From the Sailing Blog of S/V Cielo
“June 14th, 2022, Bye bye Brisbane! On way to double island point. It’s a shame to miss seeing Teewah from the coast because of the dark. We had lovely flights from there a few years ago. Winds so much lighter than forecast so the iron sail has been on. Yuk. Managed to do a few hours under the spinnaker but wind speed has fallen to 3-4 knots.
Quite a busy shipping channel to get out of Moreton Bay – there are sandbanks everywhere so no surprise really. Saw another dugong last night. No photos as you only see their noses pop up, take a breath and dive back under. Stunning sunset again.
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June 17th, 2022, We got to Double Island Point as the sun came up. Very pretty indeed! We motored until 1am and then the wind finally came along so we sailed until our arrival. Stopped for breakfast and a cup of tea and then decided to head on to the Wide Bay Bar as the weather looked the best today for crossing. The coastguard here are really good. They give you coordinates for the best approach as there are some sand banks that the incoming swell and waves break on which can be very unnerving.
After an hour and some rock and roll during which some cushions fell onto the floor, we arrived in the Great Sandy Straits. We will find somewhere to anchor overnight and get some much needed sleep. For anyone who has been there we are right next to Fraser Island and almost at Hervey Bay. We’ve been warned the mossies are pretty active even now. Uh oh.
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June 19th, 2022, We made it to K’gari (Fraser Island) – the largest sand island on the planet! It was a pretty full on day. We had to time our trip to go through a really shallow spot of the great sandy strait called Sheridan Flats – we needed the tide to come in up to a certain level so ended up tacking upwind against a 2 knot current to waste time as we had gotten to the start point a bit early.
After we got through (shallowest we saw was 1.9m and we draw 1.54m) the wind picked up to 20 odd knots so we had a cracking sail further north to anchor out of the wind at North White Cliffs. We landed the dinghy and went for a walk up the beach admiring the artwork of the sand bubbler crabs and careful not to step on the army of tiny Soldier Crabs as we refloated the dinghy to get back to the boat.
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