We spent two days at this marina, getting the boat cleaned up and doing some serious provisioning.  While Mike toiled away on the outside, scrubbing every nook and cranny, I got busy with my usual housewifely domestic cleaning and laundry duties.  It would be soooooo nice to have Simon (our man in CT) once a week!

Keppel Bay marina is a huge marina with over 500 berths, catering mostly to the large fleet of pleasure fishing boats. With so many islands close by, its a great place to have a boat.  Nice perk for visiting yachts, is that they offer free use of a marina car for a 2 hour slot – which is more than enough time to head down to the local town (Yeppoon) and do some provisioning.  And shop we did!  With the prices of food and booze as high as they are in Aussie, it is very easy to buckle a credit card.

 

We are now in the area of HUGE tides – This marina has tides of 4m – in the pic below you will see we have  NO depth – we were “in the mud” on our berth, at low tide. As we head north, the tides and the accompanying tidal flows, become even more dramatic, which can make a big difference to your boat speed. Anchoring and chain scope also need to be carefully considered.  At Mackay, about 150nm north of here, my charts show a tidal difference of 6m!

 

We are now heading a little further north to Port Clinton – a recommended peaceful anchorage.