Australia - Pacific Crossing Notes: A Sailor's Guide to the Coconut Milk Run - page 445

the teeth of the current. Progress slowed to a two knot crawl - until the moon pulled the
tide around to a more favorable direction and bumped our speed up to as high as seven
knots. Queensland's central coast has some of the most extreme currents and tides ob-
served Down Under, the latter topping out at six meters around Mackay. We quickly
learned not to despair when Namani turtled along, knowing she'd be speeding ahead a few
hours later.
The difficulty lay in deciding how close to cut the corner of Fraser Island. Too close and
the contrary current would only intensify. Too far, and we'd be shoulder-to shoulder with
the steady parade of freighters paralleling the coast. Eventually, we decided on tiptoeing
along the one hundred meter contour about ten miles off Fraser Island and spent the night
keeping a sharp eye out for steaming lights. Having our AIS receiver to help predict their
movements was a welcome novelty. For most of our Pacific crossing, the AIS was of little
use since so many ships and fishing boats operate without it. Off Queensland, just about
every vessel transmitted a signal we could pick up from as much as thirty miles away, and
there were only a handful of smaller vessels without AIS to track.
En route to Cairns