21-29 April 2025.
Lots of adventure and experiences as we traveled further north from Moreton Bay to K’gari/Fraser Island, via Bribie Island and Mooloolaba. Most of the time spending time with our Swedish boat buddies on Matilda, Saoirse and Platon.
We left Moreton Island, Lucinda Bay, on the 21st and had a lovely sail to Bongaree, Bribie Island, where we anchored for the night. We had a lightning storm coming through at night with strong winds and lots of rain, but luckily we didn’t drag anchor.
Mooloolaba
The morning after we set off north towards Mooloolaba where we had booked two nights in the marina. We needed to vote in the upcoming federal election, and also fill up on food and fresh water. The 34NM sail was uneventful and in very nice conditions with sunny weather and wind from behind, and almost no swell. The bar crossing was the easiest ever without any swell.
Double Island Point
On the 24th we left Mooloolaba and ventured further north another 48NM. This time the sea state was rougher with 1.5-2m swell and the weather was quite wet. Initially we had planned to stop over in Noosa, but the weather forecast predicted a lot of rain there so we continued further to Double Island Point – lucky as we later saw that Noosa got 81mm rain overnight (and a big thunderstorm)…(we only got about 20mm).
The morning after when we woke up the weather was perfect and we went for a long walk along the beach. The beautiful red ‘rocks’ are basically hard packed sand. We stayed for another night as we prepared for a very early start of the next leg.
Wide Bay Bar crossing and the Great Sandy Strait
The Wide Bay Bar can be dangerous if Coast Guard guidelines aren’t followed, and we were advised to only cross it at high tide, which was at 6.30 in the morning. We departed Double Island Point at 5am in the dark to make the high tide timing. The Tin Can Bay Coast Guard was very helpful as we had communication with them on VHF, channel 80. The instructions were to follow three waypoints and to follow the two guiding lights as we came in. It worked perfectly, but we saw a lot of breaking seas around us, so it was wise to follow the instructions carefully.
North of Wide Bay Bar awaited the Great Sandy Strait, which we actually crossed the same day. With the benefit of hindsight, it would have been better to make a stop halfway as we actually did run aground (very slowly gently in the sand) at the Sheridan Flats. We were able to reverse and go around the shallow area, and the whole drama was over in a few minutes. We had been warned about it being shallow, but with the data we had, it appeared we should have been fine. Our navigational charts from C-MAP did mislead us at the shallowest point and comparing it to the Navionics version we would have been fine following Navionics. We will make it a habit of comparing the two different systems at tricky points in the future.
The reason we rushed through the Great Sandy Strait was that we wanted to catch up with our Swedish friends who were already at the Kingfisher Bay. Another reason was the brown murky water in the channels, as result of the recent heavy rains, we wanted to get out of. In total we motored 46NM.
Kingfisher Bay, Fraser Island
We’ve had amazing days in Kingfisher Bay where we’ve been using the facilities at the resort a lot. There’s a lot of warnings for Dingoes and the whole resort area is surrounded by electric fences to minimise the risk to guests. Dingos are a type of wild dogs and can be aggressive to people. We only saw one in the distance when driving on the beach.
An absolute highlight was hiring a 4WD car and drive around (parts of) the Island in a day. To see the whole island we would have had to make it a 3-4 day trip. Driving inland in Fraser is similar to driving in deep snow. Fraser Island (K’gari) is the worlds largest sand island and the sand is very soft. Once you get out on the beach the surface gets much harder and smoother and you can drive up to 80km/hour.
A couple of the highlights of the drive were;
- Lake Mckenzie, a freshwater lake with crystal clear warm water which we very much enjoyed
- Eli Creek, a freshwater creek which people bring their inflatables swim rings etc for a “lazy river” experience. Next time we will bring floaties!
- the Maheno shipwreck, she was washed ashore on K’gari (Fraser Island) by a cyclone in 1935
