September 2014 Hervey bay Whale watch trip report

[Mac26Mpaul]

We had been talking about doing the Hervey bay whale watch cruise for a couple of years but things had got in the way. At the start of 2014 we decided to sell the boat (again) based on the fact that we just can’t find the time to use it enough. After a couple of months on the market the boat started getting more interest and I got scared that she would sell (again). So we pulled the ads down and decided we would do the Hervey bay trip in the September school holidays.

Sunday 21st of September was spent getting the boat ready including taking everything heavy out of it and putting it in the car. While I was doing this, the wife was packing all the cloths etc into a couple of bags and they too went into the car. We got up about 5.30 on Monday morning (an amazing feat for my wife and kids!) and were out on the road by about 6.30am – made it around the corner and I decided I wasn’t happy with a last minute mudguard modification I had done the day before, and so had to mess around with that for half an hour or so.



Soon we were on the M1 heading north (very slowly in the morning peak hour traffic). Once across the gateway the traffic thinned and we had a pleasant drive north for the next 3 hours however the car temp gauge was really starting to climb on the hills! About an hour out of UranganI pulled off the road and checked the oil and water (knew I forgot something). The oil was very low and so I unhooked the boat and left it on the side of the road with my wife and kids while I backtracked to a Shell for some oil. While I was gone a farmer arrived on a tractor – he said he couldn’t believe it when he saw in the distance, a huge boat sitting on his property and had thought that Father Xmas must have come early this year! Once the car had some oil, we were back on the road with no problems. We arrived at Urangan boat harbour to a lovely 27 knot southeaster blowing straight onto the ramp. Now we love our Mac, but I’m a realist so I’ll just straight up admit – light weight +_ huge freeboard + no draft = a PIG of a boat in high winds in a tight marina!

It’s a brilliant 4 lane ramp but the pontoon is separate from the ramp and a float on trailer and guide rails make for a very easily launched boat. I backed her off the trailer and over to the pontoon no problems. Then we motored around to our berth - yes the seawall cuts out a few of those 27 knots but it was still a little scary getting into our berth. We spent two great nights at the marina and the wife loved our time there so much and the great hospitality provided by the new managers Deb and Bob, that we decided to stay for a third night. There is a few restaurants at the boat harbour and we chose what was clearly the most popular (Had to wait for a seat compared to only three people in the restaurant next door). Now we are kind of cheap and don’t generally go to restaurants and unfortunately I have to say that this just reminded me of why. I won’t go on about it too much but I’m a bit of a pie man and paying 18 bucks for a pie which had a grand total of 7 chips on the plate next to it and a bit of green - I just wasn’t that impressed. For anyone with young children I highly recommend the free water park on the esplanade. Our children had a great time running around there for 3 hours or so. Right near the water park in Main Street is an award winning pie shop and they have tasty pies for only $5 or so. As recommended by Ian and Marie on TSP we utilized the services of the Urangan butcher, visiting them on the second day and asking them to cryovac a heap of meat in meal size portions and freeze it for us which they happily did. When we picked it up, they even told us the tides for the next day!

[Mac26Mpaul]

We motored out of the boat harbour the next day and found we had the wind on the nose. The wind is virtually always on the nose for us so that didn’t put us off and well, the Mac is a kind of nice trailer sailer in a headwind A few hours later we were making our way into Coongul creek, pretty easy to find your way in but beware of the tree stumps. Congul is crystal clear on a flooding tide but turns a tannin stained coca cola brown as the water ebbs away. It is a beautiful little spot and we had it all to ourselves. The fast moving tide caught me out and we ended up drying out on a not so fun angle.



Then I remembered the drain holes on the stern and had a look inside. Sure enough we were taking on water so I plugged the holes and began to bail out under the stern berth. I got at least 50 or 60 litres of water out of it...

We had a fun activity planned for the kids here. We had made a nice coffee stained old looking treasure map and stuck it in a rum bottle which just happened to be on the beach as we went for a walk Earlier while the wife entertained the kids, I had snuck off into the swampy looking area to the south of the creek and buried two small wooden chests containing fake gold coins, rubies, plastic necklaces, seashells etc. So off we went on the treasure hunt into Dead Mans swamp anxiously looking over our shoulders in case Blackbeard should appear! The kids just loved it.


Then we realized that we had unfortunately forgot our Magna BBQ. Don’t get me wrong, we love our Origo, but she doesn’t do much of a job of roast beef or thick T bone steaks!. I have an emergency exploder (gas camping stove) in the boat and we thought we would do our best with that but then realized we had no gas canisters (three months of planning really payed off eh!). Now thankfully there is mobile phone/internet reception at Coongul and so I decided to give Kingfisher resort a call and to my surprise the shop had two gas canisters in stock which they would hold for me for a day. So the decision was made to set sail for Kingfisher resort the next day, rather than Wathumba creek which had been the plan. Of course the next day the wind had veered right around and there was a decent headwind on us as we left the creek which produced some nice little waves. My wife was lookout on the foredeck and got soaking wet which I found most enjoyable.

[Mac26Mpaul]

This is Coongul creek

[Mac26Mpaul]

The wind veered again to a South Westerly - you guessed it, virtually on the nose all the way to Kingfisher. I put the jib up but decided we were too close to the wind and I couldn’t be bothered messing around. The swell was getting bigger and bigger and my crew were all starting to feel it and so took seasickness tablets. For some reason, I am very lucky and just don’t get seasick. Mind you, I can remember times in my youth while serving on HMAS Brisbane, having to strap myself in my rack and being absolutely certain I was going to die after being violently ill for days. The Gunnery mess on Brisbane was up forward, a fun place to be in 10 metre swells!

The seasickness tablets made everyone drowsy and sure enough they all fell asleep and let me battle on for a few more hours. We reached Kingfisher around lunchtime and found a bit of shelter anchored north of the jetty. We stayed there for a bit (crew still happily asleep) while I spent some time getting the boat shipshape (doing the washing up which was still sitting in the sink from the morning fried spam sandwiches). The wind was veering again, but for the first time, in our favour, around to the South and then southeast and so I moved around to the south side of the jetty and let the tide go out leaving us high and dry. We went up to the shop and bought the gas canisters and a few other bits and pieces and then went to “The Sandbar” for a swim in their pool, a beer and a great huge $28 pizza. We tried both the meatlovers and the Kingfisher supreme over the next two days, and the meatlovers was the hands down winner, although we also bought a $10 cheesy garlic pizza with each and they were brilliant!

Arriving back at the boat we found the boat high and dry and the rental segways flying around everywhere. It was interesting seeing the reaction and some of the comments of the tourists seeing a sailing boat sitting on the beach far away from the water. There was a group of drunken Germans riding Segways and the largest one had no sense of balance at all and kept falling flat on his face. His friends thought this absolutely hilarious and would stop to take photos whenever he fell. My wife was out in the cockpit and one of them stopped next to the boat and said in his loud drunken German accent “don’t doz things verk better in ze vater” and sped off. While there I met a nice bloke on the beach who amazingly a year earlier had been in contact with me as he was interested in buying my boat. He had ended up buying a 26 foot motor boat and told me he expected he would just make it on his 200 litre tank from his departure point of Tin can bay, to Urangan marina. I told him, that we had not yet sailed and had been to Coongul and then to Kingfisher and out of my 4 x 22 litre tanks onboard, I had used about 12 litres cruising at around 2000ish revs (maybe 5.5 knots). Etecs are pretty economical at low revs and 4 tanks gives a huge range. While at KingfisherI decided to top up that tank anyway. It is a fair walk from the beach to the Kingfisher resort general store and so finally my plastic collapsible hand trolley was put to good use!


On the Saturday night there was a wedding reception just up from where we were drying and I was a little worried about being high and dry near a massive group of drunken 20 somethings, but thankfully that ever faithful huge Sandy Straits/Hervey bay tide came rushing in which allowed me to pull us out into deeper water. Early the next morning I rowed our inflatable in to dump the rubbish in the bin near the toilets, only to find a campfire still burning and the bin missing. The toilet lock on the male toilet there does not work (same as the female one on the shower in the Sand Bar). They don’t really seem to be that big on maintenance at Kingfisher resort but they definitely make good pizza.. After my morning ablution (splashing a bit of water in my face), I rowed back out and went to start the motor - no start, batteries dead. Luckily Etec 50s can be hand started with the help of a bit of rope they are supplied with so I happily pulled out the manual to work out the procedure but found that section was missing from my manual.. I’m sure I could have worked it out but thankfully after turning the fridge off and giving the batteries 10 minutes rest, the ever reliable Etec flashed into life.

[Mac26Mpaul]

Now there was only a couple of knots of breeze blowing and we had a long journey planned (Kingfisher to Wathumba creek) and so off we went under iron Genny. Not long after passing Moon Point we spotted another Macgregor under sail although he was barely moving. Since we still had about 16 miles to do and I had 2 young children already complaining about when we would be at the next beach, the decision was made to motor on. We arrived at Wathumba Creek about 2 hours from low tide - I think it was about 1.30pm. I tried an approach based on the co-ordinates from a video on Youtube and found the mark to be way off, so I took the wife’s advice and approached from a totally different angle and sure enough we were soon in the creek The wife was on the bow as a tree stump lookout in the crystal clear water. We saw many stingrays and turtles on the approach and in the creek which is totally crystal clear and like a huge great swimming pool. I kept pushing the mark button on the GPS as we were entering the creek and have created a little track which will get you safely in 2 hours before low tide with nothing below 80cms of depth. If anyone wants me to post all the co-ordinates, just say.

[Mac26Mpaul]

As you can see in the images below, Wathumba creek is a truly beautiful spot, at high tide it is just a massive crystal clear swimming pool, a sand spit, and the ocean. It is also a camp ground though, very popular with 4x4ers and there was some yahooing going on one of the nights we were there. If I had a bit bigger boat, I could happily stay there for months. In fact there is a fellow in a Cat who pretty much does live there. Leaves his wife at home and spends months at a time anchored up that amazing little piece of paradise with its white sand and crystal clear waters. We cooked some juicy T bone steaks on the Exploder and they turned out real nice! Unfortunately we found that one of the gas canisters we had bought at Kingfisher resort was a dud and so we were back to having meat in the freezer but no way to cook it. I tried cutting up a roast and frying it on the Origo but that wasn’t going so well so we fed it to a school of bream hanging around by the boat. Back to canned hotdogs and tuna… We were also having some battery problems, although I have since taken them out the boat to find them low on water so hopefully all should be okay.

[Mac26Mpaul]

The next day, as soon as the flooding tide floated us, we left the creek, and went searching for whales. I finally got to spend half a day sailing which was very relaxing as the kids and the wife did some drawing in the V berth. I saw a mother and calf breaching and head over towards them. They disappeared but we sat there listening to the amazing sounds of the mother talking to its young calf and the calf responding for about 10 minutes. I have never heard whale song before but now I understand what all the fuss is about. Later we saw the Spirit of Hervey Bay in the distance and dropped the sails and scooted over there at about 9 knots. When we got near it I cut the motor and we saw a mother and calf swimming straight towards us. They swam by a few metres away which was just great. A number of people on the Spirit of Hervey bay were taking photos of us. I guess to a non-boatie, it must look odd to find that when you go 26 miles off shore on a big tourist boat to see whales, you will see small sailing boats with families on them also happily looking for whales which can be a lot bigger than their little sailing boats. We went back to Wathumba about 1.30pm and it was of course easy following in our GPS track. Unfortunately I screwed up in the creek and forgot to pull my rudders up before reversing into a sandbank. The Mac has a sacrificial dagger board and rudders (which has been a good thing for me!), so I guess I will be rebuilding a rudder in the next few weeks.



Soon a Mac 26X arrived and I had a short chat with him. About an hour later we saw a nice Farr coming into the creek. Next morning a kayak approached and it turned out to be the guy from the Farr, "Rugboots", who is a member of the TSP forum.

[Mac26Mpaul]

We had a quick breakfast as the tide came rushing into the creek and were soon underway bound for Urangan. Since we had no way to cook, we had decided to head back to the Marina. We were amazed to find we had internet and phone access at Wathumba and so had rang Deb and booked a couple more nights. If you go out to Wathumba looking for whales, you should try and spend some time heading along close to land because it is just beautiful. Being in 10+ metres of water that is like a big swimming pool is just fantastic. We stopped at some huge sand hills and climbed them for a photo session. Soon we were underway again and I spotted a whale in the distance flapping its tail this way and that. Here we had our most fantastic whale experience of the trip. The mother was happily just hovering below the surface keeping watch but the calf was clearly interacting with us, flapping its tail at us with its head out the water and we could see one eye looking at us. As we moved around slowly, the whale would also move around flapping its huge tail in our direction about 7 metres from us.

[Mac26Mpaul]

We arrived back at Urangan at about 4.30 and hassled Deb and Bob for a security key and to get our car out of the secure storage.



We then spent the next morning getting the mast down and stowed and doing a bit of shopping. After that we took the kids to the water park for a few hours and I of course had to get another pie. A very nice and well looked after Seaway 25 elite arrived in the berth next to us some time during the day. As to be expected, during that final night in the marina, the wind started howling again, Remember, Wind howling + tight marinas + magregor 26 = not fun! Anyway, with a nice fella from a big Cat nearby casting our lines off for us, we were off around to the pontoon near the public boat ramp. The wind was howling straight into the ramp and the ramp has rocks on both sides. Thankfully it was low tide so not that far from the pontoon to the ramp and at low tide, there is pebbles on the side of the ramp that the pontoon is closest too. I backed the car and trailer in and got the missus to throw a line to me on the shore. I got her to then put a line on the stern cleat and take a turn on the cleat on the pontoon and gently let it out so the boat got blown towards me on the shore. I then walked the bow onto the trailer while she kept the line taut and we got Little Annie on the trailer.

We took all the heavy stuff out of the boat in the carpark and packed it in the car and finished securing everything. I used to secure the furler to mast etc with rope but have only recently realized how much time can be saved by using big cable ties. Then we walked back to the marina and had showers before giving Deb a box of chocolates for all her help and telling her we will see her next year! We had a good drive home stopping at Beefies Pies for a fantastic Pepper steak pie! My wife who is not really a pie sort of girl, decided to have the curry and even she was very impressed and suggested I buy another to take home! Soon we were fighting our way through the Gateway peak hour traffic and not long after, cruising through the cainfields with a brilliant sunset to our left. We arrived home, put the boat in the backyard and went to check on our chickens – only to find that our 21 year old neighbour’s dog had broken through the fence (once again) and torn two of my children’s pet chickens to shreds. That was followed by a huge shouting match and him with smile on his face, and his young girlfriend, assuring us that it was our fault and that there is nothing he can do when at work and his dogs may come in again and kill the remaining ones.

Ah, its good to be home – Not!

[Mac26Mpaul]

Actually there was one other issue on the trip - the trailer, scares the hull out of me! At one servo I stopped at, a guy in a 4x4 told me he had been behind me and it was quite a worry to see how the axel seems to bend, and the wheels particularly the right one, seem to angle inwards. I'm sure my mudguard mod where I have the guards angled upwards adds to this effect, but still, I can see it in the my driveway. The axel appears straight to me but at least one of the wheels seems to angle in...

[Mac26Mpaul]

The Treasure Hunt :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xm_124t ... e=youtu.be

[sunshinecoasting]

Hi Paul,
Excellent report, always love to read about macgregor adventures. Funny thing is I am writing this from a unit in Urangan, we come up here for the long weekend to research bringing the boat up in a few months. Seems you answered some of my questions already. I do have a few for you though, how much fresh water do you take and how do you carry it? What do you do to empty your toilet up here? How do you plan for such a trip and forget your bbq?

The water here today looks superb, aqua, clear and flat, light breeze about 6-7 knots Easterly perfect for sailing and my boats under a tarp in Nambour.

Cheers, Den.

[Mac26Mpaul]

Hey Dennis,

In a few months? Dammit man you will miss the whales - go get your boat now!

If you are going to stay at the GSS marina, tell Deb and Bob that Paul and Annie (tell her the couple with the kids who were running around everywhere with their water guns ) recommended them I promised Deb I I would give a plug for the marina on the forum- they really are great friendly and genuinely helpful people, and its a happy friendly marina to be at.

To answer your three questions:

1) We have a 50 litre bladder under the sink which is purely used for washing up purposes. We usually start out with a few 3 or 4 cordial or soft drink bottles of water in the fridge and esky. We also have about 7 x 15l water bottles
http://shop.coles.com.au/wcsstore/Coles ... 066545.jpg
from woollies that we use over and over. On this trip I had the whole 7 with me, (2 in V berth locker, 2 in port settee locker and three under the table, however we only used three of them and I tipped the rest out at the end. We did not use it all as we did not have fresh water showers or do any washing while out this time (only at the marina and king fishers). If out for a week, we will sometimes wash cloths (use dishwashing liquid in a 20 litre bucket of seawater and a toilet plunger (bought just for cloths washing!) and then rinse with about 10 litres of fresh water and use the solar shower or bath from a bucket. Since we didn't do any showering or washing, we only needed about three of the 15 litre containers.

2) To be honest, we use the toilet onboard as little as possible. You can use the toilets/showers at the marina and if you are going to Kingfishers resort, dry out in the same spot I am here, about 100 metres south of the jetty.

There is a little gate up on the beach behind the boat where you can get into toilets just there. They are the camp style ones though, and the lock on the male door isn't working right now. (if I were going again now, I'd email them an anonymous maintenance request to fix it ). There is free hot showers in the Sand Bar which is just up behind the jetti you can see in the photo. Other than that, your porta potti or holding tank wont need to be emptied unless you are going to be out for ages.

3) I had a sleep study done and apparently I only get 76 percent oxygen when asleep which accounts for my bad memory and means I'll probably end up with dimensia - I think that copious amounts of rum and scotch in my Navy days may also have something to do with why I forget BBQs and oil checking

[Crikey]

Very nice post Paul! (but not fair though... )

[Mac26Mpaul]

No doubt Canada is a beautiful place and all but mate, it aint too late to come back to Paradise