Sailing from Keppel Bay to the Gold Coast

On 3rd November we flew to Rockhampton and joined our share catamaran 'Antidote' for a four week cruise, to include delivering her from Keppel Bay marina to Hope Harbour on the Gold Coast.

Antidote

George is an awesome quartermaster, and we dropped her off in Yeppoon from the taxi to start provisioning, and I went on to carry our gear on board, and pick up a courtesy car from the marina to drive back to pick up George, the food and grog. All went smoothly.

Next morning we sailed over to beautiful Great Keppel Island and started to chill. It had been a busy few weeks before we left, and getting in the sailing groove takes a little while.

With the wind being from the north-east, we had a comfortable night in Monkey Beach.

Great Keppel Island

Sunday Nov 5th we sailed south to Yellow Patch, a sheltered spot in a southeasterly just inside Cape Capricorn. The entrance is tide dependent and unmarked, so we followed waypoints entered by Navionics users. 

Since the trip to Fiji, I have been using satellite imagery to navigate, as discussed in another blog entry; OpenCPN with satellite imagery - Generation 2.  It is absolutely brilliant, especially when showing fixed hazards like rocks and coral. However when the hazards move, as do sand-banks and mud, the date of the satellite photo is critical. We entered Yellow Patch in good visibility, but you can see how the satellite photo alone would have been misleading.

Yellow Patch

Antidote at Yellow Patch 

Tuesday Nov 7th, with the need to pick a tide to escape from Yellow Patch, and a strengthening SE wind, we had a brisk sail round to Sea Hill to position ourselves to transit The Narrows.

The Narrows, between Curtis Island and the mainland, represent an interesting navigational exercise. When there is a brisk SE wind, as we had, to go outside Curtis Island is a rough slog to windward of about 20 nm. The alternative is to go inside, up a narrow channel which dries out at low tide, enough for herding of cows across The Cattle Crossing. For many boats, this requires transit on a day shortly before spring tide, on a rising tide. 

We had some work to get done by a mechanic in Gladstone, which we hoped to occur before the weekend. So we chose to cross the shallows on the Thursday Nov 9th, when high tide occured in daylight, a bit before 7.08am. So we spent Wednesday night at anchorage near Telegraph Creek.

Leads on the north side of the Cattle Crossing

The Cattle Crossing

Back bearing looking behind us

Inline

Plenty of channel markers

Gladstone is a major industrial port, associated with the export of coal from the Galilee basin, and LNG. I have written about it previously, Gladstone's Dark Satanic Mills.

Coal loader

Coal 

We needed to stop in the marina to have the engines serviced, the broken tiller arms replaced, and to sort out a problem caused by the local chandlery selling us cheap anchor chain rather than the quality one we had ordered. There was also the small matter of the hose from the holding tank being blocked. 💩

All missions were accomplished, after a fashion.

There is particular problem with boats whose toilets (aka 'heads') are flushed with seawater. The big advantage is that seawater is plentiful and free, whereas freshwater flushing requires bulk desalination. But seawater contains calcium and magnesium salts as well as NaCl salt, and they react with urine to create 'limescale' which is deposited in the hoses and the holding tank. This limescale can block the discharge of paper and poo. It is not a popular job to sort it out, and token efforts and various sorts of quackery abound. 

Limescale in the holding tank outflow hose.

It is a complex issue with many opinions. Here is a discussion by ChatGPT which covers some of the principles. 

There is a woman in the US who specializes in boat's plumbing who goes by the moniker 'The Head Mistress'. Her comment on prevention is: 

'Like most things, prevention is easier than cure...a cupful of undiluted distilled white vinegar flushed through the system weekly, followed after 45-60 minutes by a bowlful of clean fresh water will eliminate the need for cure.'

The tillers broke at some point, likely a late effect of the accident involving the rudders last August. The were welded up, but we arranged for some new stainless steel ones to be made up. They got fitted in Gladstone, hopefully the final chapter of an extended drama.

Broken cast aluminium tiller.

Shiny new stainless tillers

From Gladstone we sailed out to Facing Island, hoping to make a jump out to Lady Musgrave Island on the Great Barrier Reef,  but the weather gods were unkind. Strong winds were forecast, which make the reef atolls very unpleasant when waves and tide combine to sweep across the reef. So we pressed on south to Pancake Creek, a favourite anchorage.

Coal ships waiting their turn to be loaded.

Pancake Creek can be entered at any state of tide. It can also be entered at night, but the buoys are unlit. When coming in for the first time at night, the red marks are much further to the right than you might expect.

Pancake Creek

Antidote is third from the left

Bustard Head lighthouse

Clews Point

Next leg a fast run down to Bundaberg, trying to get into shelter before a strong northerly was expected. Then on to Moon Point at the southern end of Hervey Bay.

Moon Point

This is the northern end of the Great Sandy Strait, a lovely area between Fraser Island and the mainland. 

Big rain forecast with thunder. We went into Tin Can Bay marina to park near boats with taller masts (to mitigate the risk getting hit by a lightning strike).

Antidote in Tin Can Bay Marina

Old trawler in Tin Can Bay

Scotty the fisherman

A lovely shore walk

Looking up into Tin Can Inlet

The Wide Bay Bar

This is the most significant hazard for cruising boats on the east coast of Australia. It is a sandy passage between the mainland and Fraser Island. The sand banks keep moving, and the channel is surrounded by shallows where waves break. See this video from 1:00.

I have been campaigning for an upgrade the nav aids at the Wide Bay Bar for several years. See these blog entries:

The Wide Bay Bar - shifting sands

Wide Bay Bar - updates 2017 and 2020

The good news is that the situation has now dramatically improved, using 'Virtual Buoys' being controlled by AIS. For those who are not familiar with AIS (Automatic Identification System) it is a system which is compulsory for large vessels, and increasingly common in smaller boats, whereby a VHF or satellite signal sends out location and other information that can be displayed on a chart-plotter. The signal can be tweaked. Thus instead of a signal essentially saying 'I am here', it can be made to show a sign 'Imagine there is a green mark there'. 

These can be moved whenever a new survey suggests that the sand banks have moved.

The WB 1-5 marks can be seen on the chartplotter on a vessel with AIS.

Virtual buoys seen on the chartplotter

A short video of our crossing. Top of the tide. Not too hard.

The track we took. 

From the Wide Bay Bar to Mooloolaba, where we met up with old friends Helen and James. 

Mooloolaba is a watersport town. These are 'nippers' on a training run around the river.

Then a fast sail on to Tangalooma on Moreton Island.

A cruise ship passing Tangalooma at sunset.

The Big Sandhills on Moreton Island

Lovely patterns at low tide from the drone

Pelicans

Jumpinpin

Reflections on the Voice referendum

On the 14th October 2023, Australia voted in a referendum. It was compulsory. 

"A Proposed Law: to alter the Constitution to recognise the First Peoples of Australia by establishing an Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Voice.

Do you approve this proposed alteration?"

 

Referendum question and constitutional amendment.

To pass, a referendum needs to receive majority support both nationally and in at least four of Australia’s six states.

The campaign effectively began on 28th December 2022, when the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese ('Albo') committed to holding a referendum. Here is a time-line of the events since then.

How the Voice to Parliament failed so spectacularly  

What these raw figures do not show is the overwhelming support for the Voice by opinion leaders, together with the initial advantage held by the YES camp.

The Voice was supported by the Government, the ABC, and a huge range of corporations and celebrities.

Endorsements in the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum

Qantas painted some of its planes with Yes23 slogans.

Yes campaign groups spent more than twice as much as No campaign groups during the referendum, according to new figures from the Australian Electoral Commission.

In addition to the weight of influential voices supporting the Voice, the proposal started the race with a substantial advantage.

Opinion polling for the 2023 Australian Indigenous Voice referendum

Here are some of my thoughts.

1) It is one of the most spectacular failures of a political process that I have ever seen. It has split the country, and the defeated Yes voters are now dealing with shock and grief. As to be expected, that includes denial and casting around for scapegoats to blame. 

2) The proposal to change the Constitution, which would effectively be irreversible, without explaining in detail about how it would work, was a major risk, which clearly did not pay off. The Government essentially said 'Vote for this, and we will work out the details later'.  Naturally, people wondered whether there might be a hidden agenda, and where a Yes vote might ultimately lead. Whereas the 'Uluru Statement from the Heart' was a single page long, a Freedom of Information claim elicited a much longer version, which included discussions that had preceded the one page version.

Uluru Statement of the Heart (112 page version). Discussed here. 

When Albo was asked if he had read the 26 page version, or the longer one, he said 'Why would I?' This was unimpressive to many people.

3) The Yes campaign tried to paint No voters as being right-wing racists, and the Yes proposal as being strongly supported by indigenous people. This picture was undermined by some articulate indigenous spokespeople who put the case for No. In particular Jacinta Nampijinpa Price, a senator from the Northern Territory who is Shadow Minister for Indigenous Australians (ie part of the conservative coalition). The other leader was Warren Mundine, who was at one time the President of the Labor Party.

Senator Jacinta Price addresses National Press Club

The Great Voice Debate: Senator Jacinta Nampijinpa Price (start at 7:20)

If you don't have time to watch the videos about Jacinta Price, read this short essay of hers: Telling The Truth.

4) Much was made about how indigenous people supported the Voice. An online poll in January 2023 suggested that 80% would vote Yes. (The validity of this was disputed by indigenous senator Lidia Thorpe, who said that the voters polled were not asked if they were indigenous). 

What’s the proof that “80 percent of indigenous people” support the Voice to Australian parliament?

The actual results showed much less.

But for a measure that purported to help indigenous people, the salient question is 'Why didn't it enjoy 100% support from indigenous people?'

5) I got the impression that Yes supporters despised No supporters and didn't listen to their arguments. Objections to the Voice were ascribed to misinformation, scare tactics, racism and ignorance. None of those attitudes were effective in changing Noes to Yesses.

6) While early No campaign slogans included 'If you don't know, vote No!', later in the campaign the main slogan was 'No to the Voice of Division'.

The first slogan was attacked by Yes supporters as being a position only taken by ignorant people.

Ray Martin doubles down on his comment about 'Dinosaurs and Dick-heads'.

The Yes campaign failed to counter the argument about the Voice being divisive.

7) There is a long history of people from the progressive side of politics being opposed to Racial Discrimination. Much support for 'No' came from people who perceived the Voice as being racially discriminatory. Australia is one of the most racially tolerant countries in the world, according to the World Values Survey, analysed by the Washington Post. The survey asked respondents in more than 80 different countries to identify kinds of people they would not want as neighbours. Some respondents, picking from a list, chose "people of a different race." Less than 5% of Australians did. 

8) A country of migrants is particularly sensitive to challenges to the principle of equality of citizenship, as alluded to by a previous prime minister, Bob Hawke. The slogan 'All animals are equal, but some animals are more equal than others' would be treated with suspicion in Australia. (Animal Farm, by George Orwell).

Bob Hawke speaking at the Sydney Opera House at the Australia Day Bicentenary, 26th January 1988.

'In Australia, there is no hierarchy of descent. There must be no privilege of origin.'

9) The ostensible premise behind the Voice proposal was that there were inadequate channels of communication between marginalised indigenous people and the Government. Many people doubted this premise, expressed by this letter to the editor of The Economist.

This letter refers to indigenous representatives in Parliament being roughly proportionate to their ratio in the general population. The current figures are:

Estimates of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians. 3.8% of the total Australian population.

List of Indigenous Australian politicians. As of 2023, Indigenous Australians make up 10.5% of the Senate and 1.9% of the House of Representatives. The total representation is at 4.8%, which is above their representation in the total population (3.8%).

The Coalition of Peaks is discussed in this article in the Conversation by Michelle Gratton.

View from The Hill: There is a way forward to tackle Indigenous disadvantage after referendum defeat

Also by Michelle Gratton. Grattan on Friday: Anthony Albanese had good motives but his referendum has done much harm.

10) A good rule for life (especially for politicians) is that it is better to under-promise and over-deliver, than to over-promise and under-deliver. On this occasion, the Labor Government and it's Yes supporters raised huge expectations which they failed to deliver. As Michelle Gratton said: it did much harm.

11) The Prime Minister repeatedly reminded us that it is very hard to pass a referendum in Australia. Since federation in 1901, 45 nationwide referenda have been held, only eight of which have been carried, with all those being carried having bipartisan support from Australia's major political parties before the referendum. It would have been a good idea to negotiate a consensus with the opposition before announcing this referendum. But Albo pushed ahead, and when the opposition subsequently declined to agree, there was no bipartisanship, and the referendum was duly rejected. 

Why did the Government behave like that? They must have known that the referendum would almost certainly fail if they didn't negotiate an agreement first. 

12) At this point in history, the major fault-line in ideology internationally is not so much the old left-right division that has dominated discourse for much of the last two centuries, but rather it is the conflict between Enlightenment universalism and identity politics, these days often described pejoratively as 'woke'. 

People often vote against what they dislike as much as they vote for what they do like. There were many people who disliked what they perceived as woke identity politics, and they made up a significant slice of No voters in the Voice referendum.