Report Number 15

Trip Report #15
At the end of #14 we were sitting in Snapper Creek in Tin Can Bay waiting for the weather to settle down a bit outside. On Sunday we went walking around the township of Tin Can Bay and found a concrete walking track which went around the foreshore with lots of native birds and flowers. Enjoyed it a lot, although the strong and gusty Southerly wind didn't make enjoyment all that easy! In the evening we went to the Tin Can Bay Yacht Club for dinner. You may remember that we found the Mooloolaba YC a bit disappointing with the restaurant and bar closed. This one was different - the bar and restaurant are in the same large room and very much open, and there is a verandah area also. We signed in and were followed by another tourist who signed in and then came over to us and asked if that was our real address that we had used, because he lives at Mount Wilson (a little township also in the Blue Mountains), so we invited him to join us. Chatted away with Brian for a while and he mentioned that he had left Sydney some years ago and bought 600 acres in the Hartley Valley. Also said that he had done a whole range of things in his life, at one time he had even been an Estate Agent. CLICK! Brian, Estate Agent, property at Hartley - "Did you have an office in Blackheath?" "Yes" "Do you remember selling me a house in Leichhardt Street with so much furniture in it that we had to arrange an auction in the Blackheath Hall to clear it?". And so we re-lived some great old times when Warwick was renovating houses in the upper mountains, bought this one in Blackheath (Brian even remembered the house number!), and while the auction of the contents was being held four weeks later, Brian came in and said "Do you want to sell your house?" "Yes, why, what's the story?" "Well, I've had two lots of people come in today looking for a three bedroom house and there aren't any except yours". Two weeks later the house was sold, the only renovation was to sweep it, and even that wasn't done very thoroughly! We parted after dinner, with Brian leaving next morning to drive down to see his brother near Brisbane.
Monday sunny but gusty winds again. Forecast shows six reds, so probably at least Wednesday before any chance of moving.
Spent the next few days sheltering inland from the seriously bad weather offshore and enjoying very good weather and calm river seas - sunny days 17 to 30 degrees, with winds, but beautiful when out of the wind. Forecasts didn't improve, so we went on a bus trip to Rainbow Beach on the commuter/school bus with an interesting driver, Fay, who not only knew every child's name but also where they lived, because the bus dropped them off at their homes! Also went on the ferry to Carlo, a little township with a caravan park, launching ramp and a Thai restaurant, and that's all! John, the driver, was a very experienced boatie with some great stories about boats he had owned. In the mornings we went to the public jetty just a stone's throw away, where a couple of dolphins come in each day to be fed. It is a very well organised volunteer operated accredited tourist attraction now, with a commentary from Di who has been doing it for 15 years since the original dolphin, Scarry, got tangled with a trawler propellor and badly damaged. The local professional fishermen took it on themselves to nurse her back to health, after which she disappeared for a little while, reappearing with son "Mystique" in tow. He has been coming ever since, even after his mother's death and has now started to bring his lady friend "Patch" home to meet his family. She is still quite feral, and shy of humans, but the hope is that she will calve and her offspring will continue on when Mystique leaves.
Friday we again fed the dolphins at 8am and Warwick decided to try to find out why one of the cafe staff looked familiar, so he asked her if she had ever worked in Sydney. She said rather abruptly that she had never been there. Several hours later Warwick suddenly realised that the tall lady with curly red hair and narrow eyes who worked in the fish and chip shop in Queensland was Pauline Hanson (Doh!). At night we had a special dinner because our friends at the Berowra Waters Motor Yacht Club were having their major fundraiser dance and we were a bit sad at not being there for it.
Forecast was looking better and we will move closer to the ocean tomorrow to be ready to make a long trip on Sunday.
Saturday we did chores and then at about 11.30 filled the water tanks and set off up to Pelican Bay, just inside Wide Bay Harbour where we anchored near the vehicular ferry loading point. The ferries are fairly big, each carrying about 30 4WD's and they load and unload by just dropping their ramp down on to the sand! We went for a dinghy ride to the sandy shore and walked around for a while just enjoying the long wide beach. There were 7 other boats anchored around us, probably all getting ready to leave in the morning, because the forecast this time was 6 green!!
Sunday up at 7 and ready to go at 9 to catch the tide across the bar, because this is the longest bar and takes an hour and a half to cross. Had a wonderful day's travel, there were almost no waves on a low swell. Drove from upstairs for a few hours until the water became a bit choppy with a few whitecaps. Did see one dolphin, which prompted the thought that a pod of one dolphin could be called an "I-pod" :-). Tied up at Mooloolaba at 7.30 after a fairly exhausting 10 and a half hour trip. Early to bed.
Monday we paid the marina for our one night and were ready to leave with the tide at 10am. Beautiful day with a following breeze and sea which meant that we travelled at over 7 Knots - much quicker than normal - through very calm seas and anchored at Bribie Island at 3pm.
Very excited at the thought of Jess meeting her maker in the next couple of days. Not concerned about this as we believe in re-incarnation for boats! Took the dinghy to inspect the low bridge which we had to get under to get to Toorbul and decided to drop the mast to reduce the height.
Tuesday we moved up to the bridge, Karen went ashore in the dinghy with the binoculars and her mobile phone and Warwick took Jess very slowly under the bridge. All went well and we anchored on the upstrem side and rang Doug and arranged to take Jess up to the slipway on Wednesday afternoon. Goofed off rest of the day as we were both pretty excited.
Wednesday was sunny and clear and we read all morning, filling in time until the tide was right at 2.30. Set off and all went very smoothly until we reached the entrance to the creek where the slipway is located. We were following the channel markers very carefully, but didn't know about a sand spur which is across the channel at the creek entrance, so, of course, we ran aground. (Now, fair crack of the whip - it's been a long time!) But this was different - we had the sand across the middle of the boat and were straddling it, so could not move forward or back. Peak tide was due within half an hour, so there wasn't much more water to come in to help us. Just then a local came along who knew the problem and also lived three doors down from the slipway. So he helped us get free and then led us to it. Thank Goodness he did!! The route is tortuous and although well marked, some markers you need to go close to and others need a wide berth. Most of the time we had less than a metre of water under the keel, which is not comfortable. If our pilot hadn't been there we may well have broken our own record for running aground. Arrived at the slipway at 4.30, having taken just twice as long as we should have under normal water conditions, and met Doug and Heather. Put Jess up on the slip straight away, as the tide had now peaked. Absolutely amazed at the good condition of the hull, because there was not a barnacle to be seen anywhere, and the propellor and shaft were GLEAMING! (Thanks, David at Bayview Slipway where the last anti-foul was done about six or seven months ago.) Discussed proposed work briefly with Doug and Heather, but mainly just had a drink and socialised with them.
Thursday fine, but with quite a lot of cloud building up. Doug had a really good look at the hull from outside and inside with the aid of a sharp screwdriver and could find no weaknnesses. He is an expert on Kliese boats (that's Jess' brand) and knows their strengths and, more importantly, their weaknesses, so we are confident of his findings, specially since he could have made money by finding problems. His opinion is that the part that did fail earlier was due to a localised leak of fresh water in that part of the hull over a period of time. We gave him a list of work we would like done if we could afford it, and he prepared quotes on most of them. We agreed to have a longer, wider marlin board fitted and a transom gate (for the non-boaties, that's a bigger area to get off the dinghy, and a door to get on, rather than climbimg over a low wall), dinghy winches to be mounted properly (we had just stuck thhem up to get us out of trouble) and some other bits and pieces. Karen had gone to the nearby town of Caboolture with Heather and had hired a car and found a holiday cabin in the caravan park. When she returned we packed up, went to Caboolture and bought take-away Chinese, then back to our new home to watch ABC TV for the first time in ages. Then to bed - not on board Jess for the first time since 19th May! Found it very noisy, with traffic on the adjacent highway, and movement of the other residents - we're not used to this! Tomorrow we should get the quotes for the remainder of the work, but until then we wil be tourists with our own car.
Love
Karen and Warwick