Adventures in the Lakes

January 13, 2016

We’ve been in Gippsland Lakes about three weeks now (don’t ask me to get exact – I’m lucky if I know what month it is!). It’s turned out to be a great place to cruise (if we don’t talk about the occasional, OK… frequent, groundings!).

Here. Take a look at why we are really enjoying ourselves here…

The groundings haven’t been too bad. We’ve gotten unstuck quickly and it’s been great practice wiggling Legacy out of the mud. I’m sure it’s also cleaned the growth from the bottom of our keel (and maybe all the bottom paint as well). We draw seven feet. There’s a pretty good tidal change near Lakes Entrance but as you get further into the lakes, it gets much smaller: only about 6 inches at Duck Arm.

The entrance to the lakes has a sandbar but it wasn’t a big deal for us. Wind, swell and tides are everything on these bar crossings.

There’s great info here about the lakes: http://www.gippslandports.vic.gov.au/

There’s a very good tide and current graph there as well as the only good information we found on depths in the lakes. Navionics is a joke here (more).

All I can say about the place is “Try it, you’ll like it!” -Rich

Below is a map with the ground we’ve covered (pun intended). The anchor symbol shows places we’ve tied up, moored or anchored, often several times. The yellow X’s are the places where we tested the water depth with our keel, only to find it lacking.