Leaving Mooloolaba (25th April)

Since the last post plenty has happened - the first being that we left Manly which was back on the 17th of April.  We had all our jobs done and had also done a bit of sight seeing so figured it was time to get a moving.  Our first trip was a quick 20NM hop up to Scarborough which we found was quite a busy place as the Brisbane to Gladstone race was starting on Good Friday - the 18th.  We were even lucky enough to be able to have a good look at the racing Tri called Mortica which was parked out the front of the Moreton Bay Boat Club.  We left Scarborough on the 18th heading to one of our favourite spots on the coast, Mooloolaba.  It was a really calm and warm day so we motored the 50NM and arrived latish in the afternoon. 

We decided to spend a week at Mooloolaba and had a great time there.  We managed to catch up with lots of people including Bob and Alexis who just happened to be in Mooloolaba for Easter.  We also had dinner with Col and Ann from Annacol, who are fellow Hunter owners that we met when we were up here in 2011, and also Gail and Ian from the yacht L'etoile, who we did a bit of sailing with this summer back home at SBSC.

We were lucky enough to have some amazing weather while we were at Mooloolaba with every day calm and warm so we managed to get in a bit of beach and surfing time during our stay.  We also wandered up to the Surf Club on Sunday to watch both the F1 race and just happened to catch the Blues V Bulldogs game and finally I have something to celebrate with the first win to the Blues for the season. 

We decided to venture a little further afield on Tuesday and caught the bus down to Caloundra which is kind of a lot like the rest of the sunshine coast but perhaps a bit older.

We spent yesterday stocking up the boat with provisions for our stay in the Great Sandy Straits and headed off at around 5am for the 60NM trip up to the Wide Bay Bar and in behind Fraser Island.  It looks like we should have a good crossing as it is close to the top of the flood plus there are quite low swells at the moment but you can never be sure when crossing the bar - most yachties have an exciting tale or two to tell about the bar! 

Unfortunately the official photographer aboard (which is Mark) hasn't been all that inspired to take any photos so far so you will have to put up with a couple of shots that we took for sunrise this morning as we left Mooloolaba.  Hopefully we can some more shots out of him for our next report from the Great Sandy Straits