Sailing Baruch

A little video capturing our time onboard Baruch as we sailed from the Keppell islands to Island Head Creek, Middle Percy and then ultimately the Whitsundays.
Enjoy!

Great Keppell to Whitsundays HD 1080p We sail our Nautitech 542 catamaran from Great Keppell Island through to the Whitsundays.

What a great year we had in 2023 cruising the East Coast of Australia. Here is a little video of our time between Noosa & Great Keppell Island. We had some stunning weather and were able to anchor for a week right our the front of Noosa and then cruised up to Double Island Point - inside of Fraser Island and onto Pancake Creek ( a real surprise package) and onto GKI.
More to follow...

Noosa to Great Keppell Ep 15 HD 1080p We continue to cruise up the East Coast of Australia on our Nautitech 542 - Baruch.

After being delivered from Hammo to Wollongong- we are ready to bring Baruch home. Nice little weather window this weekend and a fantastic crew. We pushed off this morning from Shell Harbour- which is a brilliant new marina. Staff were super helpful- even picked us up from the train station. There’s a pub, cafes, Woolworths, bottle shop - even a barber…. All within a hundred metres of the boat. Couldn’t be any easier to provision!
Bit of motoring day one and then should have a nice breeze going behind us!
Bring it!

Incredibly for this time of year we have been able to get out to the outer reefs twice over last few weeks for a few days each time.
It’s incredible being anchored in the middle of the ocean with no land in sight.
Lots of marine life , big fish and sharks who mostly leave you alone ….although there was a few sharks that decided they wanted the fish on the end of my spear so that was a fun swim back to boat fending them off!!
Our time up north on Baruch is coming to an end - it’s been a magical time for us both and also the various iterations of guests onboard. We have also met some beautiful people along the way that we will miss. Going to be a hard trip to top….. but we are willing to give that a crack next time!
Baruch heading south to Sydney later in the month and then home to the Peninsula for Summer.

Well a big thank you to Hamilton Island Race Week 2023 for once again organising a faultless regatta and a thanks to God for providing fantastic sailing conditions and keeping the boat and crew safe… albeit with some VERY close calls!!
It was such a blessing to do this together with family and friends.
Our Cups are definitely overflowing.
Thanks also to the Hammo 23 crew - you did great, we learnt lots and had fun …. That’s a win for me.

Team Baruch got the chocolates today at Hamilton Island Race Week 2023.
First on handicap but more importantly first over the line!
Great day.

Stunning day out on the water today.
We had a great start, some great spinnaker work from the crew and a special shout out to crew Marty who helped us not follow most of the fleet to the wrong mark of the course.
Brilliant spectacle coming down to the finish line with Comanche and Wild Oats flying past us.
Such a fun and well organised week.
Thanks Hamilton Island Race Week 2023!

Turn the volume up on the first video…. So incredibly still out here on the reefs.
Great day yesterday. Liane dusted off the SUP and then backed it up with a snorkel which was very brave of her as she is not a big fan of sharks and there are quite a few sharks swimming around out here…. Very proud!
I speared four more fish, some coral trout and what I thought was a monster coral trout we now think is possibly a hightail grouper or some call it a trout cod….not sure but he had lovely big fleshy fillets so I’m sure he will taste good!
The outer reefs will definitely be a big highlight of this trip and we are incredibly blessed to score such a calm weather window to get out here.
Staying another day and then back to Hammo to get ready for Race Week.

One of my bucket list items for this trip was to spear a fish. Im the guy that bought all the gear but has no idea. I was also unaware that there aren’t too many places you can actually spearfish legally up this way so I was pretty excited to head out to the outer reefs to a little hidey hole where there are lots of fish to choose from.
This place isn’t on our chart plotter so we had to rely on some waypoints we found online which ended up being not very accurate but thankfully our buddy boat Nine Tales, got there before us and led us through the coral Bombies and into the lagoon with their dinghy.
Didn’t get my coral trout but was still super stoked with what I did get…. Not sure what fish the big one is- looked and tasted like a snapper of some sort but couldn’t match it to anything in my fish books…. Anyone know what it is?
Amazing to be eating what you’ve caught within hours of catching and I also love that with spearfishing you can be selective of the type of fish you catch and ignore the others so they can live another day.
Will be definitely back out hunting tomorrow!

There are some places where a camera just cannot capture the overload of beauty!
Cateran Bay, Border Island last night was one of these. The still waters, the echo of the Currawongs calling out to each other and the lapping of the water against the hull were truly breathtaking! Was hard to leave there early this morning but the outer reefs are beckoning.