Tuesday 17 June

Left Turkey Beach and ran up to Gladstone counted 14 ships waiting out to sea. We were amazed at the number of huge factories, port infrastructure ext.

While going past one ship my phone rings, its River Rat (Shane Olsen) a mate of my son, Roy. It was his first day on a bulk carrier that goes to Weipa and back carrying bauxite. He was being shown the lifeboat when past sails Holly. Shane and Roy were on Holly when I picked her up from Brisbane and also on a few sea trial trips. He called around for a beer later that night.

We found a mooring at Gladstone marina, $20.00 a night. Its a beautifull setting at the marina ,lots of gardens and nice people.
On Thursday Gary and I caught the train home for a few days leave. I will pick up the Blog when I return to Holly

Monday 16 June
Left Pancake Creek and moved up to Turkey Beach passed some good reef which we fished without any luck. Counted 10 ships moored offshore from Gladstone.
Went up Robb’s Harbour to the township of Turkey Beach. Anchored offshore and rowed to beach. Walked a long way to the general store. Bought a carton of beer and things ,walked back to boat. Talked to a local who said houses here were around $ 500,000 not bad for beach shacks.
We were sitting on the boat at 1600 hrs having a beer when the sandflies arrived, thousands of them. Upped anchor and raced –as fast as you can on Holly---to the mouth of Rodd’s Harbour where we anchored for the night minus the sandflies.

Sunday 15 June
Another day fishing, this time without success. We didn’t see anyone catch a fish. So early night.

Saturday 14 June

Pancake Creek
No friend for Claude, so we went for a fish out at the reefs off Bustard Head. Caught enough for a feed. On the way back in we stopped for a walk along the beach, found a lot of oysters so sat down and had a feed. Moored up and had a chat to Claude about his life. That ended when he went in the pot. Fish for dinner, not a bad day oysters, crab and fish.

Oops this is still Friday 13 ----Rocket should be under Marcus------In the blog that is!!!!!!!!

Refuelled and headed off after a luscious lunch supplied by Rocket. I should mention here that Rocket is the main instigator of NO PANTS SUNDAY a somewhat quaint custom that means that girls wear their pants around their neck after midnight at the pub , or at least Rocket does----ask Marcus????Ran across the now notorious 1770 bar without upset and motored up to Pancake Creek. What a beautiful place it is. Moored close to the mangroves and set the crab pot in the hope we could find a friend for Claude.

Friday 13 June
Fuel
54.87 litres Hours top 914.3

Total 124 Hours. ( this figure is high)

Total Fuel 159 Litres.

Up early, checked the crab pot and found a clawless male mud crab in the pot so we called him Claude the Clawless Crab and invited him to join us on the trip.

Gary woke up with a sniffle so I made him a solid breakfast of scrambled eggs laced strongly with garlic. Marcus rang, so we motored down to the Marina and he joined us for breakfast. Spoke to Fritz, marina manager and a friend of Bens from Bundaberg. Fritz allowed us to connect to power for a while to charge up the batteries. Marcus invited us back to the police barracks for a hot shower. What a treat!!!

Thursday 12 June
Gary went ashore and had paid $3.00 to have a shower at the caravan park.The smile was soon wiped off his face when he found the shower was only cold. John and Gillian Frances arrived and I had lunch ashore with them, sausages and fresh salad. It was great to catch up with them and I gave them some books to pass on to Pip , when they reached the Sunshine Coast , that I had read .

Rang Marcus a policemen I’d met at Maroochydore ,not there so left a message

. Talked to a Sunshine Coaster, Harry who was a builder on Buderim .He had built his own catamaran called RAIN DANCER. I remembered Roy and I had often seen it moored on one of the berths at the Yacht Club Marina. They only have got as far as 1770 and have been there for 3 years building.
Moored up the mangroves at bit, put the new crab pot out, and fished during the evening.

Wednesday 11 June

Quite day reflecting about what could have been. Went for a walk

Tuesday 10 June

The night run went well although the seas were running strongly they were south eastly and pushed us along quite well. Polly towed well with the rope out the back. Arrived off the bar at 1770 and the bar was running quite strongly. Watched for a while and picked the best course to the first green marker. Everything was going well until a wave suddenly picked up behind us and slewed us sidewards .Polly the tender flipped and its anchor fell out and dug in ,we stopped. The engine stalled. Restarted the engine and Gary cut the tow rope to Polly . Once freed the engine stalled again. Wave over the back. Restarted the engine and with power we now raced to round the green marker and calmer water.
We reported the floating tender to the Volunteer Marine Rescue and the informed us that Polly had now drifted over the bar. We went back out and towed her inside to a sand bar, righted her and drained the water out of her. We had lost the crab pot and the anchor with rope had ripped the cleat out of the boat. Heading back in we picked up her bailer floating in with the tide.
The seat ofv the day was spent looking at each other and saying F###K .The out board was stripped but we couldn’t get it going. Gary tried his hand at splicing and made a new anchor rope.
Early night quite emotionally drained.

Monday 9 June
In the morning ran up the river to Bundaberg .The river was very interesting on the run up. Because it was Queens Birthday, public holiday there was many small boats out fishing. Passed the Bundaberg Rum factory and a little disappointed that they didn’t have a wharf with free tastings. We arrived at the city centre and did a loop under a bridge with fantastic pylons .Managed to get a mooring at Midtown Marina that is situated right in the centre of town. Showers, shopping and recharge everything. I seem to be having a problem with the deep cycle battery. It hasn’t stopped working but it has a indicator light on it that continually shows that it needs recharging. Bought a battery charger and will see if that fixes the problem.
The next run is quite a long one, Bundaberg to The Town of 1770. If we left early in the morning we would be arriving at dark at low tide to a shallow bar. I decided to get away at 2300 hrs and do nights run.

Sunday 8 June
Up early and ran close to the beach Went for a walk, very pretty town all the shops were open until lunchtime, not bad on a Sunday. They have a very pretty walk along the water’s edge with many holidaymakers fishing ext.

The water police arrived, launched a 16-foot tinnie, and were watched by an interested crowd of about 12 people. Obviously not much in the way of entertainment at Burrum Heads on a Sunday. The many side comments passed by the wags in the crowd were quite entertaining.
Gary and Barney arrived, we loaded Gary’s gear on, and off we set to run up to Burnett Heads. We had a stiff 20-knot south easterly behind us. Poor Polly the tender took quite a beating as we did. We very quickly let Polly out on a longer towrope but could not get a rope on behind her to provide some drag to keep her straight. In trying, Polly got very upset with Gary and gave him a bit of a beating. First aid kit used for the first time and Gary got another lesson in treating women with respect.

Arrived at Burnett River mouth in dark and made our way up past the sugar terminals and anchored for the night.

Saturday 7 June
















Sunset at Burrum Heads

Quite day reading and tiding up the boat.

Friday 6 June
Fuel 53.1 Litres cost $92.66

The famous Urangan Pier
Left Urangan with MR REMORSE on board with me. Civilisation and me don’t mix on occasion. Had a good run up to Burrum Heads where I will pick up Gary Hallam on Sunday. Had a very slow run through the leads into Burrum Heads ,the tide was running out and I was only averaging 2.7 knots .

The solid fog.

Thursday 5June
Headed for Urangan Boat harbour in quite a solid fog.Wished I had fog horn to blast every minute .A number of power boats just suddenly appear out of the mist to scare me.
Arrived and secured a berth $30.00 for the night .Did my washing and shopping .

Wednesday 4 June
Lovely sunny day, cleaned up and had a little fish. Tightened up all the things on the engine that I thought I should tighten to fix the air problem with the motor.
Lunch and then out for a fish at the Moon Ledges. caught enough for a feed ,Fantastic sunset.
Picture shows the Moon Point Ferry heading into the sunset

Tuesday 3 June
Rose early and headed off to Moon Point .I was rewarded by a great look at a turtle drifting along with the tide. Had a good run down until light showers started? Then the engine started to cut out. I bleed the bleed screw a couple of times but it didn’t seem to fix the problem. Kept going by manually pumping fuel through every couple of minutes.
Arrived at Moon Point and anchored a cold beer cooled my anxiety down. Saw my first pelican ,as we all know they have been out west breeding.Unfortunalty it was a bit far away to get a picture but it seemed like a small one.

Monday 2 June
Woke up to sunny skies, wonderful. Had my morning cup of tea on the front deck in the sun. Simple pleasures sometimes can be gladding of the heart.
I am quite pleased that from the onset of planning the trip I expected that the danger would come from putting time cons taints on oneself against nature.
Like in most things in life, it is all about attitude .We can achieve anything that we want to if we have a positive mental attitude.
I adopted the frame of mind that there would be no time constraints on the trip. Trying to impose a timetable on nature would be impossible. So I in fitting out and provisioning I have tried to ensure that I could ride out any weather comfortably .Not only materially but more importantly mentally. I’m very happy with my frame of mind. I did not get bored, impatient, frusterated, but was happy to let nature take its course without impatience on my part ,that could lead to mistakes.
Mind you, I did not run out of alcohol, the real test would come then. Do the rescue services deliver grog if you run out, I wonder ???
Holly did not leak much but as you would expect with 90 Kilometres winds it did squeeze through some little openings. Holly looks a little like a garage sale festooned with drying tea towels, towels, books ext.

Sunday 1 June
Waiting

Saturday 31 May
Waiting

Friday 30 May
Waiting

Does not look like the same stretch of beach?

Thursday 29 May
Waiting

Wednesday 28 May
Woke up early and watched the 4 other boats moored here leave within 10 minutes. That’s interesting I though as I turned on the radio. Listening to the severe low and gale force wind warning ext, ext ,for Sandy Cape and Hervey Bay I knew why they left in such a hurry.
I decided to wait it out!!!

Tuesday 27 May
The plan was to fish the reefs off Wathumba Creek on my way to mooring there for the night. I put the co-ordinates in for Barrack Reef and headed for an hour’s steaming out into the bay.
Some bastard house remover must have removed the barracks .I didn’t even lose a bait and nothing showed up on the sounder.
So another 2 hour steam to Wathumba Creek. Very, very, carefully eased my way into the creek. It has a shallow entrance. Saw a boat further in, with relief went, and moored near it. Weather has now blown up a bit with showers and thunderstorms expected.