Mooloolaba

"Pukey the Auto Pilot" has been hard at work on the leg from the Gold Coast to Mooloolaba. We bumped our way through the inside of Stradbroke Islands. It took a few tries to get through the shoals at Jacobs well.

The next leg is from Mooloolaba to Fraser Island. Our current plan is to go on the outside around Fraser Island to Pancake creek that is just north of the town of 1770. This section has the last beaches that have surf, as the Great Barrier Reef starts to the north of Pancake creek.

Iluka to Southport 13/6/2010

Finally left the sanctuary of the Clarence river for the bright lights of the Gold Coast.
Southerly winds 15-2oknts and sloppy seas. We crossed the bar two hours before high tide with a few breaking waves to the north of the entrance.
Off Evens head we had our first whale encounter, no photos unfortunately, as we where shitting our selves as we thought it was trying to mate with the boat. Lots of dolphins off Cape Byron that made up for the whale encounter.

With squally winds with showers we put a reef in the main, and by sun set the wind had clocked around to the south west smoothing out the seas allowing us to shake out the reef. The boat was now doing 9knts and "Pukey" the Auto Pilot was in its element.

The bright lights of the Gold Coast is in stark contrast to Iluka, "Pukey" the Auto pilot and the crew are going to party hard whilst I am going catch up on my reading.

Bar Crossings

Bar crossings are interesting experience. Leaving the Clarance river one comes very close to the southern wall and then a quick turn to the south at the entrance to clear the breaking shoals. This was one of the quieter days in the past few weeks.

Yamba/Iluka

We have spent the last week at Iluka, surfing and exploring the area. ILuka one of the last towns before the mass development from Byron Bay to Noosa. We had an excellent surf at Iluka Bluff point break.

Yamba to Mt Isa 1/6/2010

Slight detour to Mt Isa to install a new node at MT Isa Copper Mesh network, at least it is not raining !

While I am working the crew is out surfing and partying