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Light wind up to 12 kn. highly variable. Used J2.

Calm conditions, motored with outgoing tide. Anchored in 7m water at Burnett Heads anchorage in the mouth of the creek…good holding. Nothing here but protected and thus a good staging point to head north.

Calm. motored up with last of the incoming tide. Good anchorage in front of Bundaberg Social/rowing club just past distillery. Close to the public dinghy dock. Were advised to lock dinghy and not leave unattended on dock after dark due to vandalism. From public dinghy dock it is a few mins walk to cafes and restaurants and an easy 10-15 min walk through town to Coles, Woolworths, Aldi, fresh grocers, Priceline, chemist warehouse, reject shop, target and Kmart…very convenient! Stayed on anchor overnight, good holding and good protection.

we won

Sailed off anchor at dawn into a solid northerly on a NW track to Great Keppel, full boat speed into the wind with the cutter rig working nicely. Wind dropped off late morning so pissing about in a boat not designed for light winds on the nose. Arrived Great Keppel Island late afternoon with a few hours motor to make up the heading. Anchorage good but crowded til wind shifted next morning so moved around to north of island for protection. Great spot, as evident by number of boats here. No decent southerly til Thursday, would rather stay here on island but ran out of gas so think will head over to Yeppoon for a night or two and top up everything there rather than Mackay and hopefully island hop all the way to Airlie Beach instead. Must get around to modify the gas locker so can fit 2x bottles in there. Now crossed the Tropic of Capricorn, crystal clear water, tropical fish swimming around boat and thermals, trousers and jumpers now back in the lockers.

Variable winds from none to 20knots all day, dropped off of within a carpark of bulk carriers so to keep some heading got the spinnaker pole working properly this time, although I need to set it up better so it doesn't need to come down with the head sail as tricky getting it off the clew to furl it in 20knots, have since set up some guys to be able to set out the pole then furl in/out the sail without stowing the spinnaker pole til at anchor. Not a great anchorage but a quick rest stopover sheltered from the southerly which picked up again in arvo as didn't make the miles to hit Great Keppel, nice having options to stop along routes now into the coral coast and just flop about when wind drops and wait for it to pick up again rather than needing to start up motor to make harbour to harbour on tides etc.