After a relaxing night spent with Georges and Annie on Trio, well at their actual HOUSE on Russell Island, we got back to Nemesis and prepared to leave the anchorage. Kirsty has been majorly stressed out over all of the shallow spots between Moreton Bay and Surfer's Paradise. As we are checking tides and planning a time to leave, our friends Paul and Lynn on White Hawk call and let us know they are passing by. We plan to meet up with them on the far side of Russell Island in the main channel in about an hour.

We pick up anchor, after fighting with our stern anchor in the shallow water and flooding tide, and finally are on our way. I love the scenary around Russell, low islands with lots of trees and folage, pleanty of wildlife for Kirsty to spot! Dodging ferries and other boats, we pop around the island with no major depth issues... albeit we are in 10 feet of water with a 7'10" draft! Hmmm maybe that's why Kirsty is stressing? :)

We meet up with White Hawk and they take the lead on the next few miles down the Main Channel. We safely pass under a huge set of power lines that feed Russell Island, our 18.5 meter mast clearing the 23.5 meter low bit by tons... funny how it still looks awful close! Around a few bends we close on the boat ramp at Cabbage Tree Point, seriously shallow and seriously close to shore! We are in 9 feet of water and not more than 40 feet off the beach, and this is the deepest part of the main channel!... According to the charts, we have now passed the shallowest bit of this passage... A few bends later we anchored at Jacobs Well for the night. Nemesis hosts White Hawk for a night of Mexican and Margaritas... I think we are all glad the tide doesn't start rising until early afternoon the next day!

The last section we have been told to worry about is just a few buoy's down from Jacobs Well... it is marked "Shoals" on the chart, but all the books and charts show it to be 2 meters at low tide... no problem! NOT! We pop into shore that morning and go talk to the guys at VMR Jacobs Well. (Volunteer Marine Rescue - they dot the Australian coast and log boats on passage, provide on the water assistance when needed and generally do a great service to boaters.... all as volunteers!) We inquire as to when the section below Kangaroo Island has last been dredged, as it's listed at 2m in our charts... They LAUGH at and with us... Dredged?... Never, not that we have ever seen! So with some updated info from the VMR, we find out the low tide depth will be 0.7 meters... and the tide is only 1.2 meters... hmmm that only adds to 1.9 meters and we have a 2.3 meter depth! What to do, what to do! Kirsty votes to turn back, but of course I want to go have a look and make sure it's really that shallow...

So we plan to inform VMR when we go thru, and they will come out in the Rescue boat to assist in needed... We also get on White Hawk and they agree to set thier depth sounder to feet and call out the depth they see as they proceed in front of us... Kirsty and I agree that if they see much less then 7 feet, we'll reconsider... thinking about waiting a week for higher tides or going back to Brisbane and taking the sea route outside to Surfer's Paradise... with the departure delayed for 1.5 hours, we are full of plans, contingencies, and assumptions... and we all know what assume means (ASS-U-ME).

So at 1:30pm we take off in convoy with White Hawk... the VMR boat had to go and pull another power boat off a sand bank they found after running out of fuel, we we are going it alone. With White Hawk in the lead we trail after them like a lost puppy ... I had spent my time waiting by securing all the mast head halyards to a rope and rigging a front towing bridle if we need it. White Hawk ghosts ahead of us and passes over the shallow shoal with a reading of 9 feet of water! Yeah!!! We follow close behind and I try to stay in the same track I recall them following... CLUNK! Well, more of a SWISH... and a quick deceleration as the sandy bottom grabs hold... Our keel is a straight fin keel, so when we touch bottom, it is only a small section three feet long by about six inches... this allows us to 'plow' through small bits of shallow sand. With that said, I slowly start to power through the shoals... Kirsty is NOT happy, but I try and distract her by having her watch the GPS to see if we are moving at all. Back at the helm, I can feel the bottom as we slowly move over it.... even the little bumps and undulations on the bottom can be felt if your in tune with the boat.

We are about 2/3 of the way through when the VMR boat shows up from their other job. They ask if we need help, I tell them I'm making headway through the sand, but if they wouldn't mind grabbing our halyard line and tilting us, it would make it much easier on the boat, engine and shoal bottom! They come up and take the line from Kirsty and pull away. It was kinda fun to watch the VMR guys, three volunteers in a souped up rescue boat all with grins like big kids at Christmas! I'm thinking they don't see too many deep draft sailboats in this part of the world :) (it's mostly motor yachts and catarmarans in this part of Queensland). So with a quick check over the radio, VMR pulls us over to a 30 degree heal to the starboard. It's a normal feeling to heel in Nemesis, but they only thing missing was the wind and waves that normally go with it! Within seconds the keel un-mucked from the sand and we are doing 4 knots through the shoals.

The VMR boat stays attached as we cover the few hundred yards to the last shoal. This time I call out my depth and let them know when they need to start pulling us over. Just as we start to touch the bottom, a gentle pull by VMR gives us an extra 3 feet of depth. Finally through the shoals Kirsty is wearing a huge smile, elated and relieved! Half a slab of stubbies donated to the cause, the VMR is well thanked and on their way back to base. Kirsty still argues that we were 'rescued', but since we were technically still moving forward, they just did us a big assist :) See, always Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus... go figure :)

Safely through the narrow shoals, the rest of the afternoon trip into Surfer's Paradise is a breeze. It's quite a beautiful part of the world, very shallow, but I'm liking the scenery! We get around all the ferry and boat traffic to find a very protected anchorage at the Spit, right off of Sea World. We have been warned that it is Schoolies week in Surfer's so we'll see if there really are high school graduates all over the place, drinking and doing other things according to the new reports. More in the next blog!