At sea dolphins and whales boat going well

Sowell Family's Travels on Gijima
Skipper: Tim Sowell Admiral Tracy Crew Sean & Alex
Thu 4 Oct 2012 02:34
It's been a while we continue to love living in Yamba, Tracy and the boys have really settled in and enjoying friends and their education has taken off. For the last couple of weeks we have had the boat up near Brisbane crusining the inland waterways through the school holidays. It is now 12 lunch time and we off Evn heads heading south again, with about 2 1/3 hours to go to be back in Yamba.
Sean and I have just come from being on the bow watching large dolphins surf the bow wave. We have seen a number of whales with calfs some very close to the boat. We left South port at about 1 am this morning, lumpy seas coming out and a little wind from the north which is a good sign as we have been waiting out for the wind to swing from the south for 4 days.
Tracy went down, to my right were the lights of the gold coast with it's tall buildings sitting on the sand, but I headed for 5 miles off Pt Danger just of the NSW/ Queensland board. The moon was full, it acts like my friend, and as I stick my head through the cockpit openings and watch sea and shimmer of light across the sea. Yes it was nice to be out.
This is our first long trip to explore Australian waters and it was great, the boat went well, and it is good to get all the things working. We had a good  run up, Tracy saying it was one of the best she has done, the coast line is just wonderful. We stoped and anchored off seaworld so the boys could go and visit, and went to Brisbane office.
We moved up the inland water way which is inside some of the biggest sand islands in the world, and goes for a couple of 100 miles. We stopped at some of the islands and I explored, especially liking Tipplers, Island, Peel Island, where we saw 100s of blue crabs. Travelling to very north of Morten Bay we stoped for 4 days in anchrage behind a set of 15 suncken wrexks, in very clear water. Sean and I snorkeld the wrecks seeing great coral, and sealife, as we drifted down it was just wonderful.
One of the things on this trip is to see how far the two boys have come on, Alex is the same age as Sean was on the big trip, and can get about, and is really starting to explore. Sean has grown and is now engaging in wanting to do jobs around the boat and learn. It is great life experience and to me it ios amazing family time, we are more of a unit on boat as we all engage.
Gijima is very much apart of our lives on the river in Yamba and now when we try to explore different parts of Australian waters. To have great and different crusining only 15 hours by boat, with calm waters critical for Tracy.
Nice to be active
Wing on Wing at 7.6 knots sun out loving it