Byron Bay to the Gold Coast
Thursday second of June 2022
We got a good nights sleep and headed out early for the Gold Coast. We’re excited about joining Tyla and Mitch but nervous about all the stresses of navigating a large boat in a small space. The trip up the coast was beautiful sailing, we managed to get some time without the motors but a lot of it we needed to put in some motor assist to keep the angle of the wind and maintain our speed. We went around the corner at Tweed heads crossing into Queensland at around 1 o’clock in the afternoon. There were whales breaching around us that made a spectacular entrance to the new part of our journey. As always the last few kilometers seems to take forever and as we were making our way past all the large buildings on the Gold Coast, there was lots of passing traffic, fishing boats, helicopters, jet skis, planes and parachutists and every other type of craft that was typical of a tourist destination. The Gold Coast seaway is quite north of all the big buildings and it’s not obvious as you’re heading up from the south, as we’ve said before there’s a strange perception of distance and alignment and we saw this again as we’re heading towards the seaway where it’s not obvious where the entrance is until you’re right out in front of it, and then it’s very obvious and a large open stretch of water. At the entrance there was lots of craft going in out and across but very few waves and we timed it perfectly with the tide. We decided we would find a spot just inside the entrance to start with and await out booking in the marina. There are lots of moorings , so as we came in We did a quick righty and then a quick lefty, but nobody mentioned the fact that there was a very shallow sandbar on the quick lefty and you need to do a quick lefty lefty lefty to avoid getting stuck. Great captaining by Nola pulled us off the impending beaching and we made our way up into the mooring area, found a spot with plenty of water, dropped the anchor, and had a drink. It was 2 o’clock in the afternoon. Although there was lots of pleasure craft around, it’s actually quite a peaceful spot, good holding and not too much current. We felt safe and were wrapped that again we made another mile stone, we had made it to the Gold Coast.
Friday Third of June 2022 come out
We needed to spend a couple of nights at Wave break Island prior to heading up the Coomera river to our mooring at the Gold Coast City Marina which we had booked for the fourth. This was a great time just to get some sleep I did a little bit of work and Nola cleaned the boat, getting us ready to leave it for a few weeks. Although quite busy, it’s a great anchorage in the middle of a bustling metropolis, and it’s free.
