Mother's Day Departure

Great Keppel Island, 16/5/2017

Finally the weather settled, all imminent cyclone threats headed off to NZ, and there were no other excuses not to leave.  Well, there's always at least a dozen, but sometimes prevarication is the mother of perversity.  So Sunday, 14th May, Mother's Day in the land of the land, seemed an auspicious day to leave, it not being a Friday, which non-land dwellers consider tempting fate to overturn everything.

This time I opted for an overnighter up to Great Keppel Island, without stopping at Pancake Creek for pancakes on the way.  The reasons behind this were partly to cover some distance, in case I changed my mind, and also to test the possibility of being able to cat nap for 20 minutes at a time, without the usual nervousness  that something was about to run me down, or I was about to bump into something hard.

It's a common occurrence that there's either too much wind or not enough.  It seemed like a good idea to start the journey without getting hammered too much at first.  Later on, fine, if it has to be that way,  but not right at the outset after months of quiet Marina life.  The old mal-de-mer is still lurking not far away on those first few days before I get my sea legs.

Bundaberg Port Marina doesn't bother dredging the small boat end of town, so Shanti sits in the mud at low tide, which means it's only possible to vacate the berth at high tide. The plan was to slip out at 10 am then head to the slightly deeper fuel dock, do some last minute preparations, scrub the starboard side of the hull, and fill the empty jerry cans with diesel.  Only setback was a sign that read, "No fuel until Sunday."  Hmmm, which Sunday I wondered.

An early start would have been better, in hindsight.

By 1330, I finally cast off.  My plan was to actually sail all the way, meaning to use those white bits of cloth hanging off the big white stick, without running the engine if possible.  I was really over "driving up the coast", which seems to be a necessary evil in order to enter the desired anchorage in daylight hours.  Well so what if I slop about at only one or two knots?  So what if it takes 90 hours to go 130 nautical miles?  Others have done it.  Surely I can too?

Half an hour of motoring out of the river, I puristically cut the engine and commenced a few miles of glorious sailing, before the wind dropped to 6 knots.  I persevered for a few more hours.  It was quite pleasant, and nice and quiet.  I was contentedly bobbing along at 3 knots of boat speed.  Later, only 2.  The night grew darker and colder, and longer.

I'm not sure what exactly it was that seduced me into turning the key.  Perhaps the thought of another couple of nights without sleep.  Perhaps the slight queasiness.  Perhaps the desire to be going somewhere.  Perhaps the fact that on a long distance ocean passage, time is less important because you're going to be out there for months anyway, and making a daylight landfall is a distant nicety, and you can sleep all night long if you want; but it's different on the busy coast.

I ended up motoring for 19 out of 28 hours, and just made it into the southernmost anchorage on Great Keppel Island as total blackness obliterated it from sight.  Then I gratefully slept like the dead.

This morning, I once again turned the key and drove round to a more sheltered anchorage on the northern side of the island.

The water is crystal clear, so I dove on the hull with scrubber in hand to clean off the rest of Bundaberg slime.

For lunch, I ate a salad with the Morton Bay bugs that one of the local fishermen at Bundaberg had given me.  Funny looking critters, but taste delicious, rather like baby lobster or crayfish.

I plan on making an early start from here tomorrow, heading to Port Clinton.  Hopefully with more sailing than motoring!