Mooloolaba to Moreton Island When the Time is Right

There's no sense in pushing it. Go when the weather factors line up. We spent a week in the Mooloolaba Marina which gave us an opportunity to celebrate the 3 year anniversary of our departure from Mandurah with some cruiser friends that we've spent time with since our Tassie visit,  plus visit our Brisbane Grandkidlets for a couple of nights. We also needed to check the depth at a pontoon we'll leave Zofia on during our Christmas trip home to Perth.

Pontoons and water-facing areas beginning to be 'dressed' for the festive season.

At the conclusion of a week, the weather was nowhere near OK to depart (strong SE winds + swell) so we left the marina and anchored in 'The Pond' which is a wide portion of the Mooloolah River surrounded by Canal homes etc. Free anchorages, in otherwise built up areas, tend to be crowded and hosting rather too many 'unattended abandoned dreams'. The rules say 1 week is OK but there are some 'vessels' long past both their welcome and serviceability and prone to dragging anchor in strong conditions imperilling surrounding vessels. The Bloke wanted to keep our stay there to a minimum, despite the ready availability of 'Friday night Fish and Chips', newspapers and coffees ashore. To be sure, Mooloolaba is very seductive, offering beach, river and canal possibilities. A ready supply of avocado's and ripe mango's too.... drool!

   

Visiting the beach confirmed big swells and good surf.  A bad combo for a river bar crossing.

Let the wind and tide be right for our escape

Perfect, smooth conditions at dawn at the river bar on a making tide

 

Goodbye Point Cartwright.

See you on our return in 2-3 weeks!

Beyond Point Cartwright, ships anchor waiting for admission into the Port of Brisbane. Since Moreton Bay is full of sand banks there are clearly defined shipping channels, so The Bloke was on his toes while traversing the top of Moreton Bay but we had fabulous sailing conditions and averaged 6knots all day with the assistance of 15knot ENE winds and 1.5-2kn of current for part of the way too.

Passing traffic!

Although we'd considered Peel Island to be our target anchorage, it did seem a shame to pass a perfectly nice one that had been recommended to us by locals, so we dropped anchor at the Big Sand Hills off Moreton Island and declared: "Anchor's down, Cocktail time"!