Back on the road again - Manly to Southport (Feb 2nd to 8th)

Xmas Day @ Sorrento

After a couple of months at home doing home type things we are back up on Mustang Sally in Manly (Brisbane).  We had an excellent time at home which included some sailing on Ray Bateman's Couta Boat - LOLA and also Al's 80th birthday party.

Al's 80th

As the BOM keeps telling us that there are southerlies blowing it is going to take us a bit longer to head south from Queensland than originally thought so have now moved onto Plan B which involves a nice slow trip from Manly down to Southport via the inner passage.

Lola and Ctrew

Through some earlier communication via US Yachts (the Hunter importer) we were lucky enough to get in touch with the original owner of Sally who strange as it may seem just happens to be in Manly with his newly imported stink boat - Atticus.  We were lucky enough to catch up with Malcolm and his mate Bruce in Manly for a drink but couldn't chat for too long as they had a couple of big days ahead of them sorting out the new boat before Malcolm's better half arrives on Friday,  They are also heading back to Sydney so we are guessing that we  will be crossing paths with them along the way

Chris and Allison arrived on the evening of the 2nd and as expected we enjoyed a nice meal at the Southport YC.  We headed off on Friday morning and did a heady 10NM across to Dunwich - the home of the Little Ship Club.  We had a great night here and the people were very welcoming.  Allison helped out as the barrel girl and did an excellent job as we ended up winning a meat tray and a bottle of wine!

The next day we headed off to an anchorage off Russell Island and had great intentions of heading ashore for a bit of a reconnaissance but unfortunately it is looking like the dinghy and the normally trusty 3.3HP Mariner motor really are now on their last legs as the motor just would not fire no matter how much encouragement it got.  As we were close to the shore decided we could paddle in for a bit of a look see.

After a couple of cruisy days we finally ended up at Tipplers Passage which is a really nice little spot  just north of Southport only to find Annacol which is a Hunter 45CC.  We had previously met Ann and Col at the Marlin Marina when they kindly grabbed our lines for us.  As is usual with cruising boats we decided to catch up for sundowners at 5pm.  During the arvo we managed to paddle the dinghy ashore again and went for a great walk over to the other side of South Stradbroke Island to see the surf and had a walk around the various shops and buildings that are there.

Sally & Annacol

On Tuesday (7th) we were hoping to stop in at Couran Cove for lunch but unfortunately it is only open on weekends so we made the rash decision to head into the madness of the gold coast a day early which may not be a bad thing as it at least gives us a day extra to see if we can get the trusty outboard repaired.