North Stradbrook and Moreton Islands

[Kyle]Southeastern Queensland had been receiving deluge after deluge. Following our missed approach into Southport, our part of the state got a month’s worth of rain in just twelve hours. We were very lucky to only have a couple of brief showers during our time in the yard, but the rains of the wet season were forecast to resume after our departure. We returned to Slipping sands (North Stradbroke Island) to spend the next few days hunkering down through the next downpours.

We managed to escape the yard in a day of absolute calm, and be anchored well before the rains arrived

The rain provided for some enforced rest excuses for us, but the flooding in the area was quite devistating to many

It was so nice to not have the usual wake up of the Travelift going by at six a.m. We caught up on much needed sleep and felt little guilt about not heading ashore in the slashing rain. It hadn’t finished completely by the time we left, but it was the last of the good tailwinds, so we headed out in it for the long trip to the northern shore of Moreton Island. I kept telling myself the rain was warm and the journey amounted to both a free shower and laundry for my current outfit.

An early departure from Slipping Sands as we sail north with the currents, reaching "Yellow Patch" well before sunset

At the east side of the northern end of Moreton Island, we found a rolly anchorage occupied by us and five commercial fishing boats in an area marked "yellow patch". There was too much surf to consider landing on the beach, so we contented ourselves with watching the comings and goings of the fishing fleet and one more dismantling of our wind turbine.

Our new yaw bearing was working beautifully, but the regulator was misbehaving. It seemed that the repairs Matt and I had made had caused another problem and now the turbine was shutting down as soon as it started developing power, which was making it as useless as when it wouldn’t point into the wind. We spent all day taking it apart, refurbishing what we could and putting it back together. When we were finished, we did have some improvement, but not enough. After much more troubleshooting, we decided the regulator had suffered water damage in the same event that seized the yaw bearings. Resoldering the motherboard is beyond our abilities, so we eventually came to the unfortunate conclusion that it would be best to replace the unit. The poor thing had not even had the chance to leave Australia. The fault seemed to be in two unsealed bolts that allowed rainwater to make it inside the body and short out the unit. It's always disapointing to find stuff to fix so soon after leaving the annual haul-out.

We waited for the next favourable weather to hop north; spending a few days at anchor working on the wind generator and enjoying more nice sunsets