Year 2 – 30 March 2025 -Bundaberg – Urangan Harbour

If anyone reading this and is free from late June to mid July 2025 to come to Australia then do contact me as I am short of crew during this period at present.

It rained hard and long in the night which I suppose was good as when we woke the sun had come out and we were able to dry off again! We had been looking at the weather and it is unsettled for a few days and the wind was going to be North -NW or NE. We have time on our hands as we do not need to be in Gladstone until 7/8 April 2025 and there is not a lot to go to in between Bundaberg and Gladstone, apart from what we have done already. I therefore thought we could come down to Urangan which I have not been to before and show David this area and be close to Fraser Island again. He was very flexible and keen to see new places and we did not want to spend more time in Bundaberg. Urangan is on the mainland on the South side of Hervey Bay and opposite Fraser Island and the resort that Trevor and I anchored off a few weeks back.

David cooked scrambled eggs and bacon with tomatoes which was nice. I then had to bail out the dinghy which had about 8-10 inches of water in it. We then went ashore to get rid of the rubbish and see if the chandlery was open. It was closed so we came back promptly and put the dinghy on the davits. It is a lot more work with two of us but manageable. We then got ready and then I went to get up the anchor and Trevor was on the helm.

When you get up the anchor you first have to take off the snubber which is a piece of rope with a hook on it which fits into the anchor chain and takes the strain of any jolts on the anchor chain so it takes the shock not the chain which limits the risk of the chain pulling out the anchor. I then had to direct David to motor forward or not in order to give some slack on the chain so I can bring it in with the windlass. As the tide was going out about 2 kts I had to get him to motor forward regularly so I could gradually bring in the chain and then get the anchor off the bottom and on to the bow roller. At the same time, you have to watch that the anchor chain is being stowed properly in the anchor locker and not jamming up and preventing more chain from coming down. I also have to put back some of the ends of the rope markers in the anchor chain which start to come out. I then have to take down the anchor ball to show we are no longer at anchor. I have not done this part of the boat for some time – perhaps a year or more and it was good to do it and allow Trevor to experience the helm part.

Once clear we motored out through the channel and markers and we had to go down the channel for a mile and a half or so before we could leave it due to depth and head toward Urangan which was about 43nm South. The wind was light and coming from the North so we upped sails and did the best we could trimming and making adjustments to see what effect it would have on our speed etc. Despite this we could not go fast enough to get to Urangan before dark and we really needed to see where we were. We therefore had a combination of sail /motor sail or just motor through the day judging our distance the ensure we could arrive on time.  

We had a wrap for lunch en route, fruit, and the odd tea etc. It was a lovely sunny day with high pressure fluffy clouds and no rain although the barometer dropped 4 degrees over the day. As we approached Urangan we saw a huge jetty come out about a quarter of a mile and I know there is some history to it which I will find out. We then saw the breakwater at Uranga behind which are three marinas, a chandlery and shops/restaurants etc.

We motored on and there was a good spot south of the entrance to the breakwater and we were then out of the way of any traffic to the breakwater. We anchored with a 2 kt tide coming in and were soon settled. We could see the sun beginning to come down behind the marina and had a drink on the aft deck watching the sun going down. We saw a couple of small heads pop out the water and wondered whether they were seals or sea otters. We are not sure. We also saw thousands of what looked like fruit bats flying overhead and heading toward Fraser Island. It was good to be here and somewhere new which we can explore tomorrow. The picture of the day is the sunset over the marina and breakwater.    

Need/Opportunity Year Two

I am in need of more crew from late June to Mid-July so if of interest do email me at  hine.nick9@gmail.com  

In year two I will be going from New Zealand to Sydney and hen up the Eastern Australian Coast, Indonesia and then through Bali, Singapore and on to Thailand to end year two about the end of November 2025.

The blog will continue as we continue the journey. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog then do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com