CLIENT: Gold Youth Voyage
VOYAGE NUMBER: 20210405
FROM: Gladstone to Manly
DATE: 5 April 2021
POSITION: Pancake Ck, Bustard Head
REPORT BY: Blue Watch
Day one of the trip from Gladstone to Brisbane is off to a challenging start, with tough weather conditions and the occasional bout of seasickness. We set sail at 9 AM with high hopes, but buckets of rain and strong winds soon made managing the South Passage difficult. We stopped at Bustard Head at around 2 PM after 5 hours of sailing, and we came ashore in the dinghy. Of course, that’s when the rain, which had been easing off a little, decided to pick up.
Soaked from the dinghy ride and chilled to the bone from waiting on the beach, we set off into the bush along the hiking trail leading to the Lighthouse. The amount of branches on the path uphill was proof of how often this place is visited. We eventually arrived and took a tour of the lighthouse with an impromptu history lesson at the miniature museum. Did you know that this lighthouse was technically the first one in the state of Queensland? A fair few of our fellow crewmates also enjoyed the detail that in the early 1900s, they used to take photos with their dead at funerals. That was an interesting fact.
We motored back to the South Passage and settled into warmer clothes for dinner.