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!