Monday 22 April Great Sandy Straits, Fraser Island

early morning

testing the depth

After one has survived crossing the infamous Wide Bay Bar at the south end of Fraser you then have to cross the equally infamous (if you're a keeler) Great Sandy Straits. Sailors talk of these two as land marks of planning and navigation; true, get it wrong and you can get seriously embarrassed stuck on a drying mud flat, get it right and it's a nice trip. Today we had a nice trip following Chilli Heat who'd been through before and therefore knew where the trickiest bits might be, and because we were on a high high tide at 7am. It had been a very early start, anchors up as the sun peeked over the horizon, but worth seeing the new day begin with a mist of cold air over the warmer water, birds beginning to stir and not a ripple on the water.

pool side with Sue & Bruce

got any food for me?

Arriving at Kingfisher Resort just after 9am meant we had the whole day ahead. Poor Circe misjudged the steeply shallowing sea bed went too shallow and grounded in a falling tide. Bruce, David and I were in the dinghies trying to pull him off, leaning over on the spinnaker halyard bit all we managed to do was prepare Circe to have her hull careened when the tide went out. Fortunately there was no damage beyond pride and when the tide came back in in the afternoon she floated free.

While we were waiting for Circe to join the floating squadron we went ashore to visit the resort, a surprisingly large complex with villas dotted through the trees so discreet it was difficult to see from the bay. One drawback of the low tide is it exposes large mud flats – not perfect for 'beaching', more 'mudding' the dinghy to go ashore. We opted for the cheeky approach and wheeled ours up the concrete ferry ramp and parked our little green monster on the side. A drink, a swim in the pool and watching the tame kookaburras steal food from dinners plate was the order of the day. In the evening we popped over to Micromegas to catch up on their adventures since we haven't seen them for four days.