Thursday 2nd Jan '25

Later in the evening yesterday the conditions changed from clam seas to 1m short chop on the nose with virtually no distance between them which meant the boat would ride up over the wave then slam into the next one sending a wave of sea water over the whole foredeck and a nasty shudder through the boat which is very unpleasant.  We had to slow down to around 5kts to stop the worst of it which it helped but the boat still got thrown around a bit.  We had no room to veer off as to port we would cross the shipping lane and into the reef area, to starboard we would have ran into the Australian coastline so we had no choice to keep going.

It calmed down this afternoon so we are able to pick up the pace a again.

You will see from the weather forecast map (showing waves) that the gusts are now forecast to get over 30kts and the wave height is up to 2.9m on the nose which can be up to 50% more which would not be pleasant. 

So the plan is to take shelter and wait for it to pass as we don’t want to break the boat after getting this far.

I was hoping to make it to Bundaberg but that’s not going to happen.  We won’t even make Gladstone. 

Rockhampton was the next town I looked at but that was 50/50 we would make it before the blow comes through. 

So I decided Mackay is the best place to stop and we be there sometime tomorrow afternoon. 

Fingers crossed this little system blows through quickly and we can get going again.  Even if we get a day or so break that would allow us to get to one of the marinas further south.  

We can’t really complain as we have had a really good run of weather for a while now.