Crossing Wide Bay Bar
At the helm
Wednesday 29th - Thursday 30th June 2022
Wow! What a trip. Rick had some work to finish off this morning so I Spent the morning preparing salads and wraps for nutrition underway. It makes life much easier to grab food already prepared while on our watches and also means we tend to actually eat rather than just have dry biscuits or whatever is laying around handy. Helps us function better.
We left Raby Bay just after 12.30pm. and headed off on our prescribed route which followed the large shipping channel out of Brisbane. I had called Brisbane water traffic control to see what ships to expect and had plotted our course in the minor channel to avoid as many as possible but we had to keep a very sharp eye out both forward and aft and on our AIS to see when and where these speeders were. They travel at 3x our speed and don’t wait for you to get out of the way!
P&O cruise ship at Tangaloma
We were really enjoying the sail up past Morton Island and watching a passenger ship anchored off tangaloma.
We had a smaller catamaran in the channel with us and they wisely took a more northern direct route out into the open bay which we almost turned around to follow them but everything I had read said to stick to this channel so we proceeded as planned. Well that’s where our challenges started.
Rainbows over Tangaloma on Morton Island
Firstly I front of us there was a smallish ship heading our way so we needed to determine if we could get across to the minor channel assuming he was in the major ship channel or should we stay to starboard which is how we should pass them in the main channel. We decide to get into the minor channel and out of his way until we see on AIS he is now in the minor channel and stopped. A few minutes later he is going again and changed direction. We have no idea what he is up to. In hindsight we should have contacted them on VHF radio to clarify what they were up to. We thought perhaps they were having engine problems. To further complicate things there was a ship hot on our tail coming up fast. We were approaching the first ship and realized it was a dredge and working just outside the channel edges. That explained a lot and passing was relatively easy however we realized the approaching ship was going to reach the turn point in the channel where the minor and major channels run together just as we would be at that point. I quickly checked the chart and realized we had enough depth to move further out once passed a shallow point. As it happened we also had an inbound ship hurtling down to the same bottleneck point. So we had the one from behind us pass about 200 meters to our starboard then cut around the corner to pass to starboard of the oncoming ship. Meanwhile I’m taking us as wide as possible to allow the incoming ship room to pass on our starboard and have enough space to do the right angle turn. All worked ok in the end but a very stressful hours sailing.
Little did we know this was setting a precedent for the rest of this trip. I went off watch at 5 leaving Rick still following the channel which I thought we would be well out of before sun set but dark was fast approaching and we still had a long way to go!
We were motoring so as our bed is on top of one of the engines it was very hard to get to sleep. I felt like I had just gotten into a deep sleep when poor Rick had to wake me. It was about 6.45pm.,very dark already and he was heading to the channel exit which did a sharp right turn before exiting the bay. He had had to move out of the channel to avoid a very poorly illuminated ship but couldn’t find the supposed green markers that marked the channel out. It was especially confusing as right in front of us were all the lights of the Coloundra waterfront so all the lights just converged into each other. To make matters worse there was another ship heading into the channel entrance coming toward us. On consulting the charts we decided to cross north of the channel and keep out of the way of the huge ship which again was very poorly illuminated. This was complicated by avoiding rocks at the head of the point at Coloundra. Once again catastrophe avoided and finally we were out into open ocean with a clear run to our destination. I still had an hour and a half before back on watch so headed back to bed to try and get some sleep.
Ship at night is very hard to see
Our night watches went very smoothly with wonderful fast sailing with wind behind us and just the headsail out we were doing 7 - 8+ knots when surfing with the swell. It was a bit of a mixed swell so lots of sideways rocking which my back definitely does not like but aside from that all went to plan. We sailed so well that we arrived way before sunrise. There was a boat that we had been gaining on for the last few hours and as we passed double island point they seemed to stop. At this stage we were continuing on but had to try and slow down. Eventually we passed the boat which then turned in toward shore and looked to be heading in to the anchorage. We didn’t think much more about it at the time. As we continued the wind seemed to pick up out of nowhere and hit 25 knots. As this would preclude us from crossing the bar, rather than continue up to the bar and wait offshore Rick suggested turning into shore to wait for a couple of hours in the lee of the point out of the swell until there was some light to be able to anchor. With the stronger wind and turning into both wind and swell we were in for a very bumpy ride. To make matters worse than all the crashing dishes and stuff flying off shelves, to our port side coming at us was this boat bearing down on us. (It was so hard to tell it’s direction as we could only see green light which should have meant it was heading the same direction as us but it wasn,t it was heading straight for our port side). It was the boat we had just passed. It should have given way to us or turned to go behind us but there was no obvious movement and it felt like it was almost targeting us. I didn’t know which way to go to avoid them. If they woke up and tuned to go behind which is what they should do and I also turned that way we would collide. If I turned right they could still collect our stern quarter and we couldn’t cross in front in time. Rick decided to turn left just in time and we passed them so closely it was obvious they were not watching at all!!
After settling the nerves we continued our bouncy trip toward shore. About 10 minutes later another yacht with full sails up and no visible lights suddenly appears virtually across our bow. Rick again does a quick circle left to avoid them and come around behind them. Honestly with such a big ocean out there how are we having so many close encounters. Fortunately first light started to lighten the sky and help us see a few other boats now leaving DIP for the bar crossing. We were sure once they realized how strong the winds were they would turn around. As the dawn progressed, more and more boats were leaving so we decided to contact coastguard tin can bay and check the wave chart 6 am update. So the update looked good and the coastguard agreed that this was probably the best we would get all week, the wind had settled to a kind 9 knots so we turned and headed for the first waypoint which was about an hour away. This was at 7 am and high tide wasn’t until 9 so we still had plenty of time. Approaching the waypoint Rick decided to take the helm and do his first bar crossing. Trust him to take on the hardest bar crossing in Australia as his first, and of course he did it brilliantly. We had the wind, which had settled earlier, decided when we were half way in to pick up to 18knots, but Rick is there casually steering with one hand on the wheel! Mr. cool!
Passing outbound yacht at wide bay bar
It was a great run in and for us not a patch on some of the bar crossings we had already done. We don’t know what all the fuss was about. Maybe we just had chosen a great day to enter. Either way we were in the great Sandy straits and just as an initiation into what it’s like in these waters we ran aground twice in the first 30 minutes of being here. Do Not try to enter Pelican bay unless on the peak of a super high tide!
We ended up dropping anchor just outside swan creek near Tin Can Bay. Although definitely weary we decided to head to town in Little Puss and have breakfast before a shower and bed.