After a week of boatwork and watching big ships squeeze under the Gateway bridge and sail downriver we were eager to get back to cruising.
We’re happy — happy may be a poor choice of words — to pay good people to do their work, but boy do I resent having to pay a premium for a marina berth with very little to show for it. No bar, no restaurant, no friendly cruiser community. Nothing within walking distance. On the plus side the office staff are friendly, the dockmaster went out of his way to help us get our propane tanks exchanged and we got to do laundry and take hot showers but we were so ready to stop the meter running on the expensive berth and get EV back at anchor where we belong.
Again the fast running tidal current dictated when we could safely leave the dock but at least now we have two working engines and we got off on our own without having to rely on dockhands to maneuver the tight turn. Slack tide came too late in the day to make it all the way down river and across the bay so we dropped the hook just upstream of the rainbow-lighted Gateway Bridge. It felt so good to be swinging again.
The next day brought a cold rain and we decided to wait for better weather. By evening an unusually thick fog moved in putting us in an eerily self-contained Twilight Zone where even the bridge disappeared.
Finally the fog lifted and we made our way back past the shipping port and across the bay to what has to be the rolliest anchorage we’ve ever experienced. I don’t know how we got any sleep, especially since a boat that was in front of us cranked in his chain in the middle of the night and moved behind us. We can only assume he was dragging — we certainly weren’t — and he ended up moving again before dawn. We were only too happy to move on the next day to Mooloolaba.
