At dawn on Tuesday (5th October), after a two-day-two-night passage from Lady Musgrave Reef, we dropped the anchor in Bramble Bay, near the mouth of the Brisbane River in Moreton Bay, and thankfully finished our scramble south. Arriving with 20 days to spare before Tregoning is “Restricted to Port”, it is tempting to second-guess our migration strategy, and wonder if we could have spent an extra week in the middle of the Great Barrier Reef or in the Whitsunday Islands.

As much as we would have loved to have done such things, and we see with a strong twinge of envy that SV Mischief is exploring the reefs off Magnetic Island, we have made the correct decisions...at least for us. After all, we are the sort of people who would rather arrive at the airport an hour earlier than necessary to avoid worrying about what could go wrong on the way there, and instead enjoy relaxing in the departure lounge. Although the northerly winds may become more consistent over the next two weeks, the window that looked so good in last week’s forecast had already contracted by the time we were ready to depart Lady Musgrave. As it was, we had a fabulous downwind sail for more than 30 hours, then had to motor-sail into a headwind for the very last part.

We are also not exactly sure what the terms of our “Restriction to Port” are. The wording on the paperwork is a little ambiguous. It is clear that we cannot leave the Port of Brisbane without informing the Australian Border Force, such as if necessary for work on the boat or on our way to depart from Australia. But we need to clarify whether we must notify them anytime the boat is moved “within” the Port. And we would like to find a marina where we can stay for a couple of months, or longer if we cannot move within the Port without authorization.

Still, we are very glad to have been able to spend much of the fortnight, since we left Mackay, at Fitzroy and Lady Musgrave Reefs. Enjoying eight good snorkels, we made the most of what might have been our last opportunity to explore the Great Barrier Reef from Tregoning. For 2021, I now have 32 fish surveys to prepare and submit online which will keep me busy. I have quite a few blog entries to post over the next few days, and then we will be focusing on what we will be doing for the long, Moreton Bay summer.