Cruising along Queensland’s coast

After a few days in Bundaberg relaxing, cleaning(yes always in need and quite boring)and most important stock up food and drinks, we are heading out to slowly sail up to Mackay to meet up with Chris and Karen on Mistral.

We leave early in the morning on the 5th of June and have decided not to do any night sailing which means by 17.30 we have to have reach our destination or it will be dark. First day we failed and anchored at 18.15 in total darkness. It works when it is a calm bay but not ideally. Always interesting to see how it looks when you wake up.

We do two more stops and both are before the sunset. The water temperature is okay around 21-22 degrees but I have heard so much about sharks and crocodiles so I am not tempted to swim. Luckily it is not that hot either. The teak deck was filled with trace of cellulose after our crossing. It is the rope that wear on the deck and it is almost glued on so need a good brush to get it of. The sea was calm so after an hour or two it was done.

There was a lot of tankers on standby that we passed on our way in to Mackay. Well inside the harbour we have our own welcoming committee which is Chris and Karen from Mistral. So great to see them again, and even better from now on we will sail with them all the way to Caribbean.

The start batteries came down to the boat unfortunately it was the wrong ones. New were ordered and hopefully can be here in four five days. Mackay city is 25 minutes away by bike. The bike lane was really good and safe all the way in to town. I went in there to get my Australian sim card at a phone company. By the end of the day it turned out that I could buy it at any grocery shop and registrer my self.

We spent some great days with Chris and Karen having our boat next to each other. Me and Karen went for a bike ride to see what the yarn/fabric store had. Got my self some embroidered yarn to decorate my destroyed hoody. Will be done some rainy day, I Hope.

Some reorganisation in the big storage, stocking up with some wine and beer, baking and we are ready to leave and sail up the coast to explore more places.

Chris and Karen stays for a few more days to get their rig and sail in order and hopefully also get our batteries.

Our plan is to get to Arlie beach to meet up with Mon Ami sailed by Louise and Mats, that we meet in Fiji. We hoist the sail and enjoyed the silence of not having the engine on. Our next goal is to hoist our new sail a blue water runner. It needs wind from behind and not too strong. Soon it will come for sure.

Found some nice stops on the way up. Also got some cute visitors. Still haven’t been ashore yet since we got scared from others that there might be crocodiles. At one anchorage it was a sign not to swim unless we didn’t want to be food. So much lovely water next to us and still so far. Well there will be some places where I can swim and use my paddle board.

Taking up the anchor is normaly easy but when it is clay bottom it is a bit harder specially if it’s dug in and also a lot more messy. Benefit is that we are very safe on the anchor. Won’t pull the boat in the first place.

Getting in to Coral Sea Marina we see this huge yachts. Would be fun to have a look around in one these one day. Feels like they are bigger than my house back home.

We have our berth next to Mon Ami. So know there are two Swedish boat in the Marina.

It was so great to see Louise and Mats. They are waiting to get a new electric furler. A big part of sailing is that things breaks our wears out and sometimes you need an expert to repair it. Quite often you then spend time just waiting for delivery or mechanical. They told us that they are almost a month delayed due to different problems that had happened when they came back to the boat. We have realised that things even break when the boat is on hard.

We spend two nights here and must say this have been the best Marina so far with all the facilities and the location. Just a short walk in to the town with a very nice walk path.