Thursday 11 April Mooloolaba

early morning sail

With Micromegas a few minutes behind we left Tangalooma at dawn bound for Mooloolaba 35 miles north. It wasn't a perfect weather window, too marginal for my complete comfort but I'd chosen it and said yes, let's go. By starting at dawn I expected we'd reach the river entrance late morning and still with enough depth over the bar and ahead of deteriorating weather forecast from late afternoon.

Five miles out from Mooloolaba and the fishing reel started it's high pitched whine as the line is taken out – a fish on the line! This time we'd caught a 3' Spanish Mackerel, a fine white flesh fish. It's amazing what we catch by trawling a simple tuna hook and small lime green squid lure.

Fortunately the port entrance was dredged last week to a minimum depth of 2.4m at low water and it is faces south east giving protection from winds coming from the south, what we were sailing in on. Another beautiful bit of boat handling from David and another Australian river bar crossed safely. It was still shallow and continued shallow as we motored up the river to anchor in 3m of water in 'The Pool' with 20 other boats including our good friends, Bill and Sue on Camomile. I'm not saying space is tight but we went so close to their stern to drop the anchor Sue asked us to take care and avoid their new dinghy.

X marks anchor spot in Mooloo

David filleted Mr Fish and then Bill and Sue came over for tea and a long overdue catch up. We expect there'll be lots of time for catching up as there are high winds and heavy rain forecast for at least the next three days. Mooloolaba seems a good place to wait; protected anchorage amongst expensive river front properties, shopping malls, chandleries, aquarium, Steve Irwin zoo close by and Micromegas and Camomile here.

River entrance breakwaters