A new day called for a new destination.
Unexplored territory is on our horizon.
If you've been following our epic journey John and I departed Melbourne just over a month ago,
sailing our floating home Tucana more than 1,500 naurtical miles
up the east coast. Tucana and sailing for that matter is brand new to us
but we're learning along the way, so thanks so much for being here.
Your support really means the world.
Our aim now is to take you to the world's biggest coral system, which can be seen from
outer space. The Great Barrier Reef. This is the most amazing thing I have ever seen.
We're so close now. Today we're motor sailing from Bribie Island to Double Island Point
and we might even catch dinner along the way.
What's going on here? Got myself some dinner!
And I think that this spot will definitely be a highlight of the trip.
It's gonna be a big day. Early start, late finish
was it about 13 hours? Better get the old fishing rod out then? What do ya reckon?
What's going on here? Got myself some dinner!
On my two week old fishing rod. My first ever fish.
But things quickly went south.
What happened? I just...
Oh no. You weren't here to help and then it all bunched up.
John went for a pee, talk about timing. He left me to my own devices and this is what happened.
And it's a big bloody fish. Oh god damn it.
Okay that was a bloody disaster. He went under the keel. I've stuffed the rod.
John's had to take over. John you're gonna have to bring him back this
way so we can get him up the back of the boat. Yeah got it! What is it?
Quickly find out what he is so we work out whether to put him back or not.
No we can't put him back like that.
We had caught a mackerel tuna.
At this stage I thought it was a prized fish, I mean look at it!
And we weren't gonna provision for another five days so this is really
yeah this is really fabulous we're very grateful. Turns out naive too.
We were about to make sashimi sushi. We should send this to my Dad. He'd be so proud.
From a fish most people up here would throw back. Hmm we should have listened to John.
Yeah he's edible.
In hindsight it was probably a disaster from the start.
I was using apple cider vinegar and brown sugar to make Japanese sushi rice.
So John refuses to turn the engine down so you're just going to have to hear me over the top of it.
I mean like you know put the gear down anyway
I think there's a little bit of conjecture as to who caught this tuna mackerel because
my fishing rod but I was sleeping at the time, John passed the fishing rod to me and then
there was a bit of an issue.
Is it ours? Yeah. I feel like it's ours. We are now having sashimi
we didn't have white rice vinegar so may do with apple cider and sugar. Does it taste alright John?
The sashimi? Yeah. Yeah it's a little fishy.
Is it? Yeah. Is it fishy? Yeah.
That's a bit of a shame. A little fishy. Like even with the sauce? Nah, it's alright.
Are you not enjoying it? Oh John's not enjoying it. Nah, it's good.
Maybe we just need to let it like cook in there.
Marinade.
What do you think. I don't know maybe it's because we saw it alive, like, you know, the guilt?
Right now we're approaching Double Island Point.
What happened?
Despite the carnage...
Well today was a good day.
We caught a fish. Our first fish and we made it here to Double Island Point. Of course we had
to motor today because there was no winds and we are now um very much into the dry season so
as you guys know we're desperate to make our way north. We can already feel the temperatures rising.
You could swim in that. Really? Yeah I saw some dolphins over there.Yeh it doesn't mean anything.
Well it could. It could mean that there are sharks in there. The story is a lot of people believe that if there are
dolphins there are no sharks. They think that the dolphins fight the sharks off or something.
But this is Double Island Point part of Cooloola which is the Great Sandy National Park.
Around us obviously there are cats, monohulls and power boats. There are so many four-wheel drives just charging
along the beach. This has to be the prettiest spot that we've stayed in by far. I mean it's different, it's nice.
What do you mean it's different it's so beautiful. Well, the Hawkesbury was nice too.
It was nice.
But it wasn't warm. No.
I feel like this is the first time where it kind of actually feels real. I thought it was the Gold Coast
but now I think this is it.
This feels really remote. Feels like you've gone somewhere. Yeah it feels like we've actually gone somewhere
and I feel like anchoring the boat makes us feel like we're a bit more in the wilderness
as opposed to being in marinas.
Admittedly we are copying a bit of swell here though.
A lot of the cats and the motorboats are able to go in the lagoon and take shelter whereas
we're a little bit more exposed here so we are getting a few waves
but that's okay because they're going gonna rock us just like tonight we're pretty tired.
After our 13 hour journey today tomorrow
we need to take advantage of these calm conditions and continue north.
Over the course of an hour we're going to be crossing the Wide Bay Bar, a notorious passage.
We don't know it yet, but this is what we're in for tomorrow.
We're then heading to the largest sand island in the world K'gari. Wow.
Also known as Fraser Island peppered with perched lakes and wild Australian dingoes.
This place is beautiful. So strap yourself in.
Good morning. John's looked outside and all these boats are packing up
and leaving and eight have just gone in a row. And I'm thinking like this is follow the leader.
Yeah but I think it's a good time to go through because even though they recommend you go through
at slack tide, the problem is is then you're battling a current upstream through the Sandy
Straits but because it's so flat this morning it might be a good idea to go through a little
earlier on a rising tide.
Should we hurry up? Should I race to the front and take this anchor up?
Yeah, well, when you're ready.
I thought we had an hour to get ready this morning but...
Oh and last night I'll
tell you what happened. We just had the snubber on the one cleat and I don't know it just didn't feel
comfortable having all that load on that one side so we decided to put a second one on just in case.
Have you heard stories about this place before? Well yeah I mean it's
fairly infamous bar crossing.
For John he's had to be very meticulous about looking at the tides, the weather, currents.
It's something we've been planning for quite a few days now.
This is just very long so you're in the bar for a mile or so
and there's breakers all around and basically confused sea for at least a mile.
That's when we came up with the idea to send up the drone.
We thought we could get a bird's eye view and check out the conditions ahead.
Just counted around 14 boats behind us
John countered approximately eight or so in front of us. It is a busy day.
The exercise was extremely helpful but what goes up must come down.
Oh are you serious?
The glove stunk of fish from the day before.
Look at the swell! It just stinks though.
Then I thought what's the worst that could happen?
To find out if a multi-rotor propeller could ever cause a flesh wound.
Yeah there we go.
So I put on the glove.
Disaster averted.
So it was a good idea to put the drone up right?
It looks pretty sketchy but the thing is there's a sandbar between the breakers and the boat
so it looks really bad but it's actually probably not that bad at all.
As we queued up to cross the bar we could see boats ahead of us getting tossed around like toys.
Gees! Look at him!
And this was considered to be a good day hence the queue. Boaties had been waiting
for these conditions for days.
Here we go!
Check them out! They're smashing through the waves.
I really think these tethers are a bit overkill John but the captain insisted we wear them
and put the washboard in place.
He's a good captain.
To be fair
this is why we're alive. I feel like if i was captain, we would have died ages ago.
The washing machine condition smoothed right out as we made it to the Great Sandy Straits.
Made it!
As we made our way to Gary's Anchorage off the largest sand island in the world I thought I'd
try and cook up that fishy fish we'd caught earlier. Because that fish was so strong in flavor
the mackerel tuna I'm actually going to be making a fish curry that my Dad sent me. So we've got some onions, I've
salted the tuna, I've got some coconut oil in the saucepan. I'm going to add a heap of herbs
and spices to make a delicious coconut curry. I'll put the recipe in the description below.
120 kilometers long spanning 184,000 hectares.
This place is beautiful.
This is K'gari. For years it's been called Fraser Island and technically according
to the map it still is but things are changing. This happened literally just a few weeks ago.
Tears as formerly Fraser island was restored to K'gari on the World Heritage List
as it's been known to traditional owners forever. It's just so emotional.
What a picturesque spot. John and I are just taking a moment to do some fishing here...
and this guy's just come over to say hello. That was nice of him hey? He's just parked up over here and
was offering us to go on his dinghy tomorrow if we wanted to go for a walk what a sweet guy. We were
complete strangers but Simon Carter, Sonia and I ended up going for a hike along one of the trails
armed with a 'dingo stick' just in case.
We didn't see any dingos but almost stepped on a python.
You can go right up to it it won't it won't go... Really? Yeah. Can we prod it with our dingo stick?
So tempting but it was so enjoyable to meet new people and learn about the wildlife and ticks
I don't know if that's a person or a dingo right they're pushed through
there and they drink there right. All right, now if it's a dingo, the ticks will drop off
so they can get the next dingo. Oh, smart little things.
The sailing community is pretty phenomenal. With our tender still on the bow, Sonia even ended up
dropping me back off to Tucana.
Oh that was so fun. Oh I'm glad. I am absolutely soaked
I can see that.
That was wild.
Did you have a nice? Oh I leave for literally
two hours and you're pulling a boat apart.
Coming up next, the calm before the storm. Oh look how close they are. I suppose the
thing is they don't react the same way they react differently to current and wind that's
why they don't swing the same way.
So thanks for being part of the Tucana crew and we'll see you next Sunday
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