Not sure whether I like heading off in the dark, its a little hard to see whats out there however we had a fair few miles to cover to get to our destination so we up anchored at 4:30. The channel out of the bottom of Bribie was Island was easy as we could follow our track in.

We were keeping a sharp lookout for crab pots as they were scattered everywhere, even in the channel, very hard to see in the dark. The temperature was quite cool so we were rugged up in our winter sailing attire of pants and jackets.

Unfortunately for Debra and Wayne they hooked up a crab pot somewhere and dragged it until the rope broke however the float and rope stuck around their keel and prop. Lucky for them they didnt have their motors going.

Once the sun came up they hove to and Wayne jumped overboard and pulled the rope and float off. Glad I didnt have to do that. Debra said he wasnt in the water long.

We sailed up the side of Bribie island crossing the shipping channel at the top of Moreton Bay. Its scary when the freighters are coming at you along the channel at 15 knts. They are so large.

The day was uneventful, no fish and reasonably cool until after lunch. Must be that cold weather they are getting down home.

We spent the day eating, sleeping , sailing and motoring in light winds. The forecast 10 to 15 knts did not eventuate.

The screecher was hoisted as we couldnt sail with the main and the jib because the wind was right behind us.

Off Moolooba the locals were racing , we detoured around the fleet as I thought it prudent not to plough straight through them. looking back their colourful spinnakers were a sight to see.

The wind picked up so we furled the screecher and hoisted the main and motor sailed in the direction we needed to head. Storms on the horizon in the late afternoon saw us all reef our mains in preparation.

Eva Louise with reefed main.

The storms didnt reach us and we finally arrived at Double Island Point at 6pm. It was difficult working out where to anchor in the dark as we could see the anchor lights of the boats in the lagoon, however we couldnt get into the lagoon until daybreak and the tide was at the right depth.

Irish stew for dinner, delicious. Then a well earned sleep.

We woke up to a lovely warm and sunny day. Our sleep was rolly as keen fisherman heading out for a days fishing stirred up the channel in the wee hours.

John, Morgan and I hopped in the dinghy with the rubbish and went ashore for a coffee with the others. The day was spent casually ,taking on a few more supplies (although I dont think John put any red wine on, hopefully he won’t run out). We sat on the beach and ate very tasty fish and chips from the local shop and strolled along the waterfront eating icecreams. Oh and of course some boat maintenance as is the norm.

Morgan chasing fish in the shallows (her favourite pastime other than eating)

Went to bed early as tommorrow is a long day up to Double Island point at the bottom of Rainbow Beach.

Weather warm Winds 5- 10knts W

Woke up to a beautiful calm morning, the tide was still running out so we waiting until it turned at 8 am so we could go with it up Canaipa passage, Bacon and eggs and pototo for breaky topped the morning off for us adults, only bacon for Morgan.

Breakfast visitor

We headed up past Jumpinpin (the entrance between North and South Stradbroke Island) through the shallow Canaipa passage. Navigating between the green and red channel markers we thought we had it perfect until thud we were hard aground. The port hull hit first then we stopped ,we wern’t going anywhere until the tide rose further. Luckily it was only sand so hopefully only the keels touched bottom. It seems the sandbars have moved since our chart was updated.

We waited about 20 minutes until we started floating enough that we could start the engines and move further along the side of Russell Island up the passage.

Heading towards the power lines at the top end of the island we passed plenty of boats anchored along the side of Russell out of the channel in deeper holes.

The chart says the height of the power lines is 20 metres. Our mast is 21.5 m. John tells me the 20 metres is at the sag so we have plenty of room if we go under them at the eastern end where they rise up to the tower. I was still worried as we passed under them however it looked like we had at least 5 metres to spare. Very hard to tell from underneath.

Heading on a course of 315° we hoisted the main and jib and sailed towards the bottom of Bribie Island where my sisters were anchored.

It was a beautiful day on Moreton Bay. We had both sails up however very little wind , so the motors were turned on to assist us to get to our destination before dark.

We lazed, lunched and I knitted as we passed the Port of Brisbane and crossed the main shipping channel the freighters follow into the Brisbane River.

My selfie skills need refining.

Port of Brisbane

Brisbane Skyline to our west

We dropped anchor at 4:30 at the bottom of Bribie Island just north of the jetty and headed over in the dinghy to Eva Louise for happy hour with Sandra and Doug and the Nyeki crew , Deb and Wayne.

Finally we have left Boatworks, its good to be out on the water again. We are stocked up and ready to go, gas bottles, pantry, fridges and water tanks are full and most imprtantaly for John, the beer fridge is heavily stocked. Not sure how much red wine he has on board , he reckons he has enough.

We motored round to Gold Coast City marina and pulled up to the fuel wharf and topped up the tanks then about 2 :00 headed back down the Coomera River heading north.

Conditions were benign with very little wind so we motored at about 6 knts towards Jumpinpin bar on the northern end of South Stradbroke Island. The wind was was still a bit cool as evidenced by Johns flanette shirt.

The anchor was dropped at about 4:30 and we enjoyed our first sunset at anchorage.

Our haul out was scheduled for 8:30 however the office girl rang at 7:15 and said, where are you we are ready? We were 15 mins away so we madly up anchored without breakfast and motored down to the lift. The guys were very effecient and had us tucked in snugly for our lift. We grabbed the essentials, phones, wallets, Morgans lead and shoes and watched her come out.

We were hauled out at the northern yard where they keep the super yachts as we are too wide to fit into the smaller lift in the southern yard.

She didnt look too bad underneath in parts as Wayne (Nuts) had dived under in Yamba and cleaned some of it but there was still growth on the hard to reach areas.

After pressure washing and sandblasting her bottom Ovive was moved to the super yacht berth, we looked so tiny amongst the big mothers.

The next two weeks were spent antifouling the bottom (not us we still had MG work to keep up with), servicing the sail drives, replacing the salt water pump and prodder ropes and little minor issues. The wind indicator which hasnt been working since the new display and instrument went on 12 months ago required fixing (it was the old cable that was the issue, had to pull a new cable through the mast. That took two blokes 2 days!

We had a visit from Megan and the girls, who stayed overnight and had a lovely time , especially at the little beach near the marina cafe.

The Sanctuary Cove Boat show was on at the time so we caught a ferry across to the show and wandered around for the day looking at the displays. I was disappointed with the show as I felt it was aimed at the big money spenders and not much for anyone else. I had an enjoyable day with my sisters and brother in laws anyway, so thats all that counted. I am looking forward to spending a lot of time with them over the next few months.

Exactly two weeks later we splashed back in the water and moved over to a marina berth, (still amongst the big girls) for 2 days while I went to Sydney one of the days for an interview .

Life on the hard wasnt too bad,however the boat got filthy from all the dust on the ground. Boatworks is a great facility with two excellent cafes and a restaurant next door making it a little bit resortish in some areas. Fruit trees are abundent that you can help yourself to, so all in all not too painful. We rode our pushbikes everywhere, other than when we borrowed the free courtesy car. There are plenty of service and sales businesses that we were able to purchase anything for boat repairs.

Oh and Morgan enjoyed her stay.

Time to head north.

Woke up to a warm sunny morning , bit rocky though with all manner of boats zooming past, still great to be further north. Completed some office work which we are still contending with but in a much warmer setting than usual.

After lunch, in company of Nyeki we motored up the Coomera River to anchor off Santa Barbara Park in preparation for tommorows lift out. As usual the surrounding real estate was definately out of our budget.

We picked up the Nyeki crew in our dinghy and puttered up to Boatworks to have happy hour with Doug and my sister Sandra who were in a marina berth at Boatworks. They had been working on their boat Eva Louise for the past month.

I forgot to take a photo of this reunion.

Hi All

Finally John and I have made the big break and are attempting to get out  of the rat race and go sailing. It was a good rat race though. Hopefully we are in the process of selling the business but at the moment still working from the boat. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, we headed through  Yamba bar  at first light Sunday 21st  May. We were intending on leaving at 3 am but the bar was rough with swell and breaking waves from a strong southerly that had been blowing for the past 5 days. We preferred to see what we were facing. The south wall was the best option so in company of Deb and Wayne on Nyeki we headed out. The bar turned out to be kind to us and we didnt have any trouble, hauled up the main and were off north at about 7 am.

We motor sailed most of the day as we still had a garden of barnacles on the keels, it will be good to get to Boatworks to have her bottom cleaned

.

The wind changed direction in the afternoon so we dropped all sails and motored. Evening arrived as we neared the Gold Coast and the skyline gave us some glow as there was no moon. we enjoyed a very tasty beef and onion soup prepared before we left Yamba.

We arrived at the Seaway at 10pm , it was flat as a tack so easy to negotiate, a welcome relief from slopping around all day on opposite swells. Anchoring just north of the seaway off South Stradbroke John cracked a beer.

PS My website has been updated since 2015 and I am having trouble negotiating it so blogs may be a bit basic.

A lovely lazy day, nothing much happening, just watching tourists getting on and off the ferry and fishermen drifting past.

Tomorrow is a better day for wind so we will rest here a day.

Morgan was itching for land time so we dinghied across to the sand spit and wandered around the 4 acres at low tide looking for fish in the shallow waters.

The sea birds had commandeered part of it but moved on every time we drew close.

 

 

 

 

Back on Ovive the weather was not quite condusive to actually getting in the water, so we scrubbed her hulls from the paddle board and dinghy.

 

Sunny Wind 15 – 20 SE dropping 10 – 15 on Sat    40 nautical miles

We have arrived back at our favourite  dwelling to take her the final leg home and decided to leave O’vive on the Gold Coast temporarily due to time constraints. She also needs an antifoul and check as we haven’t hauled her out since Oct 2014.

The weather was blowing strong southerlies so we spent a relaxing day in the marina getting organised for the first day of 2016.

The next morning, Sat the 2nd we headed out in a 10 – 15 knt breeze. By the middle of the day the south easterly wind had dropped to about 8 knots hopefully flattening the sea for our trip south in the next few days.

We alternated between the jib and screecher slowly travelling southwards.

Fortunately the flooding tide was in our favour so we ended up sailing all the way to Pelican Bay arriving at 4:30. We passed a few yachts along the way and John spotted a dungong in the clear azure waters.

Must be the busy season as crowds of 4WDs, trailers and minibuses were lined up on both sides of Wide Bay bar harbour waiting for ferries to take them to and from Fraser Island.

The three car ferries operated continuously , ferrying on demand until 6 pm.

Wind 10 -15 increasing to 20 in the afternoon  N  203 nautical miles

The night was calm and peaceful, the only disturbance being Morgan wanting to come inside. John let her in through the fly screen and she settled till morning. Only  two boats in the anchorage last night, quite a difference from our passage north.

We departed Port Clinton at 6:30 and were outside in very little wind at 7, heading on a course of 140 degrees. The forecast is showing strong SE winds kicking in Saturday lunchtime so we are going to try and go the whole 200 nms to Hervey Bay in one stretch otherwise we will be stuck in Gladstone or Pancake creek for 2 or more days.

 

The going  was slow only 5 knts but picked up later in the afternoon as we neared Great Keppel. Going down the side of Curtis Island we managed 8 knots at times.The wind  strength didn’t really last , the forecast 20 knots from the north never eventuated. We had steak, chat potatoes and salad for dinner before the sun dropped over Curtis island as we motor sailed on into the night.

We were a fair way off shore by the time we reached the Gladstone harbour channel entrance so there was no need to worry about ships anchored or moving along the channel. The lighthouse on Bustard head flashed on a regular basis surrounded by thunder storms. The lightning was quite spectacular lighting up the surrounding hills, I was hoping it didn’t come our way.

We split the night into three  two and a half hour watches – Jenny 9.30 – 12.00, Friz 12.00 to 2:30 and John 2.30 to 5.00. It didn’t quite go that way as John laid on the cushions in the cockpit and slept then got up and joined us at times as the wind was fickle and sails needed adjusted or changing. When the wind died furtherJohn turned the  motors on and the SB engine low battery light stated flashing. Upon inspection John found the belt had loosened and piles of black dust were sitting below it. We turned it off and waited till Friz got up and went in search of a new fan belt as the current one had almost worn through . Typically the replacement ones were in the crew quarters in the forward port bow buried under lots of other stuff . To make things worse once we found them and replaced the worn belt it was slightly too big. In the end John and Friz tightened up the worn one and vowed to keep an eye on it.

The wind kept swinging round until our heading was putting us in a line with the outside of Fraser.  We had to keep the motors on to give us a direction that would get us inside the Sandy straits . By 5.00 the next morning we were 10 miles north of Bundy and hoping the southerlies wouldn’t come in till late. Unfortunately the wind couldn’t help us we had nothing for a few hours then and at 10:00 it turned to the SE with  vengeance.  The rain pelted down, the wind howled and the seas shortened .

Each time we dived down into a trough Ovive lost momentum. We averaged 3  knots for 35 miles, at times dropping down to 1.3.  Finally at 6 pm we arrived in the marina tired and worn out from the perpetual movement and noise.

Friz treated us to a meal at Balenas cafe up on the boardwalk while the wet towels and clothes  washed and dried in the laundromat. Early to bed as we were all stuffed and had a six hour drive to Maclean in the morning.

We are leaving the boat here for a few weeks then in January we will come up and take it the next few legs to Yamba.