After spending a few days in Southport catching our breath and doing the usual chores of laundry and reprovisioning it was time to move on. We decided to head north by going up the Broadwater to Moreton Bay. This is a meandering waterway with a marked channel that we had to motor through for about 20 miles. It was very shallow in some spots despite transiting it at high tide and we actually touched the bottom in a couple of spots. We also had a heart stopping moment when we nearly t-boned a houseboat that had been anchored in the middle of the channel while John was checking the chart and I was down stairs making a cup of tea. But we got through and anchored for the night at Coochiemudlo Island. The next day we sailed across Moreton Bay and spent the night at Scarborough Marina as it was very windy and the anchorage would have been very uncomfortable. From Scarborough we day sailed to Mooloolaba and o the way discovered that we had damaged or roller furler in the rough weather we experienced between Coffs Harbour and Southport. The lower section of the furler had been twisted like a pretzel and would need repairing.

As we arrived in Mooloolaba on a Friday we anchored out for the weekend and contacted a rigger to come and look at the damage when we had moved into the marina on the Monday morning. Initially we were going to try and repair the old furler but because of its age (20 years) and the fact that it was proving difficult to source replacement parts we decided that it would be best to install a completely new furler. With this decision made repairs went much more quickly but we were still in Mooloolaba for a couple of weeks. Mooloolaba is very much a holiday town with a large number of highrise hotels on the beach and restaurants and bars. It also reminded us very much of Ft Lauderdale with its canal developments.

While we were in Mooloolaba Fred and Catherine on Mary Blair caught up with us and also came into the marina as they were having Catherine’s father visit for a few days. Fred and Catherine are friends from Sydney who also had their boat at Cammeray Marina and were off on their sailing trip to New Caledonia, Vanuatu and destinations beyond. It was great to catch up with them and hear all the gossip. We visited Eumundi and some excellent dinner parties were also held.

Finally back in one piece we set off again headed for Lady Musgrave Island. As we had left Mooloolaba in the middle of the day we hopped up to Wide Bay and anchored there for the night as it was very calm. We had initially planned to go into Hervey Bay via the Great Sandy Strait but unfortunately the tide timings were wrong to make this feasible. From Wide Bay we made an overnight passage to Lady Musgrave Island arriving about lunch time.

Lady Musgrave Island is an atoll surrounded by a coral lagoon and is absolutely gorgeous. We had planned on staying there for only a day or two but ended up staying for 10 days. The snorkelling was brilliant and we saw sting rays, turtles, clown fish, giant clams and numerous other tropical fish. The water was so clear we were able to see the fish swimming around under the boat 25 ft below and the fish taking the bait when we were fishing. Also while at Lady Musgrave the dinghy decided to make a break for freedom one night and we woke up in the morning to no dinghy. Not a good feeling as it is a fairly new dinghy and had our six month old 2hp outboard attached. Thankfully one of the other yachts spotted it sitting out in the line of breakers at the edge of the reef and lent us their dinghy to go and rescue it. It returned to the boat in one piece and received a stern talking to in regards to its escapade. Since then no other dinghy probably gets secured to the boat quite as well as ours.

Reluctantly we had to leave Lady Musgrave as the booze stores were beginning to run low and the garbage beginning to pile up. We did another overnight passage to Pearl Bay, on the coast north of Yeppoon. It was a good passage in 20 – 25 knots on the beam, so we made it there at dawn. As we motored into the bay the motor faltered - the fuel bowl was full of water sludge. We made it in and John drained and bled the fuel. It looked like all the humidity and weather changes from Tasmania to QLD had condensed quite a lot of water in the tank, and the rough sea stirred it up. It’s been fine since.
We ended up being stuck in Pearl Bay for three days – a weather system came through and we had strong winds and heavy rain. We got a bit stir-crazy and were happy when we could finally get going again. We hopped to South Percy Island, where we almost hit the reef coming into anchor - we could only see it when we were almost on top of it. We spent a full day there because it was secluded, and finally the sun came out so we could have a swim. We only swim in the offshore islands because of crocs and stingers.

Then we hopped to Scawfell Island, arriving in the dark and leaving in the dark the next morning. Scawfell is the bottom of the Northumberland Group, the Whitsundays. Our next stop was Thomas Island. Each time the winds started off great, but dropped after a few hours and we ended up motoring. By this time we were down to a few litres of Diesel, but worse – out of beer, wine and spirits! So we went to Hamilton Island and got a marina berth for the night. Valet service to show us to our slip and the shops and pub helped the pain of the $100 per night fee. The outrigger races were on so that night (after shopping) we went to watch the band and catch up with Christian who used to work at the Swans club with Laura.