Two At Sea

Posted March 17, 2023 about
September 01, 2022

I’ve talked in the past about some of cruising’s most annoying challenges, but there’s another category I’ll call cruising’s most annoying moments. Here’s the one I experienced today:

This annoying moment happens after making the decision, in spite of nice weather at the time, to put off some outdoorsy excursion for the following day. Then waking up in the early hours of that following day to the sound of wind. Not the serious kind that makes one concerned for boat safety, but the kind that accompanies weather that’s not good for dingy rides, sun-lit beach photos, swimming/snorkeling excursions, or other outdoor activities. The kind of weather that makes one think, “Ah crap; did we make a mistake not doing xyz yesterday?”

I went back to sleep hoping conditions would be better when we got up later. They weren’t. But as often happens with windy, cloudy weather; there are short periods when the sun might peek out. I realized what we needed was to be “cruiserly” about this. Cruisers often have to work around conditions—we don’t blow off a day’s excursion because of less-then-ideal conditions as it may simply the only opportunity we get to experience a place.

Today, being “cruiserly” would include a chilly, splashy dinghy ride to the beach, then waiting patiently for the sun to pop out from behind the clouds before taking photos.

It also meant paying more attention to the actual weather (using the real-life app) and worrying less about the forecast. At the moment we were starting to get peeks of sunlight, even though it was mostly chilly and gray.

So, in spite of the cloudy, breezy morning, we inflated our dinghy and got ready to head to the island, knowing the likelihood was the wind would die off near shore and the air would feel warmer. Hopefully the sun would grace us with its presence and light up the beaches so I could take photos that let us project the image that we live in a state of endless summer (believe me, we don’t).

Riding to shore, the wind did, in fact, die off and the clouds started to break up–it was looking like my weather gamble would pay off.

We decided to land at Second Beach, the smaller of the two beaches. I have always believed I haven’t really experienced an island until I’ve actually stood on its shore, and that certainly proved to be true in this case—it seemed much more attractive from the beach than it appeared from our boat in the anchorage.

The water was clear, the shallows transforming into a kaleidoscope of soft blues when the sun came out. We parked our dinghy near the outcrop hill and realized this was actually an impressive beach, wide with smooth, light-colored sand and backed by a thick line of forest.

We kicked off our shoes and took a walk down to the far side of the beach. Sadly a sailboat had gone aground there and was lying on its side. It looked to be in relatively good shape, and we hoped the next attempt to drag it back into the water would succeed. Below, a few photos of Second Beach (click on any photo to enlarge in the galleries below).

Now it was time to go see Svendsens Beach. We had the option of hiking over the hill to do so, but we opted to be lazy and go by dinghy instead. Here we found a lovely white beach with even softer sand than Second Beach. We walked over to a patch of palm trees and a dry riverbed nearby.

At this point the sun was staying out, and I was happy to be getting some decent photos. And while it was still windy out in the anchorage, it was warm and calm here on shore.

In spite of the number of boats in the bay, we saw surprisingly few people as they were probably discouraged from coming ashore by the weather. I was so glad we came in, especially walking on that lovely sand! I don’t usually go on about sand, but its soft, springy texture, lack of sea rubble, and pleasant shore-water temperature made it feel wonderful to walk on barefoot.

The time came to dinghy back through the windy chop to our boat. Unfortunately, it was now too windy there to fly the drone; so I hoped we’d have a final chance the next morning. Because a period of enhanced trade winds was coming, our plan was take refuge in a nearby marina, the Great Keppel Marina, for a few days and wait for things to settle down before continuing north. Wanting to enter the marina at high slack tide, we would need to leave Great Keppel Island around 10am.

I was disappointed that this meant we wouldn’t get a chance to see Fishermans Beach on the west side of the island. Aside from a nice-looking beach, there were a couple of small, rustic resorts, one of which had an eatery. Rich was showing no interest in coming back to Great Keppel; so I considered maybe we might take a ferry back here (landing at Fishermans Beach) during our marina stay.

Meanwhile, we did manage to fly the drone before we left and got a few interesting photos of the anchorage . . .

Plus one nice panorama that Rich edited but never got around to posting:

Just an interesting side story: People familiar with this part of Australia may remember a rather famous resort, Great Keppel Island Resort, located on Fishermans Beach. This hotel was quite popular in its heyday, but the ins and outs of running an island resort can be like sitting on a house of cards. Queensland is positively littered with abandoned, decaying island resorts that have gone under for various reasons (something I’ll address in a future post). In the case of Great Keppel Island Resort, it seems its undoing was the financial crisis of 2008 and the resulting loss of tourists, especially international tourists.

The resort went under in 2013 and was partially demolished, the rest now in ruins. A series of investors have shown interest in re-developing it but over the years, one-by-one, they’ve dropped out of the venture. The most recent investor was the real deal—lots of money, good business sense, and committed to the project. So everyone was surprised when recently she, too, dropped out. The current feeling is if this woman can’t make refurbishing Great Keppel Island profitable, no one can.

It’s now looking like the end of days for a serious resort on Great Keppel Island. I know many people who live here (and on the mainland nearby) are disappointed, but the reasons why the resort rebuild would be a poor investment are pretty clear.

Actually the whole story of the abandoned Queensland resorts is pretty interesting, and one I’ll be posting about soon. But next up will be the very interesting marina we were headed to.–Cyndi

 

Posted March 11, 2023 about
August 31, 2022

After a leisurely morning we pulled up our anchor and set off on the 27-mile trip to Great Keppel Island. The weather conditions were much nicer today as we motor-sailed along in moderately light wind, 12-knots on a broad reach, the sea only marginally bumpy.

As we neared Great Keppel, we passed by the little island just south of it, Humpy Island. It was tempting to stop and check out its bay and pretty beach, but we really didn’t have the luxury of time to do so. Conditions were now picking up as the wind shifted to our beam, now stronger at 15 knots, the sea getting bumpier. At this point we were just anxious to get to our anchorage.

Soon we were motoring up the east side of Great Keppel and getting our first close look at the island. Huh. It wasn’t that it didn’t look nice, but it was hardly the “remote tropical paradise,” that we’d heard about. I realized at this point that I might need to temper my expectations (Rich didn’t really have any expectations to temper).

Below, a few photos as we motored up past Great Keppel to our anchorage (Click to enlarge and scroll on any of the photos below.)

We rounded the NE point and passed by a couple of small but exposed beaches before getting a first look at our anchorage, the bay off Svendsens Beach. The bay looked alarmingly crowded with boats, the last thing one wants to encounter on arriving!

We motored past the long, low rock arm which stretched out from the east headland, creating a natural breakwater for this part of the anchorage. Still, enough swell wrapped around it to create waves that enabled a paddle-boarder to surf alongside it. It looked fun for him, but our objective was to get in close enough to shore to avoid the swell effect known as “The Keppel Roll.”

What a relief as we motored past two boats to find there was enough room between them and the shore for our boat. As we set our anchor, the wind that had been behind us now felt like a wonderfully refreshing breeze coming over the island, keeping us cool and comfortable. Best yet, we were out of the swell! I couldn’t say the same for the boats anchored further away from shore, where we could see some visible roll going on.

As far as the scenery, we were in a large, semi-circular bay with two light-sand beaches (Svendsens Beach and Second Beach) divided by a high bushy outcrop. The island was hilly, densely covered with tree and bush-type vegetation. It wasn’t what we’d consider tropical–it looked more like the drier forests of the outback. There were a few palm trees by the beach, probably planted by the owner of a vacation retreat as, from what we’ve observed, palm trees are not native to the Barrier Reef islands.

Beyond the west headland we could see part of a longer, more deeply indented beach called Leekes Beach. It looked lovely; so I was surprised to see only one boat over there. What gives? Only when I looked at the chart did I realize its best-protected area was quite shallow. (Those people with shallow draft boats sure get a lot of places to themselves!)

To the west, adding to the attractive view, was a nearly-adjoining island called Middle Island and just above that, Miall Island. They were smaller, lower and drier versions of Great Keppel with beautiful-looking beaches that belied the fact they were actually exposed to prevailing wind and sea conditions. The fact is that the weather would have to be unusually calm to anchor off those beaches comfortably.

Scattered to the east were rock islets and off in the distance, the North Keppel Island group. These gave our anchorage the always-appealing look of being surrounded by islands.

I sat outside to gather my impressions of this place, held in such high regard by so many. We’d officially crossed the border into the tropics as we sailed over the Tropic of Capricorn latitude after leaving Gladstone. But in spite of a few fledgling signs, like slightly warmer weather and streakier clouds, this didn’t look or feel like the tropics yet. Meanwhile the scenery, while not exactly jaw-dropping, was plenty attractive enough to make me see this as a worthwhile stop.

It was a sunny day and we considered going ashore, but the prospect of blowing up our dinghy and making the effort to do a land excursion in our late-afternoon tired state wasn’t very appealing. Why not just do it tomorrow? (Spoiler Alert: tomorrow might be cloudy.)

For now, we enjoyed a relaxed afternoon and a lovely evening in blessedly calm spot, something we would come to appreciate when later hearing how rolly it had been for others.

Tomorrow we would go ashore.–Cyndi

March 10, 2023

No, not that one.

This one…

(*All Electric Toasting and Coffee Water Heating)

There seems to be a big move to all electric galleys in boats. I’m not sure that idea really works for me. Electricity is an expensive and scarce commodity on a small boat. I suspect that many people that go to electric cooking end up running the engine and/or generator often to keep up with the electrical demands.

But we took a small step in that direction. Cyndi always wanted a toaster but I was Mr. No-That-Uses-Too-Much-Electricity. With our new lithium batteries (over a year old now, but still feels new to me), I thought what the heck. We could spare a few amp hours. So off to the discount warehouse we went to buy a $7.50 toaster (Australian Dollars).

This toaster is amazing! It’s better than any expensive toaster we’ve ever had, always producing golden brown, perfectly toasted toast. Now Cyndi calls me Mr. Toast. This worked out so well, we decided to take another step into the new millennium – an electric water kettle.

Propane is getting hard to find…

Probably 80 percent of the cooking gas we use (propane or LPG) is for heating water for coffee or tea. Propane is getting harder and harder to come by, with most gas filling stations in the South Pacific disappearing and the widespread adoption of exchange tanks instead. We can’t use the exchange tanks without major boat reworking as we have a horizontal tank on the cabin top. An electric kettle could save us so much aggravation.

Now that we have the electric kettle…

I don’t know how we lived without it. I fill the kettle before bed and plug it in. In the morning, I roll out of bed and turn on the inverter. Three minutes later, coffee water is ready. A couple of hours later, when Cyndi finally wakes up, I repeat the process for her coffee. Now she calls me Mr. Electric-Kettle.

Nerdy stuff follows…

The little travel-kettle we found uses 300 watts at 240 volts. Our 1000 watt inverter handles it easily. 300 watts at 13.2 volts is about 23 amps. It takes 3 minutes to heat water for a cup of coffee – 2 cups a day – that’s 2.3 amp-hours each day for coffee. We can afford that.

The toaster uses 750 watts at 240 volts. That’s about 57 amps. Toasting bread for 5 minutes a day is 4.7 amp-hours. Again, we can afford that.

Where I take exception with the electric galley concept is for stove top cooking and especially baking. Most electric ovens use about 2400 watts of electricity. Running the oven for 30 minutes to bake something uses 1200 watts of electricity (about 45 amp-hours at 12 volts). We have 500 watts of solar and it would take our panels about two and a half hours to replace that power – in full sunlight. Add 30 minutes of stove top cooking to that and now we’re getting close to our full day’s solar output, leaving nothing for charging computers or watching dumb movies (our favorite kind).

For me to feel comfortable with this power draw, I’d want double or even triple the solar and about three times the battery capacity (we now have 400 amp-hours at 12 volts or about 4800 watts). But what happens during a week of clouds? The engine or the generator would need to be switched into noise-making mode.

Nope, for us, I think this is as far as we’ll go into the electric galley world. Well, I guess we’d have a microwave but there’s a problem with that idea – absolutely no room for it! Wait, maybe I can find some space. Maybe Cyndi will be calling me Mr. Microwave in the future.

I’ll leave you with this appetizing photo…

-Rich

Posted March 3, 2023 about
August 31-9/1, 2022

The Great Barrier Reef, approximately 1,400 miles long and shown as a dark area in the map above, lies off the east coast of Queensland, Australia.

Its south end (at Lady Elliot Island) sits about 50 miles off the mainland coast. From there, the reef gradually angles in towards the coast, as little as 6 miles away at its closest point.

Scattered between the Great Barrier Reef and the mainland Australian coast are hundreds of islands. Glancing at a map, one might assume these barrier-reef protected islands provide an easy, ideal cruising ground, but the map images don’t convey the whole story.

The Barrier Reef isn’t actually a solid object but is instead a structure made up of 3000 smaller reefs. At its south end, the reefs are more scattered, providing less protection to the islands in that area. Further north, the reefs become more densely packed, creating more of a protective barrier for the islands inside them.

Near the Barrier Reef’s north end, it’s easier to find swell-free anchorages. But no islands are immune to the wind waves created by the sometimes-strong trade winds in this area. These wind waves have an amazing ability to wrap around even sizeable islands.

But the wind waves aren’t the only issue to contend with as the tides are also an issue. In one area the tidal range goes as high as 28 feet! Near the Whitsunday Islands it’s more like 16 feet, not as extreme but still considerable. It’s easy to see that a reef that might offer protection at low tide could be much less helpful at high tide.

As if these things weren’t complicated enough, there’s another issue: the strong, fast currents these big tides create, especially when they go against the wind which creates nasty wave and sea conditions. Of course we’ve had past dealings with wind against current conditions, mostly when going through channels between land masses. What we didn’t fully grasp was the extremes that can happen in wide open areas. We’d eventually come to learn more about that the hard way.

At this point, early in this season’s Queensland coastal cruise, we knew that many anchorages could potentially be rolly, especially the smaller islands further away from the reef. We’d always have to take several factors–wind strength, wind direction, swell conditions outside (and inside) the reef, wind waves, and proximity to protective reefs and/or surrounding islands (which could be very handy at blocking swell)–into account when choosing a passage window and/or anchorage. Soon we’d be adding current to that list.

During our night in the anchorage behind Cape Capricorn, we did get some light roll, probably near peak high tide, but it gentled once again into a pleasant calm. I didn’t mind the movement at all and enjoyed hearing small wavelets breaking on shore during that time.

My standard for anchorage rolliness could be defined by what I call the  wineglass principle.

Can I set a glass wineglass (with wine) down on a countertop and expect it to stay put? If the answer is yes, it’s a comfortable anchorage even if there’s some movement. If I have to use a plastic glass (the marine and campervan-type that’s short and stout), conditions may not be as serene but still tolerable as long as that glass stays secure. At the point the plastic glass falls over, well, things are not so good (especially if it was a full glass of wine!). In this case, I think a glass wineglass would have worked through the night.

Rich didn’t seem to mind the late-night movement, but in what turned out to be another harbinger of things to come: he did take notice of it and didn’t seem particularly pleased.

For now we had a nice night, waking up in the morning in no rush to leave. What a pleasure to be nestled in our chairs in the morning air, mildly cool so we were cozied up in sweatpants and pullovers, drinking our coffee, and noticing how much prettier this anchorage looked in the light of the morning sun.

Meanwhile, I had mentally put this place in the category of a stop along the road, not a destination anchorage, but suddenly Rich seemed concerned that Great Keppel Island might be a letdown if it were too much like this. I wasn’t worried in that no one talks about coming to this spot, but everyone gushes about Great Keppel, considered a Must-Do when cruising through the Great Barrier Reef islands.

Below is a map of Great Keppel Island. At first glance it looks like an island with a lot of appealing, beach-ringed anchorages. But in reality the bays on the east and south side of island are often untenable because of prevailing southeasterly winds. Even when the wind is northerly, there could still be some roll depending on the swell activity outside the reef.

On this map, I’ve added some lines, an amateur depiction indicating conditions we encountered during our coastal cruise. The green line shows the anchorages that would be too exposed in a south or eastly wind. I’ve added the pink line to show areas where the swell would wrap around and affect what might look like otherwise appealing anchorages. (Of course boats with a very shallow draft, that can tuck in close to shore, might not have to worry so much about wrap-around swell.)

Finally, I’ve added a small yellow line to show an area that we would have considered safe from swell while we were there that was, in fact, quite rolly during that time (as we later heard from friends who were anchored there).

Bottom line: It’s occasionally possible to visit the south and easterly  bays on Great Keppel, but usually it’s the bays on the north or west side that are do-able. And even then, those anchorages can be affected by swell.

Below is an image (AI generated) of an extreme but not uncommon case of waves wrapping around an island…

–Cyndi

 

February 27, 2023

Are you tired of my songs of praise to ChatGPT yet? No, OK…

We keep our boat maintenance data in a spreadsheet. I note the dates and places we fill our propane tank (LPG). Usually, I just search for “propane” and look for the latest date, but what fun is that!?

This time, I copied the data from the spreadsheet, pasted it in a ChatGPT window and asked it: when was the last time I filled the tank. After a little refining, I got this:

Based on the provided CSV data, these are the dates when the propane tank was filled:

• • 02/18/21
  • 07/05/21
  • 10/17/21
  • 12/20/21
  • 09/18/22
  • 02/28/23

The intervals between these dates, calculated in days, are as follows:

• • 136 days between 02/18/21 and 07/05/21
  • 104 days between 07/05/21 and 10/17/21
  • 64 days between 10/17/21 and 12/20/21
  • 144 days between 12/20/21 and 05/13/22
  • 128 days between 05/13/22 and 09/18/22
  • 163 days between 09/18/22 and 02/28/23

That only took thirty minutes to do, compared  to the usual three minutes! I don’t care. I still love this thing!

-Rich