Not a great photo but an attempt to show the lean the boat was on as we sailed down from Pancake Creek.

I was awake at 5.30am and by 6.00 am had weighed anchor and was motoring slowly out of the beautiful Pancake Creek anchorage. It was amazingly still and calm and the water was as flat as, well, a pancake! Once out near Cape Clewes at the entrance to the creek Louise came up on deck and for the next hour or two we battled to get around Cape Clewes and the Bustard Head lighthouse. With a fair breeze almost on the nose and waves between a metre and one and a half metres we were forced to motor.

After a couple of hours the tide, which was in our favour for speed but against us in terms of wave height, picked up and as the wind backed more easterly we were able to turn of the motor and sail. We were close hauled and doing between 6 and 8 knots in the 20 knot breeze. I was quite happy with this though Louise had some difficulty with the boat slamming into the waves and water sloshing all over the boat. Many, many times the bow plunged under the waves to rise with sea frothing all around.

We were making good progress and we actually caught up with a catamaran that, at the start of the day, was on the horizon, and we went into the Burnett River together. We dropped the anchor just past the sugar shed around 6.30pm in the gloom and dark. We were both very tired and we had some leftover stir fry for dinner, watched a little TV and I was in bed by 9.30pm. I slept very soundly on the flat, calm water.

Tomorrow is our last leg and we will be "home" in Hervey Bay.