinner for us. The boys were exhausted so we all got a pretty early night in. The next morning we were up early and jumped into Andrews boat to do some fishing with lures. We drove right in close to the mangroves and saw loads of turtles, rays and sea birds. It was great to see so much life in one small area. I was the only person to catch a fish and it turned out to be a shovel nose shark with a very cute face shown in the top photo. Andrew's mate Steely turned out to be the 'Mud Crab Whisperer'. He knew everything there is to know about catching these delicacies and zoomed off in the dinghy with Ian to pull up the pots while Andrew and I fished. They ended up catching 3 males which were enough for dinner for the 4 of us. Steely brought a gas cooker with him and the boys hit the beach before sunset to cook the crabs. Andrew proved to be a deft hand at cleaning the crabs and he kept us supplied with lots of meat from the claws for our dinner. It was nice to have the boys on board for the weekend and we both learned a lot about fishing and crabbing (even though we didn't catch a 'keeper' fish between the 4 of us.

Whitey visits Faraway

When Helen and Jess left Faraway our old time friend Whitey from Peregian Beach came on board. He was very keen to do some fishing with us off Fraser Island. It was a territory he normally visited by 4 wheel drive so this was a new experience for him. Whitey brought enough cool boxes to keep us going for a week in beers and bait and Ian had to do 2 dinghy trips to get all the items on Faraway. We had to put a cool box behind the wheel and the photo shows Whitey making a nice seat out of it. We spent the first night on Faraway anchored in Tin Can Bay. Whitey got his largest fishing rod out in search of a big pelagic fish. After an hour of no action he suddenly got a big strike on his line. He played the fish but it swam under our boat and wrapped itself around our anchor chain and broke the line. We argued over the next few days whether it was a shark or stingray that got away but Whitey insisted he had a huge fish hooked! The next day we sailed up to 'The Bluff' and anchored there for the night. We fished on a sand spit but the boys didn't catch anything except for a couple of toad fish and a bird. Unfortunately Whitey hooked the bird while fishing. The photo shows Ian releasing the bird from the hook. Luckily it flew off unharmed and none the worse for its experience. I got sidetracked from all the fishing by a pod of Pacific Humpback Dolphins that cruised by us. I followed them all the way along the beach and at one stage managed to get waist deep in the water with them before Ian came zooming along in the dinghy worried that there would be sharks in the water. It was a truly memorable experience to be so close in the water to these rare sea creatures. On Saturday morning we sadly had to return Whitey to shore in preparation for our next guests on board Faraway.

Helen and Jess Stonier Visit

My sister Helen and her daughter Jessica (my niece) visited Faraway for a couple of days of crabbing and fishing in the Sandy Straits. Jessica really enjoyed going crabbing with Uncle Ian and Helen got straight back into the fishing again. We had a nice time cruising between Inskip Point and Elbow Point. We caught a sand crab shown in the photo but unfortunately it was too small to keep. Ian and Jess were lucky enough to catch a male mud crab and Helen cooked him up for dinner on the second night. The photo shows Ian grinning after that perfect crab catch! We had a nice time with our relatives playing board games after sundowner drinks.

Ian gets Crabby

Ian and I are still hanging out in the Sandy Straits. It is such a beautiful part of Southern Queensland located in the wilderness area of Fraser Island (the largest sand island in the world). Ian bought himself a crab pot and has been enjoying trying his luck every day to catch the prized mud crab. This is Ian with a legal sized crab but unfortunately he couldn't keep it because it was a girl (Jenny). In Queensland you can only keep the male (buck) crabs for eating. Well every day Ian has become more frustrated as he has only caught girls so he is taking a break to figure out how to catch a male. We have watched some truly beautiful sunsets during the last week and have enjoyed staying in the same place for more than a few days. We have fished a lot but to date haven't really caught anything legal size. Ian is so proud even when he catches a toad fish! The top photo shows Ian fishing from the dinghy after the Fraser Island Ferry almost ran him down. Hopefully we will have better luck when my brother and his mate join us next weekend with their local knowledge, crab pots and professional fishing gear.

Sailing the Sandy Straits with my sister

After our arrival in Bundaberg and meeting up with family members we took my brave sister cruising along the Sandy Straits in Faraway. Helen took to sailing like a fish to water and seemed to enjoy every moment of the cruising life. She was so relaxed that after only 1 hour of sailing she started doing some needlework in the cockpit. We motor sailed down to Moon Point for our first night's anchorage. The next day we went ashore in the dinghy and explored the wilderness shores of Fraser Island. We saw a lot of stingrays feeding in the shallows and hundreds of shore birds wading for their dinner. The next day we sailed down to Kingfisher Bay Resort and went ashore to do some hiking and explored the resort. In the afternoon we sailed further down the straits to South White Cliffs and did some fishing during our sundowner drinks. Unfortunately nothing was biting so we quit early and enjoyed more drinks and a BBQ dinner cooked by Ian. In the morning we made an early start so we could motor through the shallow Sheridan Flats so we could arrive in Tin Can Bay marina by mid afternoon. We put Faraway on a marina berth and packed our bags to spend a weekend on land in Brisbane. My sister wasn't finished with sailing and is due to come back and join us soon.

Bundaberg Rum

We made it into Bundaberg Port Marina at around 8:30am and tied up on the Customs and Quarantine dock. We had a very friendly welcome to Australia and Immigration, Customs and Quarantine inspected our boat and released us after only 1 hour of discussion and inspection. We then moved Faraway to her marina berth and said a quick farewell to Arthur who jumped ship to catch a bus. We enjoyed our afternoon on land and had a well earned snooze when I heard someone knocking on the hull of the boat. I stumbled up on deck and a lady from the marina had a big bunch of congratulation flowers sent from Ian's mum, dad, sister and friends Jeanie and John. Ian and I were very surprised and delighted that they even managed to coordinate this from overseas. The next day we were inundated with relatives and the celebrations continued. The relatives have now left except for my sister Helen who has volunteered to come sailing with us for a few days around Hervey Bay. Helen and her husband Gavin also took us grocery shopping (after most of our food was confiscated or drunk) and to the Bundaberg Rum distillery today and we bought some delicious souvenirs! The humpback whales are still in Hervey Bay so hopefully we will see some more whale action in the next few days. It's late spring in Australia at the moment but Ian and I have found it quite cold after our South Pacific adventure and my tan is starting to fade already.

GREAT SOUTHERN LAND

GREAT SOUTHERN LAND (24D40'.468S 152D37'.733E) - at 5am Friday, November 4 Ian and I watched our final sunrise of our 10,000 mile journey as the bright red ball of the morning sun climbed above the horizon illuminating the east coast of Australia. We still have 15 miles left to sail until we arrive in Bundaberg. We will update the blog again when we arrive as there are still a few interesting challenges ahead.

SHIPPING LANES

SHIPPING LANES

Position: 21D51'.985S 154D16'.292E

Countdown to Australia - 200 nautical miles

Wednesday, November 2 - We are now approaching the shipping lanes that run along the eastern side of the Great Barrier Reef. These lanes are a super highway for large ships navigating their way along the Eastern coast of Australia. It is mandatory for some of these ships to have an Australian Pilot on board to safely guide them through the hazards of the barrier reef and avoid any mishaps. We are 10 miles east of the shipping lane at the moment and have picked up 2 large ships on the radar. We can calculate the speed of the ships using the radar and it would appear that they are travelling at 30 knots. We can see 1 huge ship visually on the horizon. We were lucky to have good winds last night that enabled us to arrive outside the shipping lanes during the day as it is much easier to see the ships and avoid them. We will all need to be alert on the night watch tonight to make sure we avoid the shipping congestion as we near the mainland of Australia The wind is slowly decreasing and we are only averaging 5 knots now but we will keep adjusting the sails to make as much distance as we can. We would also prefer to sail into Bundaberg rather than motor. Our food supplies are just holding out okay except for fruit and vegetables. We have a few meals planned to last us up to our arrival in Bundaberg. Quarantine will confiscate most of our food stores so I think we have provisioned pretty well for the last part of our journey. Arthur is particularly concerned that we will have some of our quality wine removed so he has organised them into a priority list for drinking versus destruction. It has been really good having Arthur onboard as he has a great sense of humour(he must have to do a crossing),is a really really great chef, has assisted with all the jobs and has made the night watch much easier. Previously we were exhausted every day of the journey. With our current 3 hour watch pattern we rarely feel exhausted-particularly important as we get to the shipping lanes of Oz.

If all goes to plan we will arrive at Bundaberg at 8am (we have no more time zone changes on our long journey). Ian will put the sail out even if we end up motoring for the last day. It will be great to see the Australian east coast sunrise on arrival. A different aspect from our normal 8am arrival on the Emirates flight.