Wind  SE 5 -10 knts        Sunny                                 55 nautical miles

The forecast was for winds of 10 – 15 but it was not looking too promising at 7:00 in the morning. We motored out of the marina at 7:30 and headed north amongst 5 other boats.

Everyone had been hoping for a good days sailing. The wind only managed 9 knts all morning so we had the main and screecher goosewinged.

We needed to average 7 knts to get to Wide Bay Bar at the bottom of Fraser Island by 4 oclock but were only averaging 5. We wanted to come in to the bar on a rising tide and before the sun got too low. John kept one motor running in the afternoon to help us arrive before dark.

Maritime have changed the co ordinates for the waypoints on the bar as usual , now there are only two instead of three. Once we get to Double Island point we will radio Tin Can Bay VMR and get the current coordinates. Wide Bay Bar is not a nice bar to cross, we always approach it with some trepidation as it has a lot of breaking water and shifting sands.

VMR had radioed all boats giving us a whale warning that said keep a lookout for whales and slow down if we see them. Haven’t seen any yet only a pod of dolphins that surfed the bows for quite  while inciting Morgan into a frenzy.

We arrived off Wide Bay Bar at 5:00 with 4 other boats behind and one in front, it didn’t look nice but we followed the waypoints given.

There was a lot of easterly swell as we turned around B waypoint which gave us a nasty roll but the monos behind were doing it tougher.

 

We successfully arrived at Pelican Bay just inside Inskip Point at 5:30 and dropped anchor in 2 metres of water. Chips, pork chipolatas and salad for dinner as nothing else was defrosted.