Bribie Island Weekend – 10/11 September 2011
By David & Judith Robertson

First of all thanks to Steve Mangani for organizing this trip, though Steve says that after the howling gale we experienced on Saturday he thinks he won’t be asked to organize any more trips!

All those who had other plans on Saturday were probably grateful for that fact….but where there’s a problem there’s usually a solution and when we launched Saturday morning just behind Steve and Kelly, Steve said everyone was holed up at Pacific Harbour Marina on Bribie. So that’s where we headed and just a short bumpy ride later we joined the rest of the group – 8 boats in all.

We pulled in near Ande, Monte and Sanata but not having a big boat on the other side of that marina arm to shield us from the elements, we were bouncing around a bit like a cork in a bottle and there were waves breaking over the pontoon.  So Puppy and Super Fun moved further back in the marina to a nice quiet berth. If you happened to notice all the seaweed and other debris lying on the pontoon the next day, you could be forgiven for asking how in the hell that got there!

No one ventured out on Saturday and at happy hour (held hunkered down behind the marina office) we heard about the fabulous weather the early birds experienced on the Wednesday and Thursday. Commodore Peter and Miranda turned up just on happy hour and we were also joined by Rick and Allison (nee Myanna) and Ann (nee Ellabella) whose big, made in USA boats, were camped at Pacific Harbour.

Sunday most boats headed out to various destinations as the wind had abated to a 10/15 knot souwester which was fine in Pumistone Passage. Puppy, Elwood and Super Fun headed to Mission Point to go ashore for lunch. As I could not get our anchor winch to work we rafted up to Elwood and later much to my embarrassment, Peter showed me how to reset the anchor winch breaker which had been set off by the tool box! We were shortly joined by Keith & Edna and had a beaut lunch (garnished by Edna’s chilli relish) and chat in magic spring weather, so it was easy to forget about Saturday.

Ande headed back after lunch as did Puppy and Super Fun and Elwood moved across to explore what looked like a good western shore anchorage for an afternoon nap. I tried trolling around a bit but got only a tangled line. 

Peter and Miranda then said farewell, we decided to have a look at a western shore deep channel further north for future reference. We managed to get only half a mile north of Mission Point before hitting the bottom so that was the end of that adventure. Admittedly it was pretty much dead low tide and we were later told by Les and Keith that the channel is no longer being dredged and the only time you can attempt to go further north is at high spring tide.

After another very happy happy hour back at the marina for all the “don’t have to go to work” boaties we settled down for another quiet night in the marina. Don and Keith were able to boast about the fish they caught!