WE'RE ON THE WAY

Finally our plans fell into place & we were able to leave Tingalpa Creek, ready for our 2009 cruising season. We left an hour before full high tide on Saturday, 14th March with Mum & Dad onboard & headed into Morton Bay with the intention of making Tangalooma our first stop for the day.

With the cyclone well & truely behind us, weather conditions looked ideal but we weren't quite sure how much swell we'd be confronted with. However, once into the bay with light ESE winds & no swell to talk of, the decision was made to pass Tangalooma & Mooloolaba & keep heading north, ready to cross Wide Bay Bar the following morning. We don't ever really enjoy overnight sails but with the promise of a full moon & calm seas, it was an easy decision to make.

It was definately a long night & with Rees & I sharing the watch & doing 2 hours on, then 2 hours off, we were sure glad to see the sun rise the following morning. We'd had a long, uneventful night which was good, but it was all spoilt to a degree when we noticed that the tip of the HF radio antenna was hanging by a thread & couldn't be fixed without Rees climbing the mast. Unfortunately though, before we knew it, the top of the antenna suddenly gave way without warning & spearheaded the deep blue waters of the ocean! Bugger!

Without an antenna we wouldn't have HF radio range & therefore no email range which was disappointing, so while I have this opportuntity of having internet range, I've decided to quickly update the blog.

Crossing Wide Bay Bar was a "non event", as the bar was flat & because it was still only 9.00am, we decided to motor through the Great Sandy Straits while we still had the run-in tide with us. As tired as Rees & I were, we were still happy to make more ground & motored through to Kingfisher Bay Resort where we finally dropped anchor after 28 hours of travelling.

After a good night's sleep, we were up early this morning & are currently making our way toward Bundaberg where we'll probably spend a few days getting this HF antenna sorted out. We have an absolutely beautiful day with light breezes & to make the more morning exciting, we've just caught a 15kg Spanish Mackeral on our lure-----our dinner tonight!