Year 2 – 4 April 2025 – Gladstone
If anyone reading this and is free from late June to mid July 2025 to come to Australia then do contact me as I am short of crew during this period at present.
In my last blog I said it rained in the evening. It did indeed rain for the whole night. I had to close my hatches and the rain noise made my sleep a bit disjointed. When we woke about 7.30am it had stopped which was good. We had to dry stuff out-the cockpit cushions etc. We had breakfast and sorted ourselves out. We went ashore to the chandlery and bought a couple of things we needed and then went to the café for a coffee. There were lots of birds who came and tried to pick crumbs etc and some birds who had lots of tattoos – which looked quite unsightly !!
We then went to the marina and said we were leaving and would be back on the 7th. We then prepared ourselves on Stormbird and made slips of the mooring lines (rope round the cleat which you can pull in when you are ready to leave). We had decided to go and look at the Narrows and some of the creeks up there where it is quite remote and rural. There was little wind so we motored out of the marina and contacted Gladstone VTS and told them of our intensions. We headed North on the edge of the channel passing various cargo ships and oil takers moored at various commercial wharves – loading coal, oil or gas.
The traffic was light and we motored forward and without issue and it took us an hour or more to get out of the industrial zone and into the more remote area of the Narrows. This is an area where they used to drive cattle across the Narrows and I have in my head a John Wayne western where they drove the cattle across rivers etc. Yachts can pass through the Narrows but the tidal heights do not make this possible during April for Stormbird as we would need at least a 4.5m tide.
We motored on and came to Graham Creek which was a wide creek with plenty of space with a sandy end with palm trees on it. We decided to carry on and up to Targine creek which was a small narrow creek but pretty with just mangroves along the shore. It was rural and beautiful and no one was here. We chatted and decided to go back to Graham Creek where we anchored in about 10m of water. We had some lunch and chilled. We then did some jobs and David helped re seal the heads in the front and then helped reseal the davits. David and I took out the log (speed log which is a little wheel which moves with the water) cleaned it and put it back in a better position as it was slightly askew which may account for its erratic operation.
We had a rum daiquiri to reward ourselves and enjoyed the sun going down. The issue with the mangroves is the sandflies and mosquitos which we started to see. We decided to close up a bit and I cooked supper of steak and sweet potato mash and broccoli which went well. We sprayed out cabins etc.
We will probably subject to the wind go out to an Island tomorrow. The picture of the day is Laird Head where we are anchored and we can see this sandy point where horses came to graze. We looked for salty’s (crocodiles) but we did not see any today.
Need/Opportunity Year Two
I am in need of more crew from late June to Mid-July so if of interest do email me at hine.nick9@gmail.com
In year two I will be going from New Zealand to Sydney and hen up the Eastern Australian Coast, Indonesia and then through Bali, Singapore and on to Thailand to end year two about the end of November 2025.
The blog will continue as we continue the journey. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog then do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com