No resting for us, with a strong southern blow coming that brought rain overnight, we wanted to leave the dock as early as possible. I had scouted a breakfast takeout place nearby and snagged a breakfast wrap and latte as soon as they opened. Back to Sky Pond it was time to go! Off the dock at 5:45am we made our way down the Brisbane river and I grabbed a bite of breakfast as time allowed.
Multiple tugs passed us, nearing the bay I thought I heard Sky Pond being hailed. Carl didn’t think so but I turned up the volume on the radio. Sure enough, the captain of a massive container ship called us a second time. He explained they would be rotating 180 degrees and needed us stand off to the west/northwest. Still a few miles away I pulled the power back a bit thinking it would only take a few minutes to rotate. Ha! As we approached, were coasting along when it became clear there was a strong current. The channel is quite narrow and hugging the outside edge I would move us up river, we’d drift back and then repeat. One time we were near a marker but outside the channel by maybe 25 meters, I noticed the depth was down to 1.8 meters. Wow, it does shallow up. It was impressive watching the three tugs rotate this massive vessel just a few hundred meters away. Finally, we received the call from the captain we were cleared to pass. That too was interesting, there were large eddies spinning off the bow/stern thrusters and the tugs which required constant adjustments to our course to not get spun toward them. And then we were free!
The route south to Russell island started fairly easy and we raised the sails to pick up an extra knot plus of speed. A few hours later we were coming up to much shallower water, the sails were dropped and we cautiously continued. Stress continued as we glided over one shallow after the next. Dodging left, course moving right. It was a zigzag around shoals rarely seeing more than 2.5 meters of water under the keel. Finally we reach the last shallow before our intended anchorage. There were a lot of mooring balls with boats on them. And lots of high speed ferries coming and going. This made the designated anchorage look unappealing. We checked out two areas of mooring balls but we didn’t know the rules/process for grabbing a mooring ball. After much hemming, we decided this wasn’t the best spot for us.
We motored about a mile, back through the last shallow spot and around the corner to an anchorage near the RQYS yacht club. It was nerve-wracking sailing under huge power lines. It sure looked like we were close to hitting them… Not liking the spot past the power lines, we doubled back and attempted to anchor on the north side. Set one, anchor drag. Set two, anchor drag. Back under the powerlines, around the corner towards another spot where boats were moored. A guy in a dinghy laying crab pots waved us off. Evidently, we were close to hitting a shoal. He suggested we go back near where we had tried earlier. Ugh. He directed us and set three, anchor drag. Fuck. I was convinced our Delta anchor was not good in the silty grey mud bottom. We had not really eaten anything today (well I had at least had the breakfast wrap), exhaustion was setting in, frustrations were mounting, so we stopped for some cheese, crackers, bars (we have not been able to reprovision since clearing into OZ). We motored around more discussing possibilities and finally settled on going back near the first spot and grabbing a mooring ball.
After all the drama, it was quick and simple to grab a mooring ball. We didn’t know the rules, so I headed into town to try to find out how to reserve/pay for the ball. I came to a dock worker and while he didn’t know the process told me I needed to go to the Maritime Safety Queensland website. I hit the grocery store for a few days provisions (I must add having such a wide variety and easy access to fresh produce was amazing) and more critically the liquor store for beer and wine. Priorities! Returning the Sky Pond I explained what I learned and that searching the Queensland website there was nothing about paying for an overnight mooring ball, maybe there is no charge?
I whipped up grilled chicken thighs, grilled zucchini, and a salad for dinner. Everyone was spent after a very long and stressful day that had been tacked on to the end of a long passage. What I’m trying to say is that we all crashed.
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