Through Shallows & Narrows

Southport to Burnett Heads

Tipplers anchorage, South Stradbroke

Our route north

With a freshly repaired mainsail, shiny new chain and a full fridge, freezer and bar, we can continue our push north. We motor north past the entrance to the seaway and to the north end of South Stradbroke Island. Here we find a lovely, shallow anchorage at Tipplers. So quiet and calm after the buzz and bustle of Southport. We even have some reprieve from the rain. Sadly we discover that the windlass controller “down” button, which was playing up at Southport, has decided to completely give up the ghost. The anchor needs to be lowered from the helm, which is thankfully still working. Hmmm maybe we should have stumped up for a new controller at Southport, assuming that is the problem…

ITIKI vs Powerlines

I can raise the anchor with the controller though so we continue north, ducking and weaving through the shallow channels of Moreton Bay. We are using our southbound track as a guide to through the narrow channels to make sure we keep away from the shallows and sand/mud banks that make this passage so challenging. A momentary lapse of concentration, cutting it a bit fine by a navigation mark, saw us come to a standstill with a hull parked on a mudbank. It took a bit of pushing and pulling with the Volvos to get into deeper water and get moving again, and we probably left a fair bit of the anti-foul behind as well. Next challenge is to pass under the powerlines at Jacobs Well, and even though we have been through here before it is still a little nerve wracking navigating under them. We need to go as close as possible to the western tower to get the maximum height clearance, as we know the lines hang down to less than our air clearance in the centre. We follow our southbound track and make it through with plenty of room, anchoring at Peel island. The rain has returned and so we spend the night on board.

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Rainbow at Peel Island

Cloudy days and ROlly nights

​Peel Island gets a little rolly overnight and that once again gets us up early and on the way to the next anchorage (22nm away). Its a cloudy morning but by the time we arrive at Lucinda Bay, just south of the Tangalooma wrecks on Moreton Island, we have beautiful blue skies. We take the SUP ashore for a lovely walk along the beach. There are some dolphins hanging around ITIKI which is always lovely to see. Overnight the southerly breeze builds it gets rolly so another early start. People think that cats don’t need to worry too much about rolly anchorages, and it is true to some extent but if there is no wind and the swell comes in on the beam, it is not much fun! Anyway this time we are off to Mooloolaba which is 39nm. We skipped it on the way south because of the conditions, but this time conditions are pretty good. 

Muddy Mooloolaba

Goosewing Sails

And queen bedsheet for good measure

From Moreton Island we start to get out into open water, so we can hoist the freshly repaired main up and manage to sail most of the way. After passing the busy shipping channel for Brisbane port we are in clear water and on our way. We have the gennaker out and goose-winged with the main, and a queen bedsheet on the line for good measure!  We arrive at midday and it is easy getting through the Mooloolaba entrance as we follow a marine Rescue Boat towing a stray beach cat, before weaving our way past the waterfront MacMansions lining the muddy “canals” into Kawana waters. There is a small anchorage just off the marina here it’s tight and shallow but it will do for a couple of nights. The marina staff have kindly left a key out for us to use the dinghy dock, which is really lovely. We did try to get a berth here but there were none to be had! We do a trip to the shops, catch up with Patrick from Multihull Solutions (who sold us ITIKI), wait for a strong wind warning to pass and then it’s time to head off again on Tuesday. It’s back out through the canals again and into the bay, hoisting the main up before turning north for a 64nm cruise to Rainbow Beach.

Once we get away from the bay and the wind direction settles, we are delighted to have perfect conditions for sailing. Even some sunshine! We have the gennaker out and goose-winged with the main, again, but no washing as we are all up to date! We have 15-18kts from the SE and its only partly cloudy, so we are making great speeds of 9-10kts through the water under sail. This  means that we will be able to get through the Wide Bay Bar this afternoon, just on high tide which is great! We had expected to arrive too late and have to wait another day.

Satellite view of Wide Bay Bar showing reefs, shoals and whitewater

Wide Bay Bar

Sector lights to guide us in

Wide Bay Bar is the channel between Rainbow Beach and K’gari / Fraser Island. Heading up the inside of Fraser cuts a lot of miles off the journey north, especially as we want to do a final pitstop for fuel and food at Burnett Heads / Bundaberg, so it’s definitely worthwhile taking this route. The Wide Bay Bar has a notorious reputation which is well deserved. There are shifting sands, shoals and reefs surround this channel and it can be treacherous. If the swell is over 1.5m and the winds over 15kts it can get pretty hairy. Looking back over the data from the nearby wave rider buoy we can see that earlier in May the wave height was reaching 6-7m!!! That would have made it impassable! We are well prepared for our transit having called Tin Can Bay VMR to get the latest waypoints for the channel to plug into the chart plotter. The channel is surveyed on a regular basis and these waypoints had changed since our last visit. We also receive the latest info on the newly installed / adjusted sector lights, on the southern tip of K’gari (Hook Point) and the other at Inskip point on the mainland north end of Rainbow Beach. These give us a bearing for our entrance through the channel, helping to guide us through the reefs and shoals. There are no port and starboard markers here, because of shifting sands, they would have to keep moving them. Instead there are virtual AIS port and starboard markers, which appear on the chartplotter but not in real life! Much easier to move if  the regular survey shows they are in the wrong place. How clever is that! It’s so good to have such great information to help us.

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Stats from the wave-rider buoy at WBB

Breaking waves on the edge of the channel, Rainbow Beach in the background

Through to flat waters

The wave-rider buoy outside the bar gives “significant” wave height at 1.7m and we have winds at 15-17kts so we are right on the edge of the “comfort zone” for transit, but we are bang on high / slack tide as we get to the start of the channel and it is looking pretty good. You can see from our track we need to enter the channel from the ENE, picking up the first waypoint, and head WSW initially, aiming first at the sector light on Hook Point. At the second waypoint we can turn SW towards the sector light at Inskip point and towards the third waypoint. All the while there are waves breaking on shoals and reefs either side of us, with not a lot of room for error. Its pretty disconcerting to be so close to these. Both engines are on and our skipper is the picture of concentration, hand steering, and with both of us keeping a watch out for rogue waves. Everything in the saloon is secured as the waves are hitting us on the beam, with the odd rogue rattling the wine bottles, but overall not too bad. It takes about an hour to get through the reefs and rough stuff to waypoint 3 where we are into the calmer waters in the channel. We can safely turn west and proceed another 20 mins or so before we tuck into our anchorage at Pelican Point.

Narrow and gnarly channel through Sheridan Flats, k'gari on the right

​While we have a reasonably calm night there is still enough breeze to work up a bit of fetch in the broad but shallow anchorage, which slaps on the hulls through the night. No point sleeping in with that racket so up we get at first light! It’s still a long day and 31nm to get to the Kingfisher Resort anchorage on k’gari by early afternoon. The tide is rising so we should be fine to follow the preferred course through Sheridan Flats. There are a lot of shallow and drying sand banks through this section and but it is well charted and a preferred course is given on our charts. We also have our course from out southbound journey to follow. That said, I made the mistake of remarking to Keith that I thought we were through the nastiest shallows of Sheridan flats when bang! We come to a halt, having clipped the edge of a sandbank with the Starboard hull – of course the depth sounder is on the port side and still in 1/2m of water, hmmm. This one took a bit of work to move us off and back in to the deeper part of the channel. Definitely no antifoul left on the keels now! We continue on and reach our destination at Kingfisher without further incident, heading ashore on the SUP for a walk on the beach, frightening a large ray as we approach the beach (and carrying a stick in case of dingo encounters). I might mention that we only have one SUP inflated at the moment so we ride in two up! Now that’s how much I trust my skipper!

Above: Sheridan Flats and k'gari

I am pleased to report that the anchorage was not rolly so we did have a good night’s sleep, but nevertheless we had an early start to get to Burnett Heads at a reasonable hour and its 54nm away. No wind so we could only motor (at 6.5kts if we are lucky) and we arrived around 3pm, first doing a hot lap of the anchorage to check it out before heading to the fuel dock at Bundy marina. This would be our last opportunity to refuel for a while. Back to the familiar Duck Pond anchorage we pick a spot in front of the Coast Guard. There is a large dredge in front of the public dock which takes up a bit of space but we have good depth in the western part of the bay. Friday’s activities include doing a provisioning run, picking up a couple of parcels from the post office that Kev has sent. This includes a new windlass controller which sadly does not fix our problem – the down function still doesn’t work! Grrr – more trouble shooting to come. We go for a walk later in the morning, stop at a coffee shop for a beverage and a treat, and then do a few boat jobs in the afternoon, including fitting the first of our Dyneema lifelines. We finish the day with schnitty and chips at the Lighthouse hotel. It’s off to Lady Musgrave tomorrow as our island adventures are about to begin!

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