Burnett Heads to Garry's Anchorage

Sat 4 Sept 2010

Burnett Heads to Garry's Anchorage (Great Sandy Straits)

Burnett Heads sunrise

Up at 0500 again, a bite of toast and a cup of tea, then its up with the main and anchors away to meet

Saaremaa into the rising sun

another spectacular rising sun. At 0600 we left the other 2 boats in the anchorage and headed down the channel into the rising sun passing 'Shogun' a very butch looking racing yacht on its way in (maaaddd!!).

Butch 'Shogun'

10 birds a roosting on a port marker

The birds were enjoying a fine roosting on the channel markers as we passed by completely unperturbed by our presence. After leaving the shipping channel a little early on our way north previously we erred on the side of caution and went a little further before turning right and off to the Great Sandy Straits, destination Kingfisher Bay or Ungowa.

Benny Boy earning his keep

The wind was blowing NE at 15kts so we cut the motor and gave Benny Boy (the Monitor wind vane) a chance to strut his stuff. Benny Boy had a go for about an hour and did a good job but had to move over when the wind died and the motor went on. Raelene (autopilot) took over and Benny Boy watched how it should be done.

Annie with Fraser Island in the background

The seas were calm and in bright sunshine we chugged along at 5.5 - 6 kts until we reached the Fairway buoy and the flood tide picking up speed. Raelene steered all the way down past Kingfisher Bay to the Mary River entrance way point where we were now doing 7 kts.

Boonlye  Point

Our mainsail was still up and lacking boldness or courage we turned into the breeze and dropped it before proceeding on through the windy narrow and supposedly shallow parts of the Great Sandy Straits. The realisation that we had fortuitously flooked the flood tide and timing for Sheridan Flats (apparently the shallowest part but we had 5m of water depth) and Boonlye Point (where the tide floods the opposite way) made us press on for Garry's Anchorage which we reached as the sun started to set, quite spectacularly. We came in through the N entrance to Garry's past several boats and anchored up close to our previous position of a few weeks before at 1740.

Annie silhouette

We did 69 nautical miles from Burnett Heads in just under 12 hours ie just under 6kts average which is pretty good for Saaremaa. A feat that we feel was as 'Stoked' Maureen might describe "Heroic"!!
Just as an aside "How are you Fred & Maureen, still rumbling in the jungle?"

Sunset over north entrance to Garry's Anchorage

We saw no whales in Hervey Bay (the whale watch boats must have a bunch of tame whales that come out when called) however we saw turtles and one huge one at Boonlye Point laying on his/her (difficult to tell gender from the boat) rubbing paws errr flippers together.