Great Sandy Strait

[Kyle]We left Bundaberg in the wee wee hours for the long trip to the Great Sandy Strait, which separates Fraser Island from the mainland. Going through the strait is about half the distance of going around the long way.

This whole area of Australia is sand as far as the eye can see. The banks in the strait are constantly (although slowly) shifting, making it necessary to have the most up-to-date charts available. For the most part, they were spot-on. Occasionally, though, there are still places where you have to disregard the chart and follow the buoys on faith that the government is keeping them positioned in response to almost continuous surveys. During our first day, we saw three survey boats in different parts of the bay. Even with all of this help, in most boats it is still necessary to time the transit for high tide to keep from running aground at the shallowest part in the middle. Some places we made use of Maryanne at the bow just to be extra safe.

Departing Bundaberg we soon found sand, sunsets and stuff to fix

Since the tide floods in towards the middle from both ends, it is possible with careful planning to get pushed in from either end, cross the middle at high tide, and then let the ebb flush you out. We were basically able to do this, although high tide occurred too late in the day to allow us to make it all of the way to the other side. With the help of a good, strong tailwind that was just below the limit for our spinnaker, we were able to get about three normal days of distance in only one.

In the morning, we hitched ourselves onto the morning ebb for the short distance to Pelican Bay, which is at the southern end of the strait at Wide Bay Bar. Since we weren’t in a hurry, we unrolled half of the jib. That gave us enough speed to keep us in the channel while the current did most of the work of covering our distance.

Pelican Bay is a shallow basin that is only accessible on the top half of the tide, we made it in with half a meter to spare and were able to enjoy round-the-compass protection within. We thought we would have a couple of lazy days aboard with maybe an easy beach trip or two. After the bustle of Bundaberg, we were looking forward to a couple of lie-ins. Once we set the anchor, we dug it in with judicious reverse as usual. When I went to shift back to neutral, the port shifter cable snapped. Well, that was lucky timing. We were so glad we were safely at anchor and not in the middle of negotiating the maze between our difficult to access dock in Bundaberg and the bay.

The way it generally works with cruising is that the thing that breaks is always the thing for which you don’t have a spare, so it becomes necessary to cobble something together to get you to the next port. For once, though, we actually had the right spare! We had only one control cable, which we have been carrying around for four years and it just happened to be a port shifter cable.

That meant our lazy weekend was now going to be spent dismantling the boat to gain access to her innards and then snaking in and attaching the replacement. Then, just to be on the safe side, we got online and ordered a new one for the other side, plus replacement throttle cables for both, plus a spare for each. That should keep us set for a while.