A little memorie from the Backpacker team

With apologies to Ewan McColl, The Dubliners, Pogues, et al...

Keppel Bay Marina - Gladstone

Alexis at the masthead

Nice timing!

Just arrived, strolling along the Keppel Bay Marina pontoon to berth Blue 69, and there was Harlequin drifting into place!

Good to see Alexis & Carolle again, and to meet Loic & Anouk for the first time - now all thoroughly experienced sailors aboard Harlequin after their trip down from Mackay with Captain Steve.


Masthead view

Didn't take long to get the handover from Steve, before he had to head off to Rockhampton airport to return the hire car and overnight back to Hong Kong. Felt for him - he very obviously wanted to stay on for a few days more.

Having discovered that Bundaberg Port Marina were not taking bookings due to an expected influx of boats from the Vanuatu Port-2-Port Rally (wonder if they found any cocaine this year...) our new target was Gladstone, which gave us more time to kick back and enjoy shorter daily passages. Starting with... bugger it - let's stay here tonight!

Guijons of Tuna

Dinner was thus rustled up on the spot, with more Clean Skin wine (our favourite local 'chateau') and we put off the bulk of the jobs until morning. This included sending Alexis up the mast. Forget why, but it seemed like a good idea at the time...



Allez...

-oop!

Then off on a short 12 nm leg to anchor with about a dozen other boats (the most we've seen anywhere outside the Whitsundays) north side of Great Keppel Island, off Second Beach. Snug as a bug, and a great spot for star watching, with moon-rise not 'til after midnight. The water was cold, though - the first time we've noticed this on our cruise south.

Forever flexible, the forecast of a moderate-strong SE'ly for the next few days altered our plans yet again. Out went the route via North West Island which (would have been nice), and In came the more direct Hummocky Island for lunch then Cape Capricorn overnight for the planned Tropic of Capricorn Party.

Named by Cook himself in 1770 (the cape, not the party - although, you never know...), we thought it would be the perfect spot to celebrate reaching as far South of the equator as we had been North, before departing Hong Kong way back in February.



Sunset at Gt Keppel Is

Barely had the anchor taken, but the guitar & harmonica were out. Oh, and Square Bear of course (Bundaberg rum - we are now officially out of Tanduay), which proved an effective lubricant as the crew belted out a string of French numbers, led very sweetly by Loic & Anouk. In harmony, no less.



More fish!

Even after hours of this, the three neighbouring boats hadn't sent anyone over to complain, so we assumed they wanted more. Which is what they got...


[Narrative break for some pretty piccies]

French lookout

Crash positions...

Tropic crossing

Loic & Anouk

Le Vent Nous Portera

Gettin' fuzzy...

Next morning was an early, if painful start, bound for Gladstone via the North Channel. Timing the flood, we expected at least 2 m under the keel at the shallows, which proved the case - right up to mark N6 when we ground to a slow but undignified halt. Ooo-kay. Obviously haven't dredged much around here recently...

Ready about...

Backing the main and full reverse took us straight back off again, but it did focus the attention somewhat! See pic (below) as we approach the very spot...

Safely through, we were soon alongside at Gladstone marina and relaxing in the airless heat over lunch (you really miss the breeze), before setting to on the usual round of jobs & cleaning.




Northern approach

The plan of fish & chips for dinner had to be abandoned as we missed the closing time of 8PM (how barbaric), but that gave us an excuse to enjoy Alexis' famous Carbonara one last time. And how good it was!

Looks shallow...

The party ended with sad farewells, as Jim was stepping ashore at 0520 for an 0645 flight. Alexis bravely volunteered to act as taxi with their van, but I'm sure he went back to his bunk straight after.

Hopefully not the last we've seen of our famous French crew (maybe they can return next month?) but safe to say that we have thoroughly enjoyed having them all aboard. Good food, good humour, good company.

Bonne chance et bonne journee mes ami!


Blog stats

As an aside, we thought it interesting to see how our blog's audience has changed since our international (and most especially French) crewmates came aboard. Have a look at the stats for the last month...

click on the pic for more detail

In terms of pageviews by country, you will see that France has moved up into close second place, just behind Australia, and ahead of Hong Kong!

I'm guessing that friends & family of Alexis & Carolle, Loic & Anouk may have something to do with this?

For their fans, we have plenty more photos of their sail from Rosslyn Bay to Gladstone to follow shortly...

[PS.  Anyone know anybody in Latvia...?]

Mackay to Keppell Bay

3-2-1-Go!

4 Backpackers and me!
 
Well, I am a lucky chap.  Barely has the sun tan had time to fade after the Whitsundays-Mackay leg than I made it back again (thanks to my very understanding wife) for 3 quick days of sailing to press further down the coast - to Keppell Bay Marina near Yeppoon in fact. It is planned that I will handover here to Jim who has his sights set on making it to Bundaberg.

Housework sucks!

I’ve had to ditch my better half and attractive friends for this leg and in their stead Jim has tee’d me up with a crew of four unknown (to me anyway) trendy young French van-packers on their way around Australia. Could be an interesting few days!

Alexis, Carolle, Loic and Anouk did me the very great favour of arriving in Mackay early and largely getting the boat ready, doing the laundry and getting the groceries so we could get going asap.  They even picked me up in their van from the airport – respect.  We used that to pick up some extra diesel and stop off at the bottle shop as I was told we were totally out of rum!  There’s no way we could set sail like that so, the Tanduay now finally finished, we would have to switch to Bundaberg though I suppose that as it's the local brew it’s only appropriate.

"I'll go mad without music"!

Pressies!

After a bit of lunch and a couple of nice presents from the crew by way of a ‘thanks for having us’, a few jobs before we could get going.
  
First priority, fix the chest fridge to restore the cold beer supply.  Second, fit the funky new stereo system so the Mega Cruz could once again be conducted appropriately with sounds.  With nearly 40GB of music on his old but functional iPod equivalent, Alexis was on a mission with this – he had it fitted before I’d even unpacked my bag.

Mr Fridgemagic

Jesus, in the form of Byron from MBS Refrigeration arrived to perform miraculous surgery on our sick and leaky fridge compressor.  Though there was a price (of course), and coupled with the cost of the ‘non-fix’ in Townsville we probably weren’t far off a new unit we now had cold beer available to soothe wallet pain!

With everything done in good time and a gentle northerly breeze in place for the evening, we took the opportunity to save a nights berthing fee and press for the Percy Isles leaving Mackay Marina just as darkness was falling.   

An easy nights cruise had the destination in sight as dawn broke, fishing lines in the water and immediately fzzzz, fzzzz, fzzzz! 

Something was having a go at one of the lures. 

Whites Bay

For a very short time, I think Alexis actually believed Jim’s rumour-mongering that I had some fishing sixth sense, though my pathetic performance with rod in hand soon dispelled that notion.  Thought I finally had fish on but then one leap into the air and dinner had escaped.  Of course, it had looked huge and tasty!

We had hoped to park at West Bay on Middle Percy and visit the famous A-frame hut, perhaps leaving a Harlequin momento with all the other cruisers memorabila (I was thinking of an empty bottle of Tanduay Rum with a Hong Kong flag stuffed inside and a note from the Harlequiners but I digress....).  However, the northerly was strengthening noticeably making the anchorage untenable so we gybed around the back and into the excellent Whites Bay. 
 

So nice was it and so tired were we that we decided to hang there for the rest of the day doing a few jobs, enjoying the sun, blue water, lunch and live musical entertainment from Loic.

 

Catch da fish,

Bright and early the next morning, it was evident that the wind had a bit more easterly in it than the day before (a southerly change was forecast for that evening) but it still enabled us to hold the one tack (just) all the way to Port Clinton.  Blue sky, breeze, dolphins and a fish! 

Eat da fish!

Clean da fish,

Cook da fish,

Hmmmmm...

Dropped the hook easily into sticky mud on the ledge down the South Arm of Port Clinton just under the lee of Mount Flinders and enjoyed the solitude with a cold beer. We then got down to turning the catch of the day into dinner.

Reef going in!

The southerly change was in full evidence the next morning and a chat with the Yeppoon Coastguard confirmed the weather as ESE 15-20kts, 1.7m seas and passing showers so we prepped the boat for a moderately windy, wet and bumpy 45nm trip to Keppell Bay. 

Not so champagne sailing!

The tide, just starting the flood, was not in our favour but we had a rendezvous time to make and it did keep the waters calmer over the entrance bar.  The temptation was to get going in the right direction, so I elected to ‘motorbeat’ as keenly as we could without pinching past Quoit Rock and onwards to Cape Manifold from where we could bear away a little to Keppell Bay. 

 The seas and 2 knots of tide against us made it slow going whilst the dark skies, rain and foaming rocky shore combined to make it a most uncomfortable passage.  Anouk quickly succumbed to the motion of the boat and went below, followed by Loic and Carolle.  When I couldn't bear sucking my teeth any longer at the possible consequences of a technical snag, Alexis and I tacked out, accepted the extra time it would add and put some decent sea room between the angry coast and ourselves.  Next time I think I’ll try to be wise and do it early.

Just the one for the road.

Once out further to sea now sailing properly we noticed that in the rough conditions it had come alive with birds and fish.  Whirling flocks attacked the seas and good size fish could be seen breaking the surface below them, perhaps feeding on something pressed to the surface.  Alexis and I chased the melees down where we could, sailing through lures out but without even a sniff of a bite each time.  At least we tried and in any case there was still half a fish left from the day before.

Les backpackers et moi.  Merci!

Once around Cape Manifold and on the direct line to Keppell Bay Marina entrance we made steady progress arriving at 3pm, only an hour later than planned.  The lady on the radio from the marina was expecting our arrival call and efficiently explained where we’d be parking.  Jim shuffled up to the dock just in time to take our lines and give me the keys to the hire car I was going to drive back to Rockhampton for my flight that evening.  Isnt it nice when the plan comes together!

Having put up with me as skipper for a few days, Alexis, Carolle, Loic and Anouk can now look forward to seeing how its done properly with Jim in charge.

Steve

7 Nov 2012