Start Loc: Inskip Point (25o 48.89'S, 153o 02.74'E)
Narrative: The southerly change came through a little earlier than expected. I listened to a 29ft yacht talking to VMR as it came in across the bar, and then I spoke to him as well. The bar itself was not too bad, but he said outside was pretty uncomfortable. We decided we would not have any fun beating our way into wind and waves to the shelter of Double Island Point, so we would delay our bar crossing for 24 hours.
Our position on the southern side of Inskip Point was now a bit exposed so at 9:00am we moved around the north side to see if we could find a calm spot where the kids could play on the beach. Unfortunately the wind just held us beam on to the swell coming across the bar. We moved back down to the end of the point and anchored there at 9:35am, but the swell started to come around the corner so we decided to move again.
At little after 10:30am we motored down the channel to Bullock Point and dropped the anchor at 11:10am. The shallowest sounding we had was at the special marking the start of the channel, which was 2.3m and we had about 2m of tide at the time. We were well sheltered, but decided that after dinner we would use the night high tide to get out of the creek so that we could make an early start the next day. I figured that if we started at 8:00pm with 1m of tide, we would have 1.1m of tide when we approached the special, and that if I went a bit further north of the special than I did on the way in I would be able to find the 30cm of water we needed to get out. I was wrong. We bumped the bottom, Heather swore at me, and we anchored 8:40pm to wait for 1.5m of tide at 9:30pm.
At 9:30pm, we raised the anchor and motored past the special mark with a least depth sounding of 1.7m. We anchored on the south side of Inskip Point at 9:45pm; virtually in the same spot we were thirteen hours prior.
I would like to get an early start tomorrow and leave around 7:00am so we are in a position to cross the bar from 7:30am (high tide is 10:39am) as we now have to sail 60nm or so to Mooloolaba.
End Loc: Inskip Point (25o 48.88'S, 153o 02.68'E)
Distance run: 5nm (cumulative: 3027nm)
Engine hours: 2 hr, 00 min (cumulative: 134 hr, 22 min)