Salt Water Injection

I've just come off the back of a busy week finalising a tender response, getting two large scale software development projects ready for implementation and basically staring at the walls of my cubicle going slowly insane.  The murky waters of the bay weren't going to cut it this weekend.  I needed an injection of deep blue water that only ocean kayaking can give you.

With perfect conditions predicted, we took off from Mooloolaba to paddle out to Mudjimba (Old Woman) Island which is a 20 km round trip if you stop off for a surf along the way. 

We took off at the top of the tide to head out to the island with a plan to do some rock gardening and surf into a rock lagoon which is sheltered behind a rocky outcrop on the north-western corner of the island.  If you can make it in behind the rock wall then you have access to the island.

The island is surrounded by a rock reef which is one of the best reef breaks on the East Coast when the swell starts to wrap around the island.  The swell that was running today was missing the island and building onto the coast which gave us a somewhat easy access into the rock lagoon.

The Shearwaters (Mutton birds) have been in residence, clearing out their nests ready for their nesting season.  You can only walk around the rocky edge of the island as the middle of the island is a mine field of Shearwater nests.  After visiting the island residence, we did a walking circumnavigation before jumping in our boats and heading off for a surf on some north shore beach breaks.

We had a great surf on the way back with some very nice peaky waves forming on the outgoing tide.  I had a first today as I slotted my sea kayak through a barrel that was forming, prepared my high brace for a thrashing, but somehow came out the other side of the barrel onto a clean wall - should of towed my surfboard along!

Thanks to Gaza and Jonathan for keeping me company - we were like stoked grommets by the time we headed in for lunch!

Where did the wind go?

A bloody headwind slog today with the promise of a downwind paddle for the trip back that failed to deliver.

Winding the clock back to last Saturday, I stood on a razor clam when walking the kayak over a shallow weed bank.  These clams are well named and I ended up with a deep gash across the ball of my foot.  A doctor visit, some antibiotics and a taped foot saw me out of action for a week - for those who know me you should take pity on the people who have to put up with me when I am house-bound...

So I may have been a little stir crazy so didn't mind a slog into a 10 knot headwind for 17 kms with the promise of a 10 knot tailwind for the trip back.  It wasn't until I jumped in the boat and found I couldn't use any leg drive with my injured foot that a headwind slog started to look a lot more daunting.

Anyway, propped up on some caffeine and a mix of other sports additives I slowly made my way across to Mud Island where we found a shallow rock inlet which had a sand bottom surrounded by coral banks. There was a high sand bank in shade of some trees that we made our way towards before being monstered by a few thousand midges.  We beat a hasty retreat to the coral bank where we setup for morning tea in the sun, but with a lovely breeze blowing on our backs.

You can see the wind on the water in these photos - it was a 10 knot easterly which would have been a perfect tailwind back to the Yundah Street boat ramp.  We shortened our break so we could catch the wind.  The tide was on the way in and it has risen sufficiently so that we could paddle out over the coral bank which was now covered by a foot or so of water.

The wind was pushing our boats around as we got ready to depart, gusting in every now and then and filling our sails. 

So with this promise of a fun paddle/sail home we took off...and then the wind dropped away.  Our sails hung limp and dejected.  Jono took the direct line back whereas I went wide hoping to pick more wind and swell up.  We met back together near the airport on the other side of the shipping channel to have a depressing discussion on the lack of either wind or swell for the next 8 km slog back to our put in point.

Still, it was better than being house bound for another day!

34 kms.

Down wind paddling in Moreton Bay

Moreton Bay is a shallow body of water for the most part, which creates a great environment for down wind paddling with wind against tide conditions.  Our usual down wind paddle is in the southern part of the bay, where you can get a good meter or so of swell pushed along by a strong southerly.

With a 25 knot southerly blow predicted, spring tides and two meters of swell in the bay, we opted to do a down wind paddle at the top end of the bay, taking off from where we usually finish our down winders at Oyster Point and heading out wide to come in at the Redcliffe Peninsular.

Two meters of swell running in the bay can get a bit scary with wind against tide conditions!  The top end of the bay has a long fetch with 25 knots of wind to whip up some some large swell with great holes to drop into.  As the waves are close together, you drop into a hole and bury your kayak bow into the wave in front as the wind drives you through it into the next hole.  Not much control when you are travelling at this speed - I even had my sail going neutral on some of these 100+ meter runs.

Coming into Redcliffe was a bit daunting with the waves being stood up higher over the rock reef so you were free falling into some deep holes as you came over the top of the wave in front.  Discretion was the better part of valour as on a few of them I hip flicked the kayak to run along the wall rather than the endo option with sail deployed!

The only negative thing about a down wind paddle is the car shuffle.  To minimise the traffic hassles, we opted to put in at Oyster Point. Unfortunately you have to beat your way into the wind to follow the channel out to deeper water, or skirt across some very shallow banks.  We regrettably took the shallow bank option with not enough water so we ended up walking the kayaks and playing with a few shovel-nose rays.

I ended up standing on a razor clam and slicing my foot open.  I didn't realise what I had done until we were underway and I was complaining about my foot sticking to the foot pegs.  Anyhow, I will be hobbling around for a few days whilst that heals and I avoid the doctors and another set of stitches.

Taking off from Wellington Point or even Manly Boat harbour at low tide would give you a better angle to head out towards St Helena and then Mud Island, but then you face more traffic hassles and a longer car shuffle.

I didn't have my Garmin with me, but I believe the paddle was around 28kms and including walking the kayaks we were on the water around 2:00pm and off a bit before 5:00pm.

We didn't see much boat traffic on the bay apart from one container ship leaving the Port of Brisbane. We surprised a few large sea turtles that were on the surface but the sea birds and rest of the wild life had made themselves scarce as they took cover from the blow.

Suttons Beach to Tangalooma Return - 58 kms

Not what we expected to see parked in the middle of the shipping channel off Moreton Island.  I'm not sure if this was a scheduled visit or if the P&O Pacific Pearl was sheltering from a series of low pressure systems that have been generating some large seas and wild swell off the SE Queensland coast. The end result was a resort overrun with tourists that was similar to the Gold Coast in summer, good for the local resort but not so good for a couple of kayakers seeking some solitude and a camp under a tree before paddling home.

We had hatched a plan to do a longer paddle during this weekend, and with a bit of rescheduling we ended up settling on 2 x 27 km crossings out to Moreton Island and back.  Unfortunately the tides weren't perfect for us with morning and afternoon low tides and a lunch time high tide.  I would aim for a lunch time low tide if I was going to do this crossing again.

We took off at 6:00 am at the bottom of the tide from Suttons Beach, generally aiming at the port side channel markers a bit south of Tangalooma, before crossing over to the starboard side marker on the way to the wrecks, about a kilometer north of resort.  We averaged just over 8 kms/hr for most of the paddle with no wind assistance to talk about until we hit the main shipping channel that runs down the inside of Moreton Island - an outgoing tide would have made crossing the shipping channel a little more comfortable, but our paddling speed only dropped by a km or so per hour as we pushed against the tide.

The wrecks are definitely worth snorkeling around, but with so much traffic and another 30 kms to go, we just paddled around them before heading down to the resort for a quick lunch break with the other 20 million people who decided to visit Tangalooma on this beautiful pre-spring weekend.

As crowds were not what we were looking for, we grabbed a bite to eat and got on the water again to paddle down to Shark Point for a short break before heading home.

Fins on the water?  The sail was up with hope of an afternoon sea breeze popping up to help us home - it came through an hour or so later so I spent the last two hours of the crossing catching runners and hitting up to 19 kms/hr which made for a pleasant end to a long day paddle.

Fin was from the friendly variety - we had lots of these visit on the crossing, popping up in front of the kayaks when we least expected it.

Hoskyn Islands

This is a sea kayakers view of West Hoskyn Island, taken on our sea kayaking trip through the Capricornia Cays in 2010.  There is a closed-reef platform surrounding the island and a beautiful lagoon on the southern side which includes a large reef wall and a number of bommies that are covered in sea-life.  The lagoon includes a very large but shy groper that lives in a rock cave in the reef wall and an over-friendly tawny nurse shark who doesn't mind getting in your face (probably just being overly inquisitive but I am always a bit wary when I am a long way off shore and the shark is bigger than I am :-)

The north side of the island has a large number of small reef sharks that are also very friendly and like playing tag with your paddle so wouldn't pay to dangle too much in the water for too long.

The reef was teaming with sea-life which is great to see island's like these put aside as green zones which can't be fished by our commercial operators, as well as the benefits to our turtles and sea bird populations which use these islands to breed on their yearly migrations.

I had seen this large turtle on the reef platform and was concerned that it may have been dead, but when approached it was alive and well, just stranded on the reef for a tide cycle.

After short break on the island and a snorkel in the lagoon we headed off towards Fitzroy Reef and One-Tree Island on our way to Mast Head Island via Heron Island.

Sea Kayaking around Lady Musgrave Island

One of Queensland's best kept secrets is that you don't have to pay a $100's to $1000's of dollars a night to stay on some of the beautiful coral cays that make up the Great Barrier Reef, you can do it for $5.50 a night (at the time of writing)! You just needs some camping gear and a sense of adventure.

There are a number of ways to travel to this island, via the Spirit of 1770 which visits daily from the Town of 1770, via your own ocean going boat, or if you are a bit more adventurous, via a sea kayak.  In the picture above we are having a break in the lee of the Lady Musgrave Island reef wall after paddling around 40 kms north-west from Lady Elliot Island in 2010 (from L-R; myself, Gary Forrest and Eddie Safarik).

Lady Musgrave Island is an uninhabited island around 60 kms off the Queensland Coast and is the southern most island in the Capricornia Cays National Park; noting that Lady Elliot Island is the furthest most southern island in the Great Barrier Reef.  It is surrounded by a very large lagoon, thanks to a closed-ring platform reef which protects the island from the relentless swell which predominately comes from the SE.  An entrance has been blasted into the surrounding reef wall which provides deep water access and safe anchorage within the protected lagoon.  A safe haven and popular drop in place for Yachts cruising the Queensland Coast. 

The island is predominantly covered with pisonia trees and she-oaks. It hosts a number of migratory birds (noddys, mutton birds, etc) during their respective nesting seasons, as well as visiting loggerhead and green turtles for egg-laying/hatching.  The reefs are teaming with wildlife and you are able to catch fish outside the designated green zone.  The waters of the southern Great Barrier Reef are amazingly clear, making this a fantastic spot for snorkeling and diving.

The Fairfax group of islands are a few kilometers to the north which would be a great day paddle if you had come over by boat and were basing yourself on Lady Musgrave.  Further north is the Hoskyn group of islands which again has a natural lagoon and is inaccessible to larger boats due to a closed-ring platform reef which holds a smaller lagoon with amazing wildlife.

The campsites are on the north west corner of the island and you would be best coming in at half-to-full tide to get over the reef edge saving a longer paddle around to the boat channel to get into the lagoon.  The swell breaking onto the reef wall will be very heavy so it would advisable to cross in the lee of the island if possible.  Surfing across the reef is possible, but dangerous given you can't really see if the waves are sucking dry on to the reef platform from behind and holing your boat or yourself this far off shore is to be avoided ;-)

The other bird life that we came across on each of the coral cays were sea eagles - generally one pair per island.  It would seem that their favourite food is sea snakes, closely followed by young turtles.

Snorkeling around the green zone allowed you to view sea life in a more relaxed state than outside where they seemed a bit more wary of the food chain thing.  There were lots of turtles in the local waters and some reasonable sized reef sharks that would cruise through every now and again.

The camping on the island was fairly basic, but there were toilets and an emergency phone.  These days I carry a single side band shortwave radio for weather scheds whilst I am off shore, but when we did this trip in 2010 we had an afternoon ritual of climbing the tower to get clear reception for the weather broadcast on the VHF radio.

Our trip was during the winter months and there were no bugs, and for most of the camping I slept under a tarp rather than putting up a tent.  Lady Musgrave was the only exception to this after I was visited by a rather large centipede in the middle of the night.  Apparently these must have been introduced with some of the building materials for the toilets as I didn't come across these on any other island.  It has been reported that they can give you a nasty bite and this one decided to try and crawl over my neck before paying the ultimate sacrifice :-o

Be careful of walking off the tracks through the centre of the island as the ground is littered with mutton bird nesting holes.  Also think about where you setup your tent as under the trees will result in guano coated camping gear!  Just one of many fantastic islands off the Queensland Coast which allow remote camping.