Sunrise at Inskip Point
We were up at 5 am getting ready to leave and discovered most of the boats had left and were on there way to cross Wide Bay Bar. We were both ready to go by 5.30am, so decided to head off.
The forecast for today “promises” a 10-15 knot NE breeze from late morning with variable winds 5-10 knots before that ( why don't they just say SE). Anyway we trust the forecast and raisee our mainsails before heading out of the bay, at least the light SE breeze will give us some stability crossing the bar.
We motored into the main chaneel and were immediately pushing into a 3 knot current, soon to become 4 knots, so progress was slow on the first leg out to the Inskip Point leads, where you then turn to the NE, across what is known as the Mad Mile. There was a reasonable swell, but as we were near the top of the tide the seas were not terribly confused and it was a reasonably comfortable crossing, as the effect of the current was now much less.
To get into clear water you then need to turn SE to go through the shoals and then keep going towards Double Island Point. Not much help from the wind as we were pretty much going straight into it. By 11 am there were signs that the Ne breeze may become a reality and by 11.30 am, we had turned off the engine and were having a lovely sail in 10-12 knots of breeze, which took us all of the way to Mooloolaba. We had our usual whale sightings, apparently there were some at the Wide Bay bar entrance which we didn't see, we saw some off Noosa and had a very close encounter with one off Coolum. I swerved to avoid it as I could see it was going to cross directly in front of us and it came up only a few metres from the side of our boat as we passed on the altered course.
It was a perfect day on the water, sunny, a nice sailing breeze and long rolling swell.
We went through the heads at Mooloolaba at 4 pm, and after a bit of a struggle with the strong incoming tide in the marina, mangaged to get secure around 4.30pm. We have booked in for 4 days as the forward forecast looks terrible. 25-30 knot SE winds and 4m seas at least till Monday.
We all went down to the seafood market for dinner, quickly becoming our favourite dining spot in Mooloolaba.
Dinner at Seafood Market
We have heard from Steve Smith that the Riviera he is going back to Sydney on is holed up at Yamba, where they decided to give up and wait for better conditions going South.
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