After our brilliant Bangkok sojourn, we arrived back in Bundaberg with a few chores to get sorted – in particular, it was time to stock up on provisions which is always more easily done when we have a rental car. I now feel that we are back in the land of plenty – with the availability of everything I might need.
Bundaberg is a very productive agricultural area & the quality of the fresh produce was fabulous, (we found a massive local fruit barn). I also persuaded Bill to visit the local macadamia factory – it seems that a lot of money has been invested in the Bundaberg area planting macadamia trees recently, which take 5years to mature. Hopefully, they will reap their reward; I think that macadamias are the most delicious nuts you can buy, (which of course, I did!)
We decided before we headed south towards Brisbane/the Gold Coast on our way to Sydney, that we should take a northerly detour & visit Lady Musgrave Island. This island is a small coral cay within a large lagoon at the southern end of the Great Barrier Reef. Our last visit to Lady Musgrave Island was in the first year of our circumnavigation and was a memory firmly imprinted in our mind – for all the wrong reasons! In summary, after a few idyllic days within the lagoon, we anchored outside for a quick getaway in the morning when we were hit by a 45 knot squall. Our anchor dragged putting us over the reef, which we bounced through in our escape. It was really disorienting with horizontal rain & howling winds – in the middle of the night of course! Very scary!
So in the spirit of facing our fears, we really did think we should return. Of course it is different now: moorings both within & outside of the lagoon, a marked channel and even most bommies identified on our Navionics chart. As you might expect, there are a lot more visitors to the island now, both on charter vessels and private craft. We found the 9 moorings to be full, but were happy to anchor as there was a ton of space in the lagoon. We spent the next few days enjoying both the island and the surrounding reef. The island is small, taking about 45minutes to circumnavigate on foot. It is in a marine park & in fact you can camp there overnight, although I’m not sure we would – it is very noisy from all the nesting seabirds, smells strongly of their guano and there are lots of little bitey things, (as opposed to the bigger bitey things in the ocean).
We snorkelled several times and although we found the coral to be a little monochromatic, we were impressed by the array of tropical fish, sharks, (black tip, white tip and a tawny nurse shark), an octopus and a first: a giant slug within a baler shell traversing the sandy bottom at speed. Never seen the mollusc before, (lots of empty baler shells in Northern Australia), but this slug was the size of a chihuahua!! And the turtles…
We were fortunate to be at Lady Musgrave during the period that 3 of the 7 species of sea turtle: green, loggerhead & hawksbill, converge upon the island during nesting season. When we had gone ashore to explore the island, we had noted a multitude of nesting tracks in the sand. They lay their eggs at nighttime, but we opted to get up at first light, about 4.30am, to take the dinghy ashore to see if we could catch the latecomers!
We weren’t disappointed. Almost straight away we saw a large green turtle slowly making its way to the ocean after the long process of egg laying. The comparatively short distance looked an arduous and exhausting task, especially as this was after the laborious nesting activity. We then encountered a few turtles in their nest, using their flippers to project the sand over the nest to protect the eggs. Spurts of activity, followed by rest. Then the long haul down the beach, (it being low tide – a bad calculation on their part).
I would have to say it was both a magical and a profoundly moving experience to witness this awesome event of nature. There are male turtles around in the lagoon too – recognisable by their long tails. Once hatched, they spend their entire lives in the ocean, never to set foot on land again.
We always saw turtles in the lagoon whilst snorkelling , including many smaller hawksbill turtles with beautiful patterned carapaces, (which used to be the basis of the now illegal tortoiseshell industry). We really enjoyed Lady Musgrave, but felt the need to move on and head south. We are certainly looking forward to revisiting the islands of the southern Great Barrier Reef next year.
The overnight sail to Moreton island started really well, with a very fine broad reach with just the right amount of wind and at times almost 2knots of current with us, (courtesy of the Eastern Australian Current). For the most part we were travelling between 7 & 10knots! We had opted to go outside ie the eastern side of Fraser Island, rather than navigate our way slowly through the shallow passages of the Sandy Straits (south of Hervey Bay). By early evening we could see a lot of electrical activity further south, (Brisbane/Sunshine Coast) and hoped that it wasn’t coming our way. On the upside it didn’t, but on the downside the wind completely died & we had to resort to motoring overnight. Unfortunately the wind didn’t really pick up for the rest of our trip. We were also aware of impending storms forecast for the following afternoon & felt a real need not to dawdle as they can certainly pack a punch. There had been recent reports of 9cm(!) hailstones in the Brisbane area just a few nights before.
One lovely surprise happened when passing Caloundra. We were hailed on our vhf by Pete & Kath, friends of many years, who had been following our passage on Marine Traffic. So good to have a chat and catch up on the activities of ourselves and respective families.
As we continued south down the eastern side of Bribie Island, Bill noted a decent sized, (about 3m) shark trailing the boat. In French Polynesia, we always enjoyed seeing dolphins or whales at the beginning or end of our passages – so we had to laugh at the Australian version of a marine salutation!
As the clouds started billowing & looking much more threatening, it was a bit of a race to the anchorage at Bongaree, tucked on the inside of Bribie island offering great protection from the northerly winds. Fortunately we made it & dropped the anchor in good holding off a long beach just south of the public jetty. Phew! Not much later the ‘light show’ began, although we were lucky to escape the worst of it. Little did we envisage that these fierce storms were to going to come back & haunt us later as we headed south.