A varied week kept us occupied: a mix of catching up with friends, errands in town and then sails, snorkels and fun at the northern end of Moreton Island. It is always better when we are on the move and can play.

Socials at Cleveland

After a few gloomy days down at Peel Island and Canaipa, we made a move.

We had not intended to go to Cleveland from Canaipa, but spurred along by the prospect of meeting up with our cruising friends from Oceaneer we had not seen in a year, we sailed back up and anchored in Raby Bay. It was lovely reconnecting with Dee, Riley and Blythe, after a big cruising year for them and for us.

We tried catching up with various cousins of Wade who live nearby while we were there, but it did not eventuate, so after a few days close to town, and the breeze moving to the east, it was time to head across Moreton Bay again to find a spot to anchor in the lee of Moreton Island.

Tangalooma Wrecks

After many years when we by-passed Tangalooma for one reason or another, we have come back to visit! We had an interesting sail, taking turn at hand steering as the wind was fickle and we were chasing the breeze around. By the time we reached Tangalooma, it was after 6.00pm, low tide and squeezing past the anchored boats in the narrow channel along the wrecks attracted some nervous stares from the locals! But we were not interested in anchoring there – way too tight and busy for our liking! In our usual fashion we went right past the crowds and dropped the pick away from everybody a little north of the wrecks.

Early the next morning, all was quiet and we sent the drone up. Chris has long wanted to take aerial shots of this iconic site.

A cluster of fifteen deliberately sunk vessels that have become an artificial reef, Tangalooma makes for some captivating exploring.

This is a site map with the name of each shipwreck, showing the direction we took for our snorkel. We anchored the dinghy close to the first wreck and worked hard against the tide towards No15, Uki, following the inside line, then drifed back down on the outside to No 1, Echenels, with the current.

Over time the shipwrecks have rusted into the skeletons of ships protruding from the turquoise water. They harbour lots of fish and some coral among the rusty hulls, perfect for unusual underwater images. Well when we say perfect, we mean interesting, because the water clarity was poor, and all it was perfect for was lots of backscatter on our images! Still, we had fun and it was good exercise in the current. Here is a selection of photos.

We will have some new material to share in our next post as we head further north along Moreton Island to Yellow Patch and then Flinders Reef, a dive spot just a few nautical miles North East of Cape Moreton we have been eyeing for a while. Stay tuned!