Normally our stay at K’gari (Fraser Island) is a short one as we quickly sail off to the Southern Great Barrier Reef. This time, we are doing things differently. We are on a leisurely frolic around this beautiful island while we wait for our buddy boat to hopefully join us.

Although this week is very much about killing time, it is also about enjoying beach walks, kayak trips, drone fly overs, keeping our exercise regime up, watching dolphins playing around our boat, reading, snoozing. It is pleasant enough but really slow… Waiting for weather often is and you know how good at this we are!

We are getting used to the blow up kayak… we reckon it is more of a canoe as we sit in it rather than on top of it, we each use a single paddle and it does not have a covered deck. The main thing is that we don’t get a wet bottom unless Wade is too enthusiastic with the paddle and scoops up water!

We have been anchoring at several familiar but lovely spots: McKenzie Jetty, Kingfisher Bay, Coongul Creek, Moon Point to name a few. Here is a series of aerial shots.

As mentioned in our previous post, we are hoping that our cruising companions will come south from Mackay and meet up with us. It is a tall order as they are having to motor against the prevailing southeast winds when the conditions are light enough. Once the two catamarans are together, we expect to have to hang around – possibly for several weeks – before we get a suitable weather window to take off on our Coral Sea Atolls expedition. This will be a test of our patience and resolve to head far offshore. The weather has been so strange that it is hard to predict what will happen or when.

Why do we so want to sail 250 nautical miles offshore? The big motivators for heading beyond the GBR to a few of the southern Coral Sea atolls are the adventure, the remoteness, the wrecks, the fish life, the thousands of seabirds which roost on these remote cays, the prospect of exploring new to us and seldom visited territory. These things are uplifting. What we are escaping are both the depressing sight of a devastated Great Barrier Reef after yet another summer of extreme heat stress and the overly busy coastal cruising route.

In March 2024, the fifth mass bleaching event on the Great Barrier Reef was confirmed. The aerial surveys indicated this event was one of the more extensive with almost half the reefs (46 per cent) having experienced record levels of heat stress.

After the extended period of bath like conditions which stripped the corals of their symbiotic algae, there are reports of invasive algae and weeds now smothering the white coral skeletons, a shocking sight. Our reef hopping in previous years has sometimes left us in tears at witnessing the damage, but this year will be much, much worse and the prospect of seeing even more devastation is just too depressing to contemplate. This is especially so after the tough last few months we have lived through. We dearly, dearly hope the weather gods will be kind to us and allow us to escape.

It will be another few days before our buddies arrive – maybe this weekend. Once we are together, we will plan our next move and tell you more about them. Today as we post this we are sailing to Burnett Heads where a few parcels are waiting for us.