After months of worrying about the terrors of the Wide Bay Bar, we finally came to it. There is no real way round it and it is the only way to North Queensland, so it had to be tackled. We contacted the coastguard, found the conditions and off we went. We left Double Island Point in a convoy with 3 other brave souls. Basically the trip is through a sandbar, which you can't see, but throws up massive, ship sinking waves. The recommended route is two straight lines, the first through to the shallows and the second that skirts the back of the waveline and is known as the mad mile. All initially went well through the first step, then all of a sudden our GPS/Chart plotter displayed a message that it could not work out where we were. SHIT! Luckily we were in convoy and we just followed the boat in front and everything worked out well. After a minute of terror, the chart plotter came back for no known reason and all was good - other than I had to go downstairs & change my undies? Nothing now in front of us other than Sun, Sea and Sand. After spending a few days at Tin Can Bay we moved on to Garry's anchorage which is on Fraser Island. After anchoring up, we went for a walk on the island and this sign is the first thing we saw.
After that rather uninviting sign therewas a second sign, saying that Dingos live there and they may/will attack you. Jeez, why didn't I just stay at home and go to work like everyone else. We still ventured onto the island and proceeded to walk down this 4 wheel drivetrack. This is where we found the real terror of Fraser Island - Sandflies the little bastards are savage. Within minutes I could feel my skin crawling, but there was nothing to see. It got so bad that we beat a hasty retreat to the boat, past the Dingo that initially barred our way. By the time we got back, my skin was a mass of red blotches, that I couldn't stop scratching for weeks.
On our run up the Great Sandy Strait, we went past this wreck. Now as presumably the captain of this ship was a professional, and I already consider all amatuers to be more proficient than me, we were quite taken by what further hazards faced us. But luckily it was a beautiful day and whatever catastrophy befell this ship, it didn't cause us any problems.
