Saturday, 16 July 2011

15th July, 2011

Start Loc: Garry’s Anchorage, Fraser Island (25o 37.84’ S, 152o 58.34’ E)
Narrative: It blew up a bit overnight and the wind brought some drizzle with it, but it was still a calm night. I got up at 2.47am just to make sure all was secure, and it was.
It was still wet this morning, so we had a lazy start to the day. Heather and I stayed in bed reading until 9:00am, Haydee read and was grumpy, Cameron tried fishing but got frustrated and grumpy! Heather suggested bacon and eggs for brunch, but we realised I forgot to buy bacon, so we were all grumpy. There was then a bit of art and craft/science with batteries, and Cameron made a battery powered boat, followed by Haydee making some friendship bracelets. There were no crabs in the pots, so I pulled them in to try again later.
I got tired of the grumpiness and decided we needed to move, so at 12:00pm we weighed anchor and carefully weaved our way up to South White Cliffs. It is probably the shallowest part of the Great Sandy Straits, and defying common sense I was doing it halfway through an outgoing tide, so I was pretty keen not to get stuck and be grumpy on a 30o lean for six or seven hours – which would also make it dark and against all common sense! We gently bumped the bottom once, but despite Heather’s doubts as to my abilities, we made it and dropped anchor at about 2:30pm. We anchored in 10m of water an hour before low tide, and it took 50m of chain and three goes to get the anchor to bite.
Heather served lunch at 3:45pm, after I got back from putting out the crab pots. It was really her brunch (seeing I didn’t buy bacon), and she was surprised that I suggested it was almost time for sundowners. All in all, a lazy day – with a bit of school work for good measure.
End Loc: South White Cliffs, Fraser Island (25o 31.21’ S, 152o 58.39’ E)
Distance run: 13 nm
Engine hours: 3 hr, 23 min