Oz East Coast
Sunday Nov 15th 2008
Just arrived at 0430 hours at the Palazzo Versace Marina at Main Beach, Gold Coast in SE Queensland.
The trip down from Hervey Bay took 18 hours and was a great experience as we transited the Great Sandy Straits which is in the lee of Fraser Island, the biggest sand island in the world (Wikipedia).
My good friend Rick McLure (about to become a N55/60 owner) traveled with me and we had some fun navigating through the "narrows" at Sheriden Flats.
The trip down from Urangan boat harbour was pretty quick as we had a flooding tide pushing us along at over 10 knots, and when we got through the narrows (which is about about half way down behind Fraser Is) at high slack, we picked up the ebb to push us along again continuing South.
This is an interesting phenomena as the tide floods up Sheriden Flats from the North and from the South, then ebbs back to the north and the South, so we were flying, so much so that this got us into Seaway Tower at the Gold Coast in the dark which is 3 hours earlier than anticipated.
One of the big issues was getting out into the ocean via the infamous bar.
We checked in with VMR Tin Can Bay to check conditions and to see whether the published waypoint coordinates had changed, and found the bar had migrated slightly to the North. The crossing was uneventful but interesting to see the sounder out at sea go down suddenly to 5 metres for about half a nautical mile - 25.24S, 153.09E .
The trip down the coast was one of the most tranquil I have ever experienced, and uneventful if you discount 33 prawn trawlers in our path, and the P&O Sun Princess who had left Brisbane on it's way to Noumea passing just astern with it's lights ablaze. This passenger ship on its return picked up an EPIB alert and diverted to pick up 4 sailors who lost their boat under them on a reef in the Chesterfield system 500 nm miles east of Mackay.
Staying at the Gold Coast for a few weeks before the trek down to Sydney for the NY celebrations gives me some time to do a little maintenance, and make some purchases.
I am hoping my barograph coming from Germany might arrive so that it can be installed by a good electronic guy I've used before when installing my KVH Sat TV.
