Thursday 8^th December

So did we spend an idle day, sipping cups of tea and ambling around beautiful Seventeen Seventy while the forecast gale force winds lashed the coast?  Well no.

I woke at about 6.30 to find Pete bustling about, ready to GO GO GO!!  He had put a placatory cup of tea in the bedroom for me and said, cheerily, that the wind didn’t seem to be too bad at all and that we should go while the going was good.

And what happened??  Well we had the best day’s sailing since have been back in Australian waters… The sky was blue and full of puffy white clouds; the sea was azure in colour and gentle in demeanour.  And the wind…well it was still coming from the wrong direction, ie SE, but it was all very mild.  At about midday there was a special weather bulletin on the radio – cancelling the gale-force wind warning.

We did get to see 1770 from the coast, and it does look like a very pretty little holiday town, with thick lush bush, beautiful houses, rolling hills, dear little beaches.  As for the fearsome bar with its rolling, breaking waves – well it was fearsome yesterday.  Today – what bar?  Just smooth, mellow water and some marker buoys.

We are now, happily and uneventfully, attached to Orange arm of the Bundaberg Marina, at the mouth of the Burnett River.  Both fuel tanks are full, Pete is having a beer, and I am about to have a lovely shower.

All is well!  And tomorrow – another easy trip, to Urangan, in Hervey Bay.