The Kingdom of Baikal

 

We left Bundaberg on an early nippy morning bound for Pancake Creek, some 55miles north of Bundaberg. We had a fantastic sail as the wind was coming off the land (westerly) smooth seas Our mates on Captain Jacko hailed us on the vhf to tell us not to rush into the anchorage, another yacht ad run aground, so we pissed around outside the entrance sailing back and forth for about 45 minutes to wait for a bit of tide to come in, 45 minutes is a long time to sit and stew over the situation that lay before us. Come on we have new antifoul on Baikal, I’m sure she doesn’t want her lovely red bottom to come off just because her careless skipper and 1^st mate couldn’t wait!

We had a few leads to line up and so we putted in, the lowest we got down to on the depth sounder was 0.4m under the keel, whew, we made it. It was worth the effort, The next morning adorned a beautiful anchorage, we had a great walk to Bustard head lighthouse (the first lighthouse built by the Queensland government on the 26^th june 1868).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We had fun cast netting some wee fish, the next day the strong south easterly wind  opposed the current, so we were sitting over our anchor and sailing on anchor all over the place. So we hooned outta there on a high wind warning 20 -30 knot south easterly, surfing down some decent waves, made for a fast passage to Cape Capricorn. Cape Capricorn is so named because it lies almost exactly on the tropic of capricorn23° 30′. We had now entered the Tropic of Capricorn!! Drink to that we did.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here we got to explore Curtis Island, some of these beaches were rubbish strewn, however it made for some good beach combing. We found bits on the beach to make our dinghy into a sailing dinghy, Beach combing is a favourite pastime. Also we saw a 3m sea snake just cruising along the surf. Duds stood on a small brown snake , we thought it was dead , just as we went down for a closer inspection it slithered away, scared of us.

 

 

 

 

 

A short 7mile sail to Hummocky Island the next day proved to be a stunning change in scenery. Paddling along the shoreline we saw our first coral since leaving Coffs.

Great Keppel Island which is where we are now has a lot to offer the adventurer/explorer (which is our profession of course!). From the many beaches, fishing, goat spotting, kayaking up through the mangroves to bonfires on the beach, we are enjoying our time here.  We have managed to catch up with the Coffs Harbour Crew, Torba Queen and Captain Jacko.