58) Sailing the Ocean Blue....

Rather odd I think, for a lad from Colorado to harbor dreams of the the wide expanses, the brilliant horizontality of the ocean, but having the entire Coral Sea and the vast reaches of the Pacific in your back yard begs involvement. I actually spent a great deal of my youth sailing 'dinghy's' (a 16' C-class Thistle) in Georgian Bay off Lake Superior (after I got over adolescent petrol/engine/go-fast desires). When we decided to move to a coast I realized that I could follow in the footsteps of fellow raft guide Captain Alicia, and pursue my Skipper certification.

Now some of you, or actually many of you, will think "I would never do that - too sedentary, not enough exercise, old people activity. Doesn't count for aerobic points!" Well wait a few. For me it's like knowing how to row a Grand Canyon raft - someday a friend of mine may think how nice it would be to charter a bareboat in the West Indies, the Leeward Isles, the Whitsundays, the Mediterranean. You may want to do some snorkeling, take in a few dives, visit some uninhibited tropical islands, swim in clear, turquoise waters, have a few of those drinks with the little umbrellas in them. But said friend will need a certified skipper who won't cramp your beach lounging, kite surfing, hammock-swinging life style. And will let you wakeboard behind the boat!

Who ya gonna call? Eh mate!?

I thought I was going to learn to sail - they found out I was a (former) raft guide and they gave me this! (ah, it was good to smell hypalon baking in the sun and get that leg burn from using a leaky foot pump!) Who needs stair-masters!
























Moreton Bay is a fantastically scenic place. Bounded on the east by Stradbroke and Moreton Islands (the latter a National Park). Many harbors, marinas, and moorings. Lots of small mangrove islands down south and some very tricky waters to sail in. The entire bay is quite shallow and parts are *really* shallow. You really have to attend to navigation, navigation markers, and the tides. Rob, our instructor, has been sailing for almost all of his young life and he has gone aground here! As a racing boat, ours had a deeper than normal keel making chart and tide reading critical - there are places where the channel is really narrow and there are moorings you can only get into/out of at high tide.

(the red line indicates our approximate path over the course - 153 nautical miles.


Rob, our sailing instructor from the UK adjusts the jib leech line - good balance here as we were bouncing along at about 8.5 knots! (note the harness - we had not yet done our man-over-board drills which involes crash-tacking (that just *sounds* like fun right!) and some easy maneuvers back to the swimmer. This boat is a 41' racing sloop - sails closer to the wind, turns faster, has a deeper keel than most yachts. Pretty amazing boat - but boy is it tender - it heels right over at the drop of a hat!











The WAGS race - "Wednesday Afternoon Go Sailing" - any type of sailboat - just for fun!






Some intentionally scuttled wrecks off the anchorage on Moreton Island. Great snorkeling, beautiful water. They make for an interesting bit of scenery but don't do much to protect the anchorage!












The tidal currents here make this a real drift-snorkel - there is no way you are going to swim against this current for long. Of course I didn't even have fins so it was all rather interesting . Signs on the wrecks warning against climbing up on them (what were they thinking - that people wouldn't go climb up on them? Mostly the metal bits were too hot to walk on!) I ended up swimming 'downstream' to shore, walking back up the beach and swimming with a good ferry angle across the current to get back to my boat.

Sharks? No sharks here......








Halos form when light from the sun or moon is by ice crystals associated with thin, high-level clouds. A 22 degree halo is a ring of light 22 degrees from the sun (or moon) and is the most common type of halo observed and is formed by hexagonal ice crystals with diameters less than 20.5 micrometers.
(http://ww2010.atmos.uiuc.edu/(Gh)/wwhlpr/halo.rxml?hret=/guides/mtr/opt/ice/sd.rxml)

I rowed my little dinghy past this abandoned (?) boat at a mooring in S Moreton. Kind of sad to see it just left there to rot....









A shark free swimming pen - it really works - guaranteed no sharks in there! (it is low tide and a king tide at that!)


























Fantastic sunsets out on the water. The 'Oceans" is a 41 foot yacht. Sleeps 6 comfortably - a splendid way to find accommodations as you move from anchorage to marina to mooring. Small kitchen but all the amenities (freezer, oven, full kitchen get up)













A turtle-eye view of "Oceans" (our boat) - we have a boom-tent rig for lunch to stay out of the sun.










Moon rise over someone's dinghy.















Videos of us under sail. This was a broad reach - almost directly before the wind so we were not heeling over. We are still flying here - about 8 knots. Next time I will try and get some video of this boat when it's trying to lie over - quite exciting that! (the noise is the wind over the pic up microphone)