Sunday 7 April Southport to Manly, Qld

Following the careful consultation of tides and guides we began our trip up the inside passage (inside Stradbroke and Moreton islands) to Moreton Bay. This winding passage called Main Channel and Broadwater Channel wends over shallow sand banks, around mangroves, through small communities and under one suspended electric cable for 30 bottom puckering miles. Anxiety comes from having a boat with 2.1m draft which is deeper than the shallowest point at low tide and not very deep at high tide and a 20m air draft to sneak under a high voltage cable measured at 20.4m clearance minimum.

VMR Jacobs Well

I can now state the Broadwater Channel is navigable in an Amel. I've included this because I did internet searches looking for comfort that a boat of equal depth and height had been through without getting caught on the wire. Though we can now advise adhering to the marked channel, stray out of it at your peril as we did and you can spend an hour waiting for the tide to rise and float you off that pesky sand bank. Oops! We went a little bit to the right and clunked the sand. Fortunately we'd been warned it gets very, very shallow close to Jacobs Well and were ready with dinghy and a kedge anchor should it be required. The support boat from Jacobs Well Marine Rescue came out and used their depth sounder to indicate our deeper route back to the channel and local tide info. If we hadn't pulled ourselves free by 4.30pm they offered to come back with the big boat and tow us off. Those guys know their tides – we used the rocking wake from a passing motor launch and bounced off at 4.29pm. Interestingly we must have been passed by at least 15 or 20 motor boats of varying sizes and not one person slowed to ask if we were OK. Perhaps they thought we'd decided to anchor mid river and lean the mast over.

On the top of the tide we cautiously continued on and reached our planned anchorage half a mile before the high voltage cable just as the sun was setting. We'd used high water, with current with us, to reach half way and now we had to wait for tomorrow's midday low tide to pass under the cable.

Next day we went under the cable as close to the western pylon as water depth would allow (1m under keel) and must have had 5m of air between us and it. No problem there but we did go a short way then drop the hook and have a cup of tea while we waited for the water level to rise and give us more comfort over the shallow patches. Even doing that we still had one moment where the depth sounder showed 0.0 but David bounced us over it. That night we were anchored in the lee of the north part of Macleay island. We'd made it with only our pride dented by a pile of sand.