Bundaberg: for mail again

[Kyle]We did an overnight sail from Pancake Creek to Bundaberg. We had light tailwinds with drizzle, which allowed us to use the spinnaker and give it a good rinse along the way. The wind was light enough that we could avoid the rain completely by staying under the bimini. Our first arrival in Australia was into Bundaberg, but this was to be our FIFTH time visiting the Burnett River and Bundaberg Marina. That's too many times visiting the same place for us, but it was a convenient stop to collect some critical mail so here we were again.

We arrived at the mouth of the Burnett River just after the sun came up and anchored to one side of the channel next to the boat 'Notorious', a black 15th Century carvel replica we had first seen at Marble Island. It is an impressive thing with a very distinctive and ominous silhouette. Graeme Wylie spent ten years building it in his back yard using old drawings and wreck diagrams as guides. These were the ships used by mostly the Portuguese, but also Christopher Columbus, to explore the New World. Graeme now lives and cruises aboard it full time with his wife (we didn't catch her name), stopping from time to time to show it as a museum exhibit.

Unfortunately, the first thing that comes to people’s minds when seeing it is, ‘pirate ship’. We saw an interview where Graeme he kept referring to it as a carvel and even the reporter wouldn’t stop gushing on about how great it was to see a real pirate ship. She never referred to it as anything else, completely oblivious to the fact that if it were, she would not be doing a syrupy interview, but would likely be dragged aboard to be a sex slave for the crew. Pirates are not nice people.

The owner/builder (Graeme) was a nice guy. He seemed to realize that, even though he kept correcting her, he would never win the battle with the public about what kind of boat he had. Occasionally, when they are in a big town, they offer tours to locals and schoolchildren, which the reporter immediately rebranded as ‘pirate ship tours’. I guess if that’s what lines people up to help pay for your next bottom-paint job, that’s what you have to put up with.

They upped anchor to head upriver before we did. As they went by slowly, we had a lovely shouted conversation about where we each had been lately. They said to come on over if we ever see them in an anchorage. Definitely not pirates.

The boat Notorious, and Begonia, both anchored in the Burnett River
(Begonia photo credit:Morpheus of London)

We had hoped to meet up with our English boating friends aboard 'Morpheus of London' during our time at the marina. Unfortunately they departed early in the morning the day after we arrived in the river, and before our slip was ready at the marina. We missed them but they took a stunning picture of Begonia as they sailed by (and were kind enough not to wake us).

It was weird being back in Bundaberg. It’s the place in Australia where we have spent the most time, which made returning feel a little like a homecoming. We spent almost all of our time here waiting on delayed mail and just dying to leave, so our conditioning also immediately made us feel kind of trapped, this time was no different. We were finally able to meet up with a host of critical mail (bank cards, parts, replacement camera, etc), and a few opportunistic bits of online shopping too, but one of our parts seemed to be running late.

Our plan was to spend a couple of days at the marina refilling our water tanks and doing laundry before heading upriver to provision downtown. Then Maryanne met a local in the laundry room who agreed to loan us her car for the day while she was at work at the fish and chip shop in the marina complex. Now we were going to be busy.

With a car, which was a big station wagon to boot, we could now drive right up to all of the grocery stores, buy a bunch of heavy stuff and then drive it practically back to the boat. That beat making multiple treks across downtown wearing heavy packs on a hot day and then having to shuttle it all back and forth via bus and dinghy.

This meant that our provisioning downtown would only be for a few last-minute perishables. The rest of the time, we could spend ambling through parks and resting in pubs. "Bundy" was on lockdown last time, so we never had the chance to sit on a balcony overlooking the river and do things like enjoy a cup of tea and a slice of cake.

We had a leisurely time in downtown Bundaberg, and river trails.
Kyle found a new bird friend at the small (free) zoo

In order to get over the shallow bits of the river on the way downstream, we had to leave twelve hours earlier than would have been ideal. That was okay, because we needed to collect our last piece of mail before the marina closed. We got it. We’re free again. Then it was back to the Burnett River anchorage for a nap before the overnight sail to Maryborough.

Gladstone/Pancake Creek

[Kyle]We left Long Beach at Keppel Island way before anyone else. Thunderstorms were passing through the area, with lots of rain and lightning. We knew it wasn’t going to stop completely, so we left at the first lull, when the rain reduced to a drizzle.

Our sail was not ideal. Mostly, I sat out in the rain getting drenched while Maryanne hunkered down in the dry cabin. This was my fault. She offered to take over, but I saw no point in both of us getting soaked, so I stayed at the helm taking the brunt of it.

Another hitchhiker aboard for the passage,
we were anchored well before sunset at Gladstone North

After a whole day of this, we finally pulled into the "North Gladstone" anchorage in the lee of Rat Island. This place may have been more interesting had we gone ashore to the little village, but the weather wasn’t great and we were planning on leaving early in the morning, so we just used it as a brief rest stop.

We had the anchor up the next morning in the darkness before 4am. I was very careful to stay dead center on the range markings as we exited at low tide. Once the depth sounder started reading double-digits, we turned southeast through the Gladstone ship anchorage.

Passing through the 'parked' bigger ships

Due to COVID, the place is busier than usual as ship after ship runs out their quarantine clock before being allowed to unload. Each one made for a nice indicator of our progress as we left them behind – way better than some landmarks on the barely visible shore in the distance.

Once the ships had receded to a few ship bridges poking over the horizon, we arrived at Pancake Creek. This is one of our favorite spots along this coast. Last time we were here, though, the place was sparsely populated. Now, all of the mooring balls were full and most of the remaining anchoring space was taken. We picked our way as far as we dared into the shallow water beyond all of them and found a relatively private spot.

It rained and blew hard for the next two days, which effectively kept us aboard. During the height of one storm, I made a point of going out on deck to enjoy it. The cold rain was a shock initially as I soaped up, but I was soon enjoying the torrent as it rinsed me squeaky clean and then some. All of the salt and dirty footprints were washed from the decks. All of the rigging aloft finally got the good fresh water rinse our rigger told us to do each time we take the boat out. It was marvelous. I re-entered the cabin with pruny skin that squeaked when I rubbed it.

We stayed aboard during some miserable weather

After the weather cleared up a bit, Maryanne and I headed ashore for the hike to the Bustard Head Lighthouse and beyond. Last time we visited (in May of 2020), the place was closed due to COVID, but now, we could finally get the tour.

We arrived early enough that we decided to let the caretakers have some more time, so we continued on to Jenny Lind Creek. We had stopped short of descending all of the way back to sea level last time, but this time, we made the trek. It was beautiful down there, with undulating sand flats and lots of multi-colored rock formations on which to climb.

The walk from Pancake Creek to the beautiful meandering Jenny Lind Creek

When we arrived back at the lighthouse complex, we were given a tour of the old caretaker’s cottage and allowed up to the top of the lighthouse where we enjoyed the views from the railing just below the lens. Then a big tour group arrived on one of the amphibious tourist transports and we took our leave for the walk back to the dinghy.

Finally Inside the lighthouse and museum!
All presented with a great sense of humor (e.g. A bookshelf includes the kama-sutra among serious boating tomes, ladies underwear is ready to be ironed, and little discoveries await throughout)

The amphibious LARC does tours from the nearby town of 1770
We saw them coming and squeezed in our tour just before the group made it to the lighthouse

And back to enjoy Pancake creek at low tide

Great Keppel Island

[Kyle]From Pearl Bay, we had a long sail down the coast to Great Keppel Island (Known as GKI). After almost a week of strong south-easterlies, there was supposed to finally be enough north in the wind that we could do the bulk of the trip without having to tack. It worked out that way, for the most part, but the wind was still twenty to thirty degrees more ahead of us than the forecasts predicted. This meant that instead of sailing the direct course on a fast beam reach, we ended up close hauled, riding every wind shift and pinching as hard as we could into the wind to get around every point. It was a real nail-biter. We knew that if we had to tack, we would probably lose half an hour, which our ETA was looking like we couldn’t really afford.

There was a LOT of algae patches in the water that we've been seeing for weeks along this stretch of coast. At first I'd thought it was coral spawn, but since it's been around so long, that is clearly not the case

The wind shifted just enough to get us around the point, then the next, then the next. We made it to the big bay at Long Beach with just enough time to tidy Begonia up and have dinner before the falling darkness and our early start made our eyelids too heavy to keep open.

By the next sunrise, we’d had a full night’s sleep and were hankering for a bit of walking around. The last time we were here (back in May of 2020, we were on the completely opposite side of the island at Svendson's Beach. This time we were able to spend a whole day going up and down the island’s trails without intersecting any of the one’s we had done last time. Thus, it seemed like we were visiting a whole new island.

The COVID pandemic was in its second month back when we last visited and all of the commercial interests on the island were then shut tight. Now, things in Queensland are pretty much back to normal, so we actually had a choice of places in which to spend our lunch money. We had lunch at the resort, which was good, but it was also really busy. Most of the crowd seemed to be going for a douchey Jersey Shore vibe, which killed any motivation to linger over dessert. Instead, we went to the ‘other’ place for ice cream bars. It had a much more laid-back Polynesian atmosphere. We both immediately wished that we had held out and eaten there. Oh, Well.

Aside from finding the trash dump of the island, the walk was pleasant and with plenty of great views

A few more ups and downs got us back to Long Beach, while helping us to work off our lunch. On the way, we got a text from Jan and Richard aboard Morpheus, saying they were anchored right behind us. We have known them for years, but we always seem to be leapfrogging each other. Rare have been the days when we actually get to see each other in person. They said they were leaving tomorrow, so we decided not to risk going home and instead headed straight to Morpheus from the beach for a catch-up. Their long-term plans have changed and now they are looking at importing Morpheus to Australia so that they can either sell it or possibly just use it as a southern hemisphere vacation home (they are British).

When Jan was telling the story, I couldn’t help but notice that there was something familiar about the boat behind her. I thought about it for a minute and then realized what it was: It was the Screamers! There was not actually any screaming going on at the moment, which was strange (good). How did they get here? Keppel is several days of sailing from Keswick and the weather most of the time has not been nearly as good as it was the night they headed off at sunset to find a better anchorage. There’s NO way I would have imagined them getting this far. Perhaps the non-screaming was coming from the new owners on their new boat, enjoying their delivery cruise home. The mystery deepens…