We lucked out this time

Well we were lucky with Cyclone Anthony as he stayed on his track and came in at Bowen as a cat 2 barely. Now we have cyclone Yasi, and she is a big one! Moving fairly quickly she is in the nE Coral sea, and moving in a WSW direction, and predictions have her coming in to where Anthony just made landfall. With today being Monday she is due to make landfall on Wed. not much time to get ready. We went up the creek again today, but this time on low tide to check out what the bottom is like to sit Tropical Soul in the creek and mangroves. It was a muddy expedition. Hopefully we will not have to go up there, but just in case we know now where we will go. We are keeping our eye on the forecasts and each weather update. Still looking like a window to leave on Saturday if the NE swells are settled down by then as the entrance here is a bar entrance exposed to the Northly conditions, and makes for breaking water. We will just have to keep our fingers crossed on this one. I just had a look at the wind maps and we will have a good 3 days of ENE winds to make our way down at least to the Sandy Straits and possibly Mooloolaba.

Mooloolaba would be very exciting for me as I am looking forward to seeing Samantha there, and doing a bit of a restock in my most favorite Health food shop on the East Coast.

Most difficult anchorage

We have really had a time at this anchorage! We have dragged anchor twice, and have moved 5 times. We moved again this afternoon as it was getting dangerous where we were anchored. We had wind against incoming tide, and we were moving around our anchor like we were sailing. The wind is blowing 30 knots due to cyclone Anthony making landfall sometime today just North of us in Bowen. Spring tides are starting to happen with a new moon on Tuesday. There is not a lot to choose from here as it is shallow, and there are quite a few moored boats. We moved up to the river bank up river just past the last moored boat in 8 to 7 feet of water. It is much calmer here wind wise. Just a bit unnerving having moved around 5:30 on the full tide as we haven't really had a chance to watch her on anchor during the tide change. Fingers crossed we have a chance to move on at the end of the week. After another cyclone moves ashore once again around Bowen giving us E to NE winds. This next one has developed fast, and will move fast to the coast, but so far it is the strongest one we have seen this season.

Australia Day 2011

Both of us girls dressed for Aussie Day

Our walk to the top of Round Hill
Sunset

I was all excited to be going ashore to take part in an Australia Day Celebration at the local park here at 1770. I dressed in Aussie flag colours and was ready to have a sausage, and browse the market stalls. We went and stayed all of 5 minutes. The sausage stall was closed up, and there was 1 market stall. We ended up coming back to the boat and chilling. Went for a swim later in the day. Saw some dolphins, there are two of them and they were around yesterday as well. Here are a few photos from our walk the other day to the top of Round Hill, and me in my Aussie colours.

a week later

Can't believe a week has gone by since my last post! Where does the time go? We are still here at 1770 and looks like we will be for another week or so. Everyday is a contrast to the day before. The last few days its been very very hot, with winds from the NW to NE. Had a swim yesterday as the water was just starting to get a bit cleaner, but after tonight it will be stirred up even more. We are having 20 kt winds against a spring tide with a lot of water moving through, and showers all around the area.
Since our last post we've been to Agnes Waters twice once for a shop, and once to the pub for a feed of ribs. The courtesy bus picked us up for the pub. It was pretty good too. We caught the only taxi into town to do a shop last Saturday and it cost us $46.00 to ride in 6 ks and back. CRAZY won't do that again. We also had a day of serious cleaning we got out the exit mould and we each worked down the inside of a hull wiping all surfaces down as the mildew was getting bad again, and we met in the saloon where we worked together. We have also had to cart water to the boat as the water is to dirty to use. we have had to do that twice now because of the laundry I did last week.
Tonight we watched the full moon rising over round hill. Was good to see. We also had a walk this afternoon up to round hill, and would like to do it again. I didn't bring my camera and wouldn't you know it we saw 2 Wallabies in 2 different places. We were high tailing it back because I left the windows opened thinking we weren't going far, and there was a dark cloud forming. We got back just as the strong winds hit, but never got any rain.

Is it a boat or a truck?

The day before yesterday we actually had some swimming weather. The water was just starting to clear, the sun was shining and the breeze was gentle & warm. As we were lounging in the water this came by us. Check it out. It's neither it's a Lark. I also have a video for it as well, and will try to post it on the next entry.
Yesterday was a rainy day all day, and I caught buckets of water to do some hand washing (laundry). We also had to fire up the genie, to make power & water. Today it became quite windy and sunny. Each day is a contrast. I did do some hand washing today, and also gave the cockpit a scrub.
We took the dingy ashore for another coffee, and then went to explore the mangroves. There are several lows around. One is now a tropical low in the NE Coral sea, and we want to make sure we have somewhere upstream t tuck ourselves into. As we can't go South yet due to strong winds and flooding rivers. We have the Burnett which is just South of us and it started to flood again, the next is Mary river which is flooding and the biggest now is the Brisbane river flood. At the moment it has peaked to be as big as the flood that hit the city in 1974. The flooding is very extreme. Luckily Jo & Peta are high and dry. Samantha came in on a flight on the 11th which is when it all started in Brisbane. Roads were closed and she was not able to get back to the Sunshine Coast. She ended up staying at Mitch & Jo's for the night and most of the next day before she was able to get through to get home.

1770

We moved a bit further South today. We've come into 1770, Round Hill. A very pretty spot,will take photos soon. Tomorrow we will go ashore to have an explore, and a coffee!
We met up with a boat that was in Pancake with us "Strawberry Runner"Bob & Lynn nice to meet some new people.

shag on our boat

Shag on our boat
View up into Pancake Creek
Rainbow next to the boat yesterday morning

We are still at Pancake and enjoying our time here. We had to top up the batteries today, so while the generator was on I got out my sewing machine and made a few new screen covers for the hatches. I used a very fine mesh so that it keeps the smallest of bugs out, only to use in those very buggy anchorages. I must admit my project last week making the screen cover for our doorway was a BIG success! Again I used the finest mesh there as well.

Bruce is working on a website at the moment, so after we finished our jobs we put in Little Soul and went for a ride up the creek. I packed a afternoon tea, and we had it on the creek. Once back on board we showered and had tea. We had the most amazing sunset tonight. One of those sunsets that keeps getting better and better until it is dark. When it was just about dark I got up from the table to put something away when I saw a shag on the bow. Here is a photo. It was so cute the colors were so clean and clear the photo doesn't show much. It let me walk up to the side of the boat and take its picture.

WInds are still expected to be 15/20 until Tuesday so we are going to sit here until then.

A bit further South

Funnel cloud off GKI
Storms over Cape Cap
Storms all around us
rainy sunset with a rainbow

Today we sailed/motored down to Pancake Creek. Was quite a stormy day today. It started this morning while we were still anchored at Cape Cap. What an incredibly uncomfortable night we had there!! The winds came in from the North, with a spring tide against it plus all the river water made for some really choppy rolly conditions.
I was glad to pull out of there this morning on day break! Neither one of us slept much. We motored the first part of the morning, with anther storm brewing behind, to the east, and to the South of us. We managed to stay just out of them, but eventually we got caught in a couple, but luckily there weren't any big winds in them.
Having only been into Pancake one time before we had to really pay attention coming in. With a spring tide against the wind it got a bit animated, but we managed and are safely anchored for a few days. We are both looking forward to a few days relax while we are here. We were thinking while we watched the sunset in the pouring rain ,quite unusual, that this was our first anchorage on our first journey that we stayed in for a while because of strong wind warnings.
These photos were taken today, all but the funnel cloud that one was taken the day we left the marina. In that funnel cloud i actually saw the water being picked up and spun all about. I thought at first I was seeing smoke, but with the binoculars I could see it was the funnel cloud picking up the water.

We left GKI today. Right now anchored at Cape Capricorn for the night. Tomorrow we will leave at day break and head for Pancake creek. In our travels today we heard on the vhf radio of a 5000 gallon water tank floating submerged, a 44 gallon drum with hydraulic fluid still in it,
a big log/tree, and the saddest was a cow swimming very tired off the marina at Rosslyn Bay, and 2 boats working to rescue it. Don't know of the outcome, but I would imagine it wasn't good. As we traveled today it was all eyes on the water continuously.

aahhh that's nice

We left the marina today the 2nd of Jan. 2011. We are currently anchored at GKI. It is good to be out again. 12 nights in the marina minus 2 during Christmas. On the way out this morning we heard of 2 submerged boats in the area. All apparently from the Burnett river floods. Flood water have now closed the airport in Rocky and all major roads except the road heading North.
Something we are going to have keep our eyes on as we travel South. Debris continues to move about in the waters between Bundaburg and here. One boat a 25ft. upside down catamaran was just off of Pearl Bay from Bundaburg.
There looks to be some calm weather happening later this week, but just concerned with the debris, and the forming lows.