David & Julie, Border Force Officers arrived at our boat just after 8:30am to process the paperwork for our departure. A friendly and efficient pair, passports, ships documentation and TRS all done before 9:30am. What a great service where they come to you in your marina berth to clear you out. We were very impressed.
We finally slipped our lines a couple of hours later but the essential jobs weren't completed. Ann and I still had plenty of things to complete online so Patrick had the helm motoring us along at a much slower pace than normal so that we had internet coverage for longer. We got to the Northern tip of Moreton Island and it was time to focus on the passage ahead of us, we had no choice, normal phone and internet coverage was gone so up with the sails and set a heading to pass between Cape Moreton and Finders Reef.
I had joked about the first day of the passage being about getting across Moreton Bay and passed Cape Moreton before sunset then crossing the shipping lane and dodging migrating whales in the dark. We were fortunate to see whales fairly close coming across the end of Moreton Island. Whale encounters are always special and it was a great way to start the trip. There probably more whales we didn't see but it was dodging shipping and fishing boats that kept us busy for the next few hours.
