Pelican bay has a sandbar visible at half tide, with hundreds of not-pelicans on it. Little birds, all waiting in the same direction. We were about to anchor and saw that we were also about to go aground - the depth reading 7, 6, 5, feet under the keel... So I spun the wheel, and dropped in 9 ft. The little waves sound like a babbling brook, the tide is running out so fast.

So we're here safe, but it seemed like a challenging mini-voyage of 2 hours and 40 minutes; winds coming in hard on the port bow - 18 to 25 knots, gray skies, low scrub, low scud, flurries of rain. The guiding hand was our OpenCPN with C-map on the little laptop computer, connected to a hand-held Garmin Etrex GPS. We had this in the cockpit.

Earlier I had put a route into it, so all I had to do was follow that blue line. The GPS, showing where we were, indicated a red boat trailing a red line. Adrienne had put all the waypoints into the C-80 chartplotter, and keyed them in as we went, so we had that as backup and confirmation. Comparing the route on the chartplotters with the markers in the "real world" out there I easily found the best course to steer. Nevertheless, it was exciting!

We will poke our nose out tomorrow, and see if the wind and waves allow passage over the bar. Once at sea, it will either be Mooloolabah or direct to Brisbane.

We now have behind us the entire length of Great Sandy Straits.


Pic: Come to think of it, they do look like pelicans, those ones on the left!