Blogs from Yeppoon, Queensland, Australia, Oceania

Back on Easter Monday my thoughts turned to the resurrection as I am sure it does for all of us on this hallowed day. And so from this, the blog for SV Luna Ray has returned! I considered making an entry to fill in some gaps from when I signed off in January but didn’t get around to it - we had packing and a boat to get ready and the younger Fees (Andrew, Amy, Jordy & Lucia) became our new housemates, making things a little hectic. I thought I would make an entry as soon as our new trip started but I am only making this draft now on our third evening out at Great Keppel Island. Since then I have been on a 6 week trip around the world visiting friends & family, and ... read more

Well we had only been off the boat for a few days before we were now crewing on another!... delivering Naomi's parents' boat back from Bunderberg to Yeppoon. Delivery sounds a bit business like, it was really a nice cruise along some of the lower Great Barrier Reef islands over a few days. Drove down to Bundy on the Friday and slept on the boat in the marina. Early next morning (21st December) we were joined by another crew member, Wayne, who is Naomi's mum's cousin's husband...if anyone knows what relative that makes him to Naomi please let us know. Cheryl (Naomi's mum) cast us off and headed back to Yeppoon alone in the car, while we headed down the river and out to sea. It was a clear day, with a light easterly breeze and ... read more

Well our plan went as expected and we had very pleasant sail downwind across from North Keppel, arriving in Keppel Bay Marina just afternoon. It has taken us exactly 1 month to get here from Lizard Island (took about 4 months to get there!) Naomi's parents were still down in Bunderberg taking care of their boat, so we used the marina courtesy car to collect their car and we have been staying at their place since. Mostly vegetated the first two days, checked on the boat each morning to do some jobs, and enjoyed the luxuries of on land living. Now that I can use a computer I have pulled out some of my favourite pictures from our trip south. It reminded me of a special little stop we made that I had forgotten about and ... read more

Well the time has finally come and we have left Yeppoon after 4 weeks. Its been a great stay, thanks greatly to Naomi's parents' hospitality, could happily stay longer but time marches on and the cyclone season is only a few months away so its well overdue that we leave. Did get lots of jobs done during our stay - resealed leaky toilet hatch, new brushes on anchor winch motor, stripper mounting welded, new spacer to correct welding, new raw water impeller, resealed impeller cover, had new front sail made, resealed impeller cover again, had new cockpit cover (bimini) made, cleaned fuel pre-filter, refilled gas tank, ordered new rope, made window supports, cleaned hull, sanded and repainted hull stripe on both side (biggest job by far), repaired sink cover, topped up battery water, ordered graphics for ... read more

Happy 7 month anniversary to us! We left Agnes Water very early this morning (8am!) as there were thousands of ants crawling everywhere and we didn't like it. We drove for about 4 hours (there were lots of roadworks) to get to Yeppoon. We drove through Rockhampton which is the beef capital of Australia apparently! But aside from eating steak there's not much to do there so we drove on a bit further. We checked into a lovely campsite called Poinciana tourist park, which is only a 3 minute walk to the beach. We drove to Yeppoon centre to do a bit of shopping and then went for a swim and a sunbathe on the beach! It was lovely as we virtually had the beach to ourselves!... read more