Mooloolaba, Queensland

• 28 Nov 2006
• Moored Warf Marina
• Mooloolaba, Queensland, Australia
• 26’41.0S/153’07.2E

Ahoy from Mooloolaba,

We just arrived at first light this morning and are moored at the Mooloolaba Wharf Marina for the next couple of days. We have been out of touch because our SSB modem has failed. It needs to be repaired, as soon as we can find someone here in Australia that can fix this. Basically, this means that we have no email from the boat (our Sailmail account) ‘till its fixed. But we can send email from our Hotmail account when we are in a marina that has WiFi.

After leaving Kingfisher Resort on a rising tide, we went 15 miles east to Gary’s Anchorage. It was a shallow passage, sometimes only 8 feet. You can only pass safely through the Great Sandy Straits at high tide. The tides here are 12 ft. At low tide, the channel you were in becomes a dry sandy beach. If you check out where we were by using the Google Earth link on the right side of the page, you can see where we transited, and how shallow it was.

As romantic a name as "Gary’s Anchorage" implies, it is nothing but a small shallow channel where boats stop while waiting for the next tide. Like "Captain Ron" says... “You’ve heard of St Crux? We're going to the island just to the left of it, Ted's." There is also a camp ground there, as it is on the Fraser Island side of the channel. But we have no idea why you would want to camp there. As soon as you step ashore there are signs warning of possibly being attacked by dingos.

We left Gary’s yesterday morning on an ebb tide for the last 15 miles of the Sandy Straits. We made the crossing at the Wide Bay Bar at high slack tide. This is where we crossed back into the Pacific Ocean. All the water runs over this bar on an ebb tide with breaking waves all the way across. So passing at slack high tide made for a nice smooth crossing.

One neat thing is that at the end of the straights is the Fraser Island Barge (car ferry). There are no paved roads, and the ferry just drops a ramp on the beach, where the cars just drive on.

We did a 50 mile overnight passage to Mooloolaba. Not much wind. At 3 am we started the engine and motored into the marina. We have just arrived and will post another entry about this town in a few days. So far it is a nice beach town that is very touristy. And we are even tied up at the fisherman’s wharf! Amy is out browsing all the ladies' stores here.