A one day stop at Tin Can Bay Marina allowed us to check out the local sailing club, do some washing, stock up on essentials, and fire up the coffee machine. Aiming for a couple of (much needed) zero dollar days, we then anchored two nights near Pelican Point, waiting for the right weather to get through (well, actually, over) the Wide Bay Bar, and start heading south down the Queensland coast.
There were literally dozens of other boats anchored at Pelican Point, all waiting to head south. We'd planned our departure for 9am on Friday 13th (good thing we're not superstitious), which as far as we could see was the best time for the given conditions. Matt woke early around 5am, and went into slight panic mode when he looked out the window and saw a very long line of boats all heading out towards the bar way. We were one of only three boats left in the entire anchorage! We wondered if we'd miscalculated - not a good thing to do when crossing a barway. We ended up leaving around 7 or so, and all went well, although it wasn't the most comfortable stretch of water to negotiate. In hindsight, we think the rest of the "fleet" headed off early so as to arrive at Mooloolaba before dark. We had a different plan - to do an overnighter, and get ourselves further south down to the Gold Coast. So our 9am departure plan had probably been a good one.
The picture is of a Pelican Point pelican - there were plenty of these around.