on the hook again!

Well the list has finally been crossed off. We sure did accomplish a lot this time in port. Thanks to Bruce's hard work! We are now restocked, refueled, clean and shiny inside and out. It sure does feel good! Leaving the dock with clean sheets, laundry and plenty of food on board.
Time for our next chapter. One of the things we did in port was to change over our mobile phone provider, and upgrade our internet connections, which means we will hopefully be able to have better coverage along the coast.
We are slowly making our way North again. We will be stopping off in Hervey Bay to pick up some family to take them out to the top of Fraser Island for Easter Weekend. Once we bring them back to Hervey Bay we will, weather permitting, make our way back up to the Keppel Islands. We have another road trip planned in April when we drive South to Central Coast of NSW( just north of Sydney) for my GRADUATION!!!! Yes I've finished my Dru yoga teacher training and will be having my final module in April. We will then head a bit further South to visit Uncle Bob before we head back North. A few more weeks on the boat and then we take a trip overseas to the good ole US of A to see the family. :o) Stayed tune for more adventures of Tropical Soul!!

visitor

Before I left I noticed a praying mantis on the light on the dock, which was about 10 days ago. Today while having a break from our work I noticed he was on the boat. Here's a phot of our most recent visitors. ;o)

back on the boat

Well it is GOOD to be HOME! Here are some photo's from a lookout in the Southern Highlands, where I walked each morning to do my yoga before the meditation workshop. MAGICAL

in the marina @ Tin Can Bay

The boat has been tied up at the marina in Tin Can Bay for the past 10 days. Bruce has been with the boat taking care of a long list of maintenance necessary to keep the boat up to par.

I've been away at a meditation workshop in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, and visiting with my oldest daughter on the Sunshine Coast. Sam is bringing me back to the boat today. We're going to be stopping at my favorite Organic food store so I can do bit of a shop for the boat.

We've been keeping a watchful eye on tropical Cyclone Ului, which has made landfall this morning up north of us, Proserpine. Looks like we will be in the area a bit longer as the seas are very high at the moment.

Will post some pictures later.

Sandy Straits

We moved into the Straits after leaving Platypus Bay. Anchored at Yankee Jacks for a night ready to cross the flats on the high tide. We are due in at the marina on the 10th of March in Tin Can Bay. We have had mostly rainy days here. Did have a clearer day yesterday enough that we could actually dry a few things in the cockpit, but rain so thick when crossing the Sheridan Flats it was hard to find your next channel marker. We have the same conditions today, a white out. I took a photo of the conditions. Next anchorage was a lovely spot called Brown's Gutter which is a small gutter of water near Fraser Island. You can only come in on the high tide. We have been here for 2 nights, and will be leaving on the high tide today. Heading for Pelican Bay for a couple of nights before making way for the marina. There has been so much activity in here! Turtles galore, and so many fish at night they were hitting the side of the boat. Have to wait until 2:00 pm today before we can make our way out on the rising tide. Was unable to upload photos as internet connection still weak. Will try again later.

better photo of Dingo

Rocks

In our travels we came across some rocks on the beach that have been carved, into marine animals. Also found the artist Grahme off of 'Tekin' a trimaran.

more on Platypus Bay

While we were anchored off Awinya Creek we had quite an experience. It was about 7:45 pm, and we had a securitee come over the VHF. Which by that time we usually have it turned off, but for some reason we didn't turn it off that night. The securitee was from Brisbane Harbor, and it was a Tsunami warning issued for the area due to an Earth Quake in Chile. Now we weren't real sure what kind of magnitude this earth quake had. We discussed what we should do, and decided that we would move into the Bay into deeper water, away from land. we kept the radio on all night and heard each update still calling for the first waves to arrive around 9:45 am in our area. We got up after the 5 o'clock update which now had a warning for the Hervey bay area where we were. After securing the boat making her ready to move into the bay, we hauled the anchor in. Lucky for us the weather was quite alright this day. We have been having showers and strong wind, but this day the wind was sailing wind and the sun was out. We just moved into the bay and when we got deep enough, and far enough we just decided we would drift for the day. It turned out to be such a pleasant day apart from the Tsunami warning going on. At about 2 pm we decided that nothing was going to come from this warning. We raised the sails and sailed back in towards Wathoomba Creek where we dropped anchor for the night, because now we have to think about the monsoon trough & low pressure system predicted to develop off the coast right in our area! That's another story!!!

Dolphins & Dingos Encounters

Well it's been a while since I've been able to get a good enough signal to post. Since the last post dated 22/02 we have been up at the top end of Fraser Island. After contacting a friend who has spent a bit of time in the Platypus Bay area we felt it was good to stay during the SE that blew in. We are only back into the straights today because we need to make our way into Tin Can Bay in a few days. So much to tell of our time at the top end of Platypus Bay. As the title indicates we had Dingo & Dolphin encounters. There has been plenty of wildlife in the area! The best being the dolphin we saw leap out of the water not just once, but 3 times! Jumped about 2m into the air it was FANTASTIC! The other wild encounter we had was with Dingos. For my American family & friends Dingos are a wild dog, which have been known to attack and kill. The first encounter was when we were in a little creek in the dingy actually for those familiar with the area Wathoomba Creek. Anyway we had 2 dingos following us along the bank, but the real encounter was for Bruce. We were all set up to move into the creek the following day on Tropical Soul. We had gone in on high tide to place a marker on where we should drop the anchor. We also walked there at low tide to make sure it was on a nice flat bit of hard sand, as the boat would be sitting high & dry at low tide. We did end up moving our marker. We had just gotten back to the boat, and a weather report came on over the vhf with a change in the following days weather. Now expected gail force winds from the SE to move in earlier then predicted. We decided we better take cover and anchor behind some of the high cliffs on Fraser, but we had to get our marker. Bruce left me on the boat, and took off to get the marker. While I was preparing the boat to make wa. Bruce had to walk to the marker as the tide wouldn't permit the dingy to make it up that far. On his way back from the flats he was being followed by a dingo. Probably the one we saw the day before. At first he was followed, then the dingo decided it would come along beside him( about 6ft away), and then it decided it would go ahead of him. At this point Bruce was just keeping an eye on it, but luckily he had an anchor from the marker in his hand if he needed to use something to protect himself. He here are some photos of the dingos.