Tuesday, 8 April 2014

Moreton Island to Mooloolaba


Thursday 3rd April, the second last day of school for Term One, saw us pulling up anchor from beautiful Moreton Island and following the west coast of Moreton Island northwards towards Mooloolaba. The Second Mate, Third Mate and Ship's Monkey all had online assessments to complete with their teachers to wrap up the school term. These were completed as we dodged amongst the shipping traffic of the Northwest Channel. This was the Third Mate and Ship's Monkey's first open water voyage.


End of term assessments in the Northwest Channel


Moreton Island had been a wonderful place to test the sea legs. The boys had their first encounter with night time phosphorescence in the water which had created great excitement. The night skies had been very clear and full of stars despite the proximity to the lights of Brisbane. We had had lots of encounters with the wild dolphins. The marine life was abundant.

However it was time to move north. Our fellow Manly marina dwellers on catamaran Twilight were also moving north to Mooloolaba a couple of nautical miles ahead of us. Word came through that they had caught a large tuna. The Captain cursed as our lines remained empty for 50 nautical miles. The wind was flukey and light and from the south east. The Captain cursed some more and turned on the motor, eventually dropping the mainsail. However the Rear Admiral will be pleased to know we did pole out the jib for a few hours.


The Captain is not amused. He had high hopes for tuna and a fair wind.


End of term tasks on Colonial life in the settlement of Moreton Bay, the Changing Status of Women in the 20th Century and Unhealthy Habitats were completed as we continued on our merry way to Mooloolaba.



Rounding Point Cartwright


Low tide was at 4pm and as we didn't want to cross the bar at Mooloolaba against the falling tide we had slowed down on the journey north. As it turned out, we must have come in at the lowest of the low tide. The bar was flat as a tack in the light winds and on the slack tide. However at low tide, the Mooloola River was far shallower than the charts suggested and the depth sounder teetered alarmingly between 0.8m and 0.0. After heading up river planning to anchor and finding there was no depth, we cut our losses and headed back downstream into the Mooloolaba Marina next to Mooloolaba Yacht Club.

This turned out to be a fine decision by the Captain, as the marina was a 150m saunter to the surf beach, right next to the seafood precinct and also totally rocked on Friday night, the first night of the school holidays, with a live band. So here we sit scoffing fresh oysters and Mooloola prawns next to the beach  . . .

Mooloolaba Beach

1 comment:

  1. That boat in the background looks so swag

    ReplyDelete