It was flat calm day, an unusual thing. However i found that motoring around with the tiller-pilot steering all day was quite relaxing and easier than sailing.
It also allowed Teria to navigate much closer to shorelines than normal, so the coastal views were spectacular.
Sea mist lifting at Duckpond
The first leg was to follow Townsville's coastline North westwards. Along the Strand tourist beach, Kissing Point (Jezzine Park), Rowes Bay beach and Palleranda.
Townsville Marina entrance, Duckpond
Melton Hill apartments and "sugar shaker"
Longboards (rocky groyn), The Strand.
Fishing jetty, the Strand.
Kissing Point rockpool, the Strand.
Tiller pilot steering
Palleranda beach
Then turned North eastwards and headed for Magnetic Island, skirting around middle reef and passing Picnic Bay.
Misty sea, Magnetic Island
Middle reef marker
Motoring with tillerpilot, glassy misty sea
This was my first close approach to Nelly Bay, the main ferry terminal for the Island which also has a good marina for cruising boats.
Nelly Bay harbour entrance, car ferry entering.
Nelly Bay, Bright Point apartments.
Passed Alma Bay and had a look into Arcadia bay. The wharf area there is a dive charter operations zone, so headed back out. It was all good navigation practice. Used my chart, tide-watch, GPS, fish-finder and polaroid eyeballed it.
Arcadia dive boat wharf
It was a bit scary watching the depth sounder decrease rapidly when Teria idled over hard to see coral reef and a bombie (It went from 30ft deep sand bottom to 10ft - 4 ft deep coral in seconds!) However, the reef was at a safe depth as the tide was well above the neap low mark. Alan Lucas advice in, "Cruising tropical waters and coral", page 10. Coral can only grow upto the average neap low-tides mark, however the caveat is watch out for loose boulders thrown up by cyclones, this is more probable in exposed areas.
Lucas's "First rule of Coral" is always go around all reefs (even at spring high tides, due to the rogue boulder phenomenon)
Having 4 ft draft centerboad down and 2 ft draft board up, is good for coral reef waters. I always leave the board down when near shore.
Arthur Bay, my chart indicated bombies were there.
Rugged granitic headlands
Balancing boulders and Hoop pines.
Rocky shores
The Islands Coastal hills are ruggedly spectacular when close inshore. Large granite boulders sometimes balance precariously on each other and the pine trees are iconic trees on the steep slopes that are untouched by mankind. Rock wallabies and other critters like it though.
Florence Bay was a beautiful place for a lunch stop while the weather's right. There are National Park Mooring bouys to use, so moored Teria here. They can be used upto about 20 knot winds, and have different colors and ratings for different sized vessels. A few small craft were anchored on the beach and a cruising cat anchored close inshore. About half of the bay is a shallow coral reef, it's edge is marked by white conical bouys and is a no-anchoring zone.
Florence Bay, public mooring
It was a bit nostalgic, 7 years since my last visit (in Teria) and 30 years since the first sail in there on HartleyTS16 "Jakkari").
Florence Bay
Florence Bay, Magnetic Island, Google Earth.
Departed at 2pm and motored back to Ross River at 5.5 knots. (Had to cut across shipping channel , then reset course for river)
There was a "mega-wake" port "SURVEY" vessel steaming up and down the Ross river outer channel at maximum wake producing hull speed. Getting Teria de-rigged was broken up into 5 minute segments, ready to hang on when the *-you port workers rolled Teria violently each time they did a run past.
The Ross river entrance is now just an afterthought by the authorities. The sand bank and depths must shift allot with time, hence the need for hydrographic surveys (hope they're not too often) There once was a plan to build a southern rockwall which would have help the river self-scour out a deep channel. Then ram new pile moorings in for 6+m high/masted boats, but that seems to be scrapped, wonder what reason? (environmental? budget priorities?)
Anyway, finally motored under "the * low bridge".. into calm waters again, hauled out without incident and got home safely.
Slipped away quietly under sail at 10am. The wind was weak, so hoisted the main at anchor, weighed anchor and ran downwind about along Horseshoe Bay beach (but outside the yellow shark control bouys) until clear of the anchorage area, then Gybed and headed seawards, in clear wind well away from the lee of the hills.
10/6/24, Day 3. It was a nice close haul on starboard tack into a 10 knot South west land breeze. Course was for Cape Cleveland, with a plan to gain southerly miles until the wind backed to the SE late morning as predicted, then sail for Townsville on port tack.
Clouds form out to sea over the great barrier reef
However nature doesn't always follow the "windy app" prediction. Instead the land breeze lasted hours longer, so just kept heading south. Which was easy because George was helming and the course was steady.
Teria was only a mile from the Cape's lighthouse when the predicted wind shift happened, and it backed so it was right on the nose. Motored into it for 10 minutes and anchored in Redrock Bay for lunch.
I had skipped brekfast and was ravenous, sandwiches and fruit never tasted so good.
Set off for Townsville at 2pm on a dead run with a 15 knot tail wind. The ST1000 was ok while the waves were slight for just the first mile or so. As fetch increased waves were formed, and George couldn't hold course, so I hand-steered for port at an easy 5 knots.
ST1000 steering Teria away from Cape Cleveland
I was getting a bit weary and didn't relish doing ramp haulout late afternoon. So called QF8 Townsville Coast Guard on the VHF and extended the trip plan by another 24 hours (They update the "Tripwatch" app and send a link to your mobile, the app shows you and others at home your current and past track on google maps).
Now the time-pressure was off it was a nice sail and anchored in the Duckpond's flat waters for the night.
The new +5C sleeping bag, an Ozetrail Kingsford" was just right. 10C last night, which is cold for the tropics. It was caused by a northbound Antarctic airmass (which had warmed up as it moved north).
Cooked "first bacon and eggs" on Teria with the gas mode Trangia. Tested a fold down silicone basin for washing dishes, a good size. After use it folds down for compact storage. Some grey silicone drain mats (k-mart) also double as hot pot trivets.
Cooking up a hot breakfast
Washing up dishes, silicone basin
Dinning table and hot pot area (cork lined galley box lid/door)
A siren was blaring in the port. It was HMAS "Adelaide" (L01), one of two landing helicopter dock (LHD) ship of the Royal Australian Navy. She's 757ft (LOA), 105ft beam and 27,000 tons. 23 ft draft which is shoal draft for size allows entry into secondary sized ports. She can carry rotor wing aircraft (Blackhawks, Chinooks, even USN Ospreys), 4 landing barges, some high speed RIB's, light - armoured vehicles and over 1,000 troops in addition to the ships regular crew. She has a distinctive "ski jump" bow (not in use for now). She's done some humanitarian relief work in the South Pacific and been deployed to several joint naval excercises. Home port is Sydney. HMAS Adelaide - Wikipedia
HMAS Adelaide visiting port
Fast passenger ferry cats and the slower car ferry cat were plying to and from Magnetic Island. The Duckpond has no ship or speedboat wakes due to the rock wall.
Duckpond yachts, one sank.
Went past a sunken yacht in the Duckpond. It's hull and cabin were under, and she settled almost upright into the soft mud bottom. No bad weather events, so could have been something like a failed through hull fitting perhaps? I've noticed that other sunk wrecks in the Duckpond or Ross river are usually removed after a month or two, there are salvage barges with cranes etc and commercial divers operating from the Rosshaven commercial basin, Ross River. The Duckpond is calm all winter months so the sunk vessell has a good chance of being raised and re-floated intact.
Headed out at 10am into light winds. Tried the tiller-pilot but no power was getting through. Traced the fault to a loose power wire in the cockpit wall socket. Luckily I had a leatherman tool with the finest of screwdrivers, as the sockets wire holding screws were miniscule in size. The helm impeder also helped keep Teria on course while doing this repair. (note to self - test tillerpilot at home before leaving!)
Motor sailing past Magnetic Island
Motor-sailed over to/past Magnetic Island for 2 hours with "George" steering. What a difference! As it was a calm weekend, there were allot of speed-boats and some cruising yachts etc plying this route, so had to keep a watch, adjust georges course or take over to avoid other boats.
Australian Volunteer Coast Guard vessel, "Rotary Rescue"
Bright yellow "Rotary Rescue" was out and heading back at high speed. She's the flagship of Townsville coast guard, QF8. Next year the State Government is going to merge the two volunteer coastguard organizations existing in Queensland (VMR=volunteer Marine Rescue and AVCG = Australian Volunteer Coast Guard.) They will be re-badged into one taxpayer funded entitiy called MRQ (Marine Rescue Qld) which will simplity things. It will operate under the water police department, who will coordinate/delegate rescue missions, but Marine Rescue boat's won't enforce marine law just do rescue work as before. It will remove a huge financial burden off the shoulders of each self-funded VMR/AVCG rescue unit, so they can concentrate more on practical tasks. It's estimated that MRQ's budget will be A$27 million per year, some new boats can be bought and operating costs will be covered.
Off Orchid rocks about 1pm a 10-15 knot easterly sea breeze finally kicked in and broad reached further offshore for a decent sail. Had to hand steer for this, as the waves were on the quarter as well. Tillerpilot doesn't like this point of sail much. A few miles out passed an anchored trawler and a lone fishing tinnie.
Trawler anchored out
Gybed to a starboard broad reach and ran down into Horseshoe Bay.
On course for Horseshoe Bay
Approaching..
Entering Horseshoe Bay, White Lady Bay beach.
Allot of boats were anchored in there (peak season) so started the engine early and George steered while I lowered and furled the sails. It's easy and far safer to control the speed and heading of the boat while entering a tight anchorage.
Idled in slowly, weaving through the fleet, until the sounder read 8 feet deep (near lowest tide), which was close to the beach and hills, so there were only small wavelets and it's calmer waters. The anchor chain rattled out, was secured and Teria reversed to set the anchor for the night.
Wharram cruising cat dried out on the beach at low tide.
Large shoal-draft crusing cats can anchor close inshore.
Atmospheric dust makes for nice sundowns at anchor
The cabin with galley box and 4 day ice-box
Twilight at anchor
Amazing red-orange sunset evening, then finger nail moonset about 8pm, followed by bright starscape sky. Saw a couple of quick meteors burn up in a flash. The milky way was clearly visible, and the star finder app located and identified stars. (Many double or triple star systems, single star systems like our sun are the odd ones out.) It's always great to have an astronomy session and think about our small pale blue dot spiraling through the cosmos when away from the city lights.
Tested the trangia/galley box inside cabin to re-heat dinner. Got some through-ventilation going and the carbon monoxide (CO) alarm remained at zero ppm.
Also it's a few degrees Celcius warmer out here at night than on the mainland.
The weather forecast looked good so launched Teria on Sat 8th June, early afternoon at Ross River.
Ramp B launching
Car-trailer park
Ross River motor out
Favorite tea towel - Also a cabin window curtain
Ramp B lee pontoon wasn't too busy, but being a weekend with lighter winds meant allot of power boats were already out although plenty of cars/ boat trailers were parked at the recreation boat park, it was still only about half full (Its a big facility, run by city council). ( Could have tried the coast guard boat ramps at Ross creek in town (Run by Port of Townsville), it's good but bet it would have been 110% full, with cars up on the grass nature strips)
At the mast raise spot, seaward of the port bridge, there were allot of boat wakes rocking Teria about. A shoulder injury had kept me landbound for ages but had finally healed enough, so was happy to be able to rig up between boat wakes, and held on when they rolled Teria around. Good weather weekends are not good times to go out, couldn't get away from the "hell swarmers" fast enough. It's a good motivation to launch/retrieve only on Monday to Fridays in future, if possible.
Rigging up spot - Ross River entrance
Motored out into a 10-15 knot eastery and unrolled the jib only, to motor-sail leisurly over to the Duckpond anchorage not far away.
Motor-sailing
Townsville port
Townsville port - Mt Stuart
This trip was a test run for 3 new things aboard. A tide watch, Trangia 25 cooker, and fully fledged ST1000 tiller-pilot with it's extended arm.
The combination of tide watch (and tables) and fishfinder was great for selecting the best anchoring position. Very little chance of "drying out" at low tide anymore. Found a shallow spot inshore of the anchored fleet of crusing yachts, near a couple of cruising ecatamarans and a motor cruiser (the "2-foot draught club"). It was closer to the protective rock breakwall and further from any wave action.
Tested the Trangia 25 stove in galley box in cockpit. Used the gas burner mode, which was very fast to boil water and re-heat pre-cooked food. The gas can be turned down and there was excellent flame/heat control from the gas valve. It was outside the cabin because didn't want to risk gas getting inside/staying in the bilges (explosion hazard)
