All That Jazz

Among the joys of taking a mooring at Brisbane’s Botanic Gardens is the access available to cultural delights. Hugh and Julianna, our friends from the sailing catamaran Sans Souci, decided to take advantage of our location and drive down from Mooloolaba to stay on board with us and accompany us to the Brisbane Jazz Club. How easy was it to get there? This easy: Take the dinghy ashore; walk 150m to Eagle St Pier; catch the free City Hopper across the Brisbane River to Hutton St (beneath the Storey Bridge) and step ashore virtually at the Jazz Club entrance. Too easy!

Night view from our bow toward the Storey Bridge.

View of the club from the river - situated in a former boat shed it is prone to flooding.

Curious art installation out the front

 

View from the Jazz Club across the Brisbane River adding to the atmosphere.

The Brisbane River Botanic Garden Moorings

It’s hard to imagine a more convenient and truly amazing spot to stop with your boat. It’s right up there with Constitution Dock in Hobart. Imagine being moored at the bottom of one of the main streets in a CBD along side a Botanic Garden. The whole city is at your feet: entertainment, museums, parklands -the lot! There is even a dedicated dinghy wharf. It costs mere shekels - $70 per week but the process of making your stay official is an entertainment that only a public servant could dream up, so we’ll share it with you.

Zofia tied up with one of dozens of ferries in the background.

Sun setting behind the mature Botanic Garden trees

City getting festive at dusk

There are 4 rows of piles. Smallest spaces are closest to river wall. Being closer in gives an advantage re boat wash. It’s very busy with ferry traffic but calm enough at night. You need long lines to secure the boat at the bow and stern. There will usually be someone around who will assist you tie up. It’s easiest if you can time your arrive at slack High tide. If arriving slack Low, it’s much harder to get the ropes through the stainless steel rings as they are so high up relative to your deck! We like facing downstream (bow pointing at Storey Bridge)so we have more protection in the cockpit from any stronger prevailing breezes.

There is a first in best dressed system: no bookings. Just arrive and find a spot you like the look of. If there are lines between 2 piles it means the spot is taken and the boat temporarily absent.

Once you’re settled you can head to the ‘office’. It's in the St George Square car park and accessed via Anne Street.

Yes, just walk in here.

 

Hmmm? Where to now? Walk diagonally across.

Boomgate behind the pillar labeled ‘B’ is your target.

Destination. Yes, really!

The 'Office' is in a booth located near a boom-gate in the underground carpark at St Georges Square (access from Anne St) you walk diagonally across the carpark and down the ramp to a lower level. The booth is next to a boom-gate.

Take the following with you (or a copy).
1) Boat Registration
2) Photo ID (passport OR drivers licence)
3) Skippers Ticket/Boat Licence
4) Insurance Certificate of Currency no older that 1 month old proving you have $10m Public Liability. (This proved as problem for us because our insurer only issues 1 Certificate of Currency and it’s after renewal. Our Broker and the Council Official exchanged emails to confirm we had not cancelled our policy since it’s issue).
5) Completed Application form - see BCC website OR ask for one when you get to the booth OR someone might let you into the laundry located near the dinghy dock under the Stamford Plaza hotel where there are usually a few spare blank forms.

In return the Council Officer (very helpful) will give you a temporary fob to access Laundry, Oar Store+Ablutions. Once your application is approved (by some person located elsewhere) you’ll receive an email. You can then return and get another fob key and pay money. You can only pay 2 weeks in advance and in person. In principal this payment regime is to discourage people from leaving their boats (rotting hulks) unattended for extended periods.

It might be more comfortable on anchor a bit further along and certainly the dinghy dock is not restricted in any way. Be prepared for your dinghy to get a bit of harsh treatment on the wharf because of current + wash. A method of locking your dinghy to the dock is advisable.

Bins are located ashore and freshwater can be collected by Gerry can from the laundry.

2 top loader washing machines are located in the laundry as well as 1 dryer. $4 per wash. The machines take $1 and $2 coins.

At the end of your stay the fob can be returned into a collection box in the Laundry.

High tide

City night sky and a few fireworks thrown in.

Crazy as it is, it's fun here, even if a bit lively at times due to ferry wash!

Groundhog Day

The run up to the Christmas period pushed us to leave Mooloolaba on the first available weather window and head for the Botanic Garden Pile Moorings up the Brisbane River. As much as we would have liked to go straight down to the Sandunes anchorages at Moreton Island we opted to pull in at Tangalooma. Richard and Marianne (SV Tauranga) were there and it had been several weeks since we’d last seen them. We were also the escort through the Mooloolah River Bar for the new owners of SV Shenanigans and they too were aiming for Tangalooma.

The bar crossing was calm and easy as can be for our Stupid 0’clock departure - even though we had to get around the dredge that was taking up half the channel

SV Shenanigans motor sailing.

We’d sat through some quite strong SW and SE conditions for a number of days and it took a while for anything like the promised Easterly to arrive. Sails Up: engine off. Sails down: engine on. Repeat. Plus it was a busy day dodging container shipping!

We ended up spending 3 rolly nights at Tangalooma with plenty of cloud and rain but enjoying our reunion with the ‘Rangas’ before pushing on to Brisbane in readiness for baby sitting duties.

 

Passing through the Port of Brisbane

Under the Gateway Bridges

Friday seems to be cruise liner day in Brisbane and we just got past before the last of the immense mooring cables was released to liberate this liner from Bretts Wharf.

 

The Storey Bridge is the last one that yachts can pass beneath

The Pile Moorings coming into view.

As we got closer we found Paul and Sjarny aboard SV Skellum were there. What luck, because Steve from SV John Barleycorn was also there to assist us with tying up. Note to self: arriving at low tide means the rings are a bit hard to reach and we needed all the help available!

 

SV Skellum + Steve on hand to assist

Imagine our surprise when we checked our logbook to realize that we had exactly retraced our steps from Tangalooma to Brisbane the previous year on the same dates. We were back on C13 too - Groundhog Day!

Winner, Winner a Crab Dinner

Drawing a crab tagged with number 401 for the GoWest Rally Crab Race had a promising sound to it. We had purchased a $20 contender which we’d get to eat a couple of days later. Ocean Pacific Seafoods who also own the Bundaberg Port Marina and were among the major sponsors for our rally, had made their premises available and not only supplied the spanner crabs but had offered to cook them too.

The racers

  

Even the crab selection was a spirited affair. What would a quick one look like?

We Aussies are known for betting on anything and everything - even 2 flies crawling up a wall. The international sailors took note and participated even if a bit skeptical to begin with. The arena, rather than being a circle, was amusingly arranged as a map of Australia. Tasmania was included but as usual, something of an afterthought and represented by an appropriately shaped rock. Rules of engagement were simple: first 5 crabs in each of 2 heats, to reach any boundary, would be in the final. In the final, the first crab to reach any boundary would win the ‘owner’ a $100 seafood voucher from Ocean Pacific Seafoods. Win or loose, we’d still have a cooked crab for supper on Monday night!


With much at stake, participants were ready to urge their crab on. We felt particularly good about OUR crab: number 401. The number seemed auspicious. The Japanese garden in the central courtyard of Building 401 on our university campus, was the scene of our wedding reception 40 years ago. Look at those numbers, surely they would be lucky for us?

   

Geoff, the marina manager, presided over the occasion and gave a run down on Spanner Crabs, where and how they could be caught and local regulations regarding catch size and even how to handle them and tie up their claws once caught.



But enough already! Let’s get back to the racing. We’d been warned it might be slow. In the main, Geoff was right except for 401 which took off towards the furtherest boundary and the geographical equivalent of Perth - our own home town. The other contestants had barely left the starting mat when our crustacean clawed the line. The Bloke was beside himself, we’d scored number 1 in the heat.

Getting frustrated, another backer urging his crab to move. Just a bit. P l e a s e.

Just shift those nippers!

Amazingly, in the final, our 401 made a conspicuous repeat performance making a bolt for ‘Perth‘ on the westernmost border of the arena. Clearly, The Bloke is better at selecting racing crabs than Melbourne Cup contenders!

Winning nippers!

The afternoon was rounded off by a raffle of excess rally gifts while we gobbled down 500gms of freshly cooked prawns each, washed down with some ice cold Great Northern beer supplied by the Great Northern Brewing Co. Beer and prawns - a killer combo! To 'share the love', we immediately converted our $100 seafood voucher into oysters to share around.

  

From the sponsors

Coffin Bay oysters - yum

Roll now to Monday....bottoms up...Winner, winner... a crab dinner!

Thank you 401!!

Mayhem on The Burnett River

Melbourne Cup always creates a bit of fun and madness. Upon seeing a promotion for a $35 a head Melbourne Cup Luncheon up at the Lighthouse Hotel in Burnett Heads, The Bloke set about organizing a table. 6 quickly became 9+ and the hotel shuttle bus was arranged to collect us from the Marina. Although only 2 kms away, at the last minute, we decided it was a bit too hot to walk in the semi-tropical heat.

Some other Aussie rally members had organized a sweep for The Cup and The Bloke drew a crazy horse by the name of ‘US Army Ranger’.  Having this as ‘our’ horse undoubtedly threw a hex on it. The Bloke generally has a ‘flutter’ on The (Melbourne) Cup and his record in the last few years particularly poor. Dead, still running (i.e. last) and dead, as distinct from dead last. This year? Nearly last: US Army Ranger was cantering and out of camera shot while the winners were galloping and straining at the finish line. The re-telling next year will become more elaborate.

After lunch, the first of our GoWest Rally talks was scheduled. It began with a lighthearted presentation on how to survive ‘Downunder’: Aussie vernacular, food and animals. The Vegemite sandwiches had a mixed reception! After this we had a presentation about coastal VHF radio channels and understanding East Coast Weather. Among the information bites was a warning not to go to sea if thunderstorms were forecast. In fact, they were forecast for that very afternoon and why Zofia had all the hatches closed and dogged shut before we left for the day.


The Bloke was extending his afternoon’s enjoyment while I, sensing a distinct change in the weather, caught the earliest shuttle bus back to the marina to double up our lines, take down the flags and generally secure the boat. We were about to ‘cop it’!




And ‘cop it’ we did. The Bloke had mustered the last of the group still at the pub and requested an immediate return trip to the marina and just managed to clamber aboard Zofia as the lightening and wind intensified and rain began to fall.

This impressive image entitled "The Beast", of the entire storm cell, was captured from a high point by a professional photographer and included by his kind permission.

Daniel Morada - DTM Photography.

https://www.facebook.com/dandmanphotographix/

The wind contained in the storm cell was clocked by a fellow yachtie at 68.7knots (~ 126km). We were seeing 59-60 by the time we switched on the instruments. From a few announcement gusts of 35knots the wind just gushed stronger and harder like an approaching freight train. Rain was almost horizontal. Visibility reduced to a few metres. After 30 minutes, the wind and rain relaxed almost as suddenly as it had arrived. Only the lightening and devastation remained. All thoughts of frivolous horse racing stuff blown away with the wind. A whole new drama was unfolding. A catamaran already 2/3 sunk and a rescue and salvage in full flight.

The aftermath