Coomera and Moreton Bay

7-12 April 2025

Rara has traveled further north from Southport/Gold Coast through the inland channels, via Coomera, and arrived in Moreton Bay, just east of Brisbane city.

Through the channels going towards Moreton Bay

Traveling up through the channel system required a lot of navigation since the channels are sometimes narrow and although the water looks wide it’s very shallow if you go outside the main channel.

We decided to make a detour and also go into the Coomera river to see some of the huge marinas there.

Moreton Bay

Once we reached the southern part of Moreton Bay, getting out of the narrow channels the water quality improved a lot and the water looked swim-able again (although we’re vary of risks of sharks so no long swims).

We had a lovely stopover at Peel island, anchored about a kilometer from the shore line due to the shallow water. It was apparently used as a leper colony between 1907 to 1959. One boat near us dragged anchor and had to be pulled off the sand bank by Marine Rescue in the evening.

Due to the wind/rain forecast we decided to relocate to a marina for a few days, and found an available berth with East Coast Marina in Manly harbour. It was a short two-hour sail from Peel to Manly. Nice to put the sails up as we had only been motoring through the channels the previous days.

Friday night we had dinner at the Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron (RQYS), where we also met Karen Baldwin, who is the GM at RQYS and previously has been the GM at MHYC. She’s made some great renovation work at RQYS.