Crossing the Wide Bay Bar

Bar Topic, Bay Topic, Crossing Topic, the Topic, Wide Topic,

15 August 2015

We had anchored in the shelter of Double Island Point for the night to set ourselves up for crossing the notorious Wide Bay Bar at the southern tip of Fraser Island. The optimum time for the crossing is considered to be two hours before high tide. This provides enough water over the shallow sandbars and the incoming current travels in the same direction as the prevailing south easterly swell. An outgoing tide causes those swells to stand up sharply and often break making things much more dangerous. Any bar crossing with a section nicknamed “the mad mile” deserves respect.

As a result we weighed anchor in the dark at 5.00am and set course across the bay headed for the bar.

Up and away in the dark.

We always love sunrises at sea.

 

Not having crossed before we had done our research online and found that the Government Department, Marine Safety Queensland had issued GPS waypoints to guide mariners on the safest course through.  We also spoke to other cruisers and consulted cruisers forums and soon discovered the best piece of advice was repeated often and loudly. Contact the Volunteer Coastguard at Tin Can Bay prior to crossing.

All very nice to be able to get this from the Government but it's a pity that if you follow these instructions you'll
have a better than fair chance of coming to grief at Waypoint B as the sand bank moved about a year ago.

We ‘d heard that the sandbanks have moved on the bar and that the good volunteers of Tin Can Bay advise that to cross safely you need to steer 100 metres north of the “official” waypoint and not make your turn until 100 metres west of it. Tin Can Bay VMR confirmed this to be the case when we called and said they were still working on Marine Safety Queensland to change the official waypoints. Apparently the wheels of Government turn slowly.

We were lucky enough to spot our first whales for the trip in the early morning light.

Passing this yacht that had just exited the bar boosted our confidence that conditions would be fine.

 

After logging on with Tin Can Bay Coastguard by radio to inform them we were about to cross the bar, we lined up on the marks and began our crossing. We were a little surprised that despite only a fairly benign sub 10 knot South Easterly breeze blowing, Our Dreamtime was regularly surfing down the face of quite a reasonable swell rolling in across the shallow water. We hate to imagine what it would be like in big weather.

Rob keeping Our Dreamtime on the straight and narrow surfing down the swells.

Swells breaking on the Wide Bar Bay shallows

 

Thankfully we had no issues at all and crossed safely. After two long days underway we elected to anchor in Pelican Bay just inside Inskip Point mid-morning and have a restful day doing not much.

What didn't work.

After checking ALL our lights before we left Brisbane, we found our starboard navigation light had blown when we upped anchor at 5.00am. We used the tricolour at the masthead instead.

What we did right

Did our research and used the assistance of the Volunteer Coastguard

How we screwed up

2nd day in a row we didn't - which is still a good thing.


Our short but far from boring passage today and a satellite view of the bar below

 

Our first anchorage in the well named Great Sandy Straights.

 

Wonder why it's called Pelican Bay

 

Good night from Pelican Bay!

UPDATE

Since writing this blog back in August 2015, we have made another four crossings of the Wide Bay Bar, two in each direction. The most recent was in February 2017. The sand bar clearly seen in the satellite photo a few above showing our track has continued to extend northwards. We ALWAYS consult Tin Can Bay Volunteer Marine Rescue for updates before transiting the bar. Each of our subsequent crossings have involved moving further and further up. On our most recent we never had less than five metres of water which was great. On outward crossings be aware that the strong incoming tidal flow of at least two knots makes the journey out to the bar from Pelican Bay very slow. You need to take this into account when planning to cross at the optimum time of two hours before the high. Cheers and safe sailing.

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