I know it is hard to believe but Exit Strategy has finally left the dock again and is headed North. We actually left Royal Queensland Yacht Squadron marina two days ago. We are making a slow trip up the Queensland coast with the intent of getting to the Whitsunday Islands for the season.

On day one we made it a whopping 20 miles to an anchorage called Tangalooma. We spent a tranquil evening watching and listening to helicopters come and go from the resort we anchored off. We think they were doing mini-tours of Moreton Island and two landed and took off ever 10 minutes! We also had the pleasure of watching the passengers of a large cruise ship shuttled from the dock to the ship in small suttle craft that went right past our boat for a closed look! We had heard the anchorage was rolly and we weren’t disappointed! Neither of us got a lot of sleep that night and contemplated going back to our easy life at the marina.

As we planned a longer second day, we were up by six the next morning and on our way by seven. Our destination was a small resort town called Mooloolaba with what looked like a great protected anchorage. On the way there I noticed that the boat was not going quite as fast as a former racer would like and decided it was due to the new bottom paint. When the bottom was painted they had to brush the antifouling on the bottom of the keel just before launching while the rest of the bottom was sprayed on. I surmised that the bottom of the keel wasn’t quite as smooth as the rest of the paint job and devised a great plan to correct this.

The entrance to Mooloolaba harbour is through the estuary of a river that is regularly dredged to keep it deep enough for boats to get in and out. We had heard that the entrance had recently silted up and was quite shallow. So my plan was to enter the harbour about an hour after low tide (a low of one meter in the channel). This allowed my to rub the bottom of the keel on the muddy sand three times on the way in before stopping. We then waited half an hour for the tide to rise so we could carry on the anchorage. This a new and clever way to wet sand your keel and I am sure we will be faster when we leave here tomorrow at high tide!. I wouldn’t advise this technique in the Pacific Northwest due to the courser seabed.

I know many of you will think this is just a clever excuse for going aground but is is my story and I am sticking to it.