Dodging Whales

So, we’re working our way down the Queensland coast and had to dodge Humpbacks in a few places. We came up upon a momma and her calf having a good ole time slapping the water with their tails, over and over again, sounded like canon blasts. We didn’t even see them, having a nice little spinnaker run down the coast on a lovely sunny day. Then all of a sudden, there they were, 20 meters off the port beam. They didn’t seem to mind, just ignored us and kept playing with each other. The young one was doing flips. Looked like it would be fun to be a whale, splashing about in warm sunny waters. Here, momma was laying upside down on her back smacking the water.

Well, we are tucked up inside the harbour of Mooloolaba, waiting for weather to pass through. Had a lovely day sail down from Fraser today. We got up at sun rise, about 4:30 and left at 5:00am to cross the bar at Wide Bay and head down here, 60 miles hence. We spent the day before wiggling our way through the “Great Sandy Straights” behind Fraser Island. Spent the night before in front of Kingfisher Bay resort, went for a walk in the bush there. Beautiful place, I liked the straights, though we sure had to pay attention as it was full of sand bars and little islets. We had to time it right with the tides, caught a flood heading down, but had to get it right so it would ebb out on the lower stretches. All went well and we tucked behind Pelican Bay, a sandy point just before the bar and waited for morning to make the grand exit into open sea. Luckily, the weather’s been calm, so was easy as. It gets pretty nasty there in blustery conditions.

Anyway, the Wx is a bit crazy, today NE, tomorrow SE to 30, maybe 40. Then on Wednesday back to NE and Thursday back to SE. So, guess Wednesday is the day to do the last 50 miles to Manly, near the mouth of the Brisbane river. Good timing as Julie needs to catch a plane out of Brisbane on Thursday. We’ll  hold up here for the summer, at least that’s plan at the moment. As a friend once said, life happens while you’re making other plans...

So, that’s the news from EQ, where the winds are fair, the seas following and the crew content. (sure was today anyway). Cheers all.

J