Rain

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Days 22 - 30

Rain, rain, and more rain.

Day 22 - Kingscliffe
Intermittent showers had me running between the tent and outside (where I was trying to get gear re-organized).
The paddle into Kingscliffe was a bit dicey with a fairly strong south swell breaking over a reef just in front of where I was landing.

Day 23 - Jumpinpin bar
Fairly long mileage day (42 miles), but I had to get around the 'Gold Coast' in one pass (as well as getting inside the 'Broadwater' and paddling up to the north end of South Stradbroke Island).
With the unsettled weather, the heavy swells had me worried about entering the bar at Southport - but it turned out to be fairly easy.

Day 24 - Reeders Point (South end of Moreton Island)
To avoid the 'city' area completely (Brisbane and shoreside communities), I took the 'island' route - via North Stradbroke I and the short hop over to Moreton (from the little town of Amity).
Landed and put up the tent just before another line of light showers came through.

Day 25 - Worrim (Bribie Island)
I went up halfway on Moreton, before taking a fairly long crossing back to the 'mainland' (Bribie Island is right next to the mainland).
The 'launch' in the pre-dawn hours was interesting. I entered the 'shoally' waters just as another rain squal was passing through. It was pitch black, and, luckily, the GPS was accurate. As dawn was approaching, the water seemed to have a very dull green glow to it (not the 'luminescence' from the water creatures, it might have been an effect of the pre-dawn light and the somewhat shallow waters).

Day 26 - Pt Cartwright.
To avoid the tourist crowds of Mooloolaba (Sunshine coast), I stayed right across the river, at a tiny little spot - just above a beach that is covered at flood.

Day 27 - Noosa
Another touristy town on the Sunshine coast. Again, avoiding the crowds, I found a nice little tucked away beach - used as a 'dog park'. (The only problem was that I had to enter the river bar which was very 'spashy').

Day 28 - Inskip Point (Mainland - just south of Fraser Island) (50 miles)
LONG Day - started with getting spashed up a bit leaving the river bar, then, within an hour (about 2AM), a series of fairly stong rain squalls (with strong winds) came through the rest of the night (till about 6AM), at which time, the rain stopped, but a moderate NE wind continued to hamper me, all of the way to Wide Bay - where I wanted to pull in, but threre was a large swell coming in which made the fairly well protected bay - too surfy. I continued to the (very difficult - but made easy with GPS) bar at Inskip Pt., on the way encountering a number of blue bottles that loved to swing around on my paddle and sting me.

Day 29
Rest and recover day at Inskip.
HEAVY rain all day long reminded me that I had forgotten to 'seam seal' the tent. After about an hour of the heavy rain, the tent leaked horribly the rest of the day. Luckily, the rain let up overnight - so I was able to sleep comfortably. (BTW, in town here (Hervey Bay), I just bought a bottle of Seam Sealer).

Day 30 - Urangan (50 miles)
Very stong SE winds along with (calculated) favorable tide currents helped me sneak inside Fraser Island to here. Though most of the time the paddling was not hard - with the strong winds and constant all day heavy rain - it was very wet (fresh and salt water).

The last couple of days of heavy winds and rain is due to a low off the coast butting up against a high inland. It's been strong enough to make quite the mention in the news, and people kind of gasp when they find out I was paddling in it yesterday.

Today, Day 31 is a rest day.

Andy

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Comments

[Richard Ertman]

So how's things?
Good to see you're making progress, saw there was a cyclone and I was hoping you're ok. Send me a an email some time and let me know how you're doing.