A lovely calm morning dawned , and guess what we  still had power. Yahoo. I don’t like being anchored up  a channel without an anchor light.

After breakfast of bacon, eggs and fried potato we followed the Eva Louise crew across the shallow water to a park not far from the Tin Can Bay supermarket. We needed milk and a few other items. The tide was rapidly falling so we left John in charge of the dinghies to keep them floating while we hiked to the shops. It was only a 7 minute walk however we couldn’t buy too much as we had to carry it back. To my delight they had an excellent butcher where I stocked up on home smoked bacon crumbed cutlets and steak. Tonight was the 60M powerball so Sandra and I both bought tickets but unfortunately only managed a slight win, mine didn’t even cover the cost of my ticket.

After unpacking the groceries we caught the last of the outgoing tide and very, very slowly headed down the inlet to Wide Bay Bar then onwards through the Sandy straights inside Fraser Is.

Washing day

The afternoon was frustrating as the wind was fickle and weak. The gennaker had to be moved from side to side, giving us 2 knts of speed. We had very little wind so eventually furled the sails and motored.

As we neared Sheriden Flats which is notoriously shallow, we watched Nyeki who was just ahead of us run aground. Then Eva Louise grounded blocking the narrow channel. There was already a mono which was hard aground in the channel which seemed to have caused the problem. Both Nyeki and Eva Louise managed to get off the sandbar leaving the mono still stranded ,waiting for the tide to rise. We wisely followed their path and couldn’t claim any grounding rights this time.

 

We anchored at 4:30 just south of White cliffs on the western side of Fraser. John dropped a fishing line in and caught absolutely nothing.

The lamb cutlets for dinner with mashed potato and gravy were the best I’ve had in years.