A Bar Too Far - A Cautionary Tale !!!
Summary
The following tale was presented at the recent MBFG social meeting. It details the experience of a couple of MBFG members who ventured through South Passage Bar on a day when even brave men turned around and fished in the bay.
A true story, however names have been changed (slightly) to protect anomality.
A Bar Too Far - A Cautionary Tale
The morning had started at 6am, deceptively calm inside Moreton Bay, that glassy, easy kind of water that makes you relax about what’s just beyond the gap between Moreton and North Stradbroke Islands.
At the helm of the Cruise Craft Rambler 550 stood Captain James, a larger man, steady hands, sharp eyes, and years of boating experience. Beside him was his first mate, Kevins, keen, confident, and ever eager on the anchor.
As they approached the channel between the Islands, “Bit of chop out there, but nothing we can’t handle,” Kevins said, looking toward the bar.
Captain James answered straight away. He told Kevins’s ‘well I don’t know where you’d like to go, and I’ve definitely never crossed this bar before, so I’m relying on you to help navigate and get us across, okay?’ as he watched the sets, how they stacked, where they broke, how quickly they re-formed. It was rather a mess out there. Not the worst, but certainly not good either.
“Don’t worry captain, I’ve been across the bar heaps of times’ chirped first mate Kevins”
“What’s the heading Kev,” Captain James said. Kev replied ‘just keep hugging the coast north until we get to the north passage, we’ll be fine, cleaner water over there.”
Captain James contemplating sat silently at the helm. He knew better than to trust a bar he hadn’t had experience with himself, but then again he also knew the value of trusting your crew.
“Kevin’s positivity convinced the captain to continue to a bar crossing to the North of the South passage.”
It was a small decision. It didn’t feel like one at the time. But it was the wrong one.
After scanning the breakers for what seemed like a very long time, Kevins picked what looked like a lull and asked captain James to head the vessel into the bar, and so James brought the Rambler forward, lining her up as best he could. At first, it seemed manageable, just a bit of lift and drop, nothing unusual.
Then the set arrived, and arrived much larger and heavier than it had seemed from near the shore.
The first wave hit hard, pushing the boat sideways. Captain James corrected immediately, tightening his grip on the wheel. “Stay with me,” he said, voice calm but firm.
A second wave rose steeper than the first. The bow climbed, then the water fell away beneath them.
For a split second, the Rambler 550 was launched into the air, both the crew were momentarily tossed.
When it came down, it came down heavy.
Before they could regain rhythm, the horizon disappeared, replaced by a rising, breaking wall of white water tall enough to be higher than the boat.
“Hold on!” Captain James called.
It hit them with full force.
The wave crashed over the bow, and into the cockpit, a solid wall of white water engulfing the boat, surging across the deck. The Rambler shuddered violently, shoved again off line as the force tried to roll her sideways.
Beside the Captain, Kevins had completely lost his composure, repeatedly shrieking expletives like a small child, at the top of his lungs until the white water completely swallowed them. The pressure in the whitewater was like a punch to the face, and sent James’s glasses among other items to the bottom of the ocean.
For a moment—just a tiny moment—it was clear how bad their decision had been.
They weren’t crossing at the North passage, there were in the wrong place on the bar, and they could have easily died there.
As the boat surfaced from its sudden disappearance, captain James didn’t hesitate.
He held the nose into what remained of the breaking swell, feeding just enough throttle to keep control without overdriving. Every correction was measured. Every movement deliberate. No panic, just instinct and his fighting qualities cutting through the chaos, as Kevins continued to squeal helplessly and crying in the foetal position.
“Stay straight… stay straight…” the Captain muttered, forcing the Rambler back into line as the water tried again to push her broadside.
Slowly, the turbulence eased. The breaking waves softened into rolling swell. The white water slipped behind them.
They were through.
Out beyond the bar, the sea stretched open and steady, as if nothing had happened.
Silence sat heavy onboard for a few seconds.
Kevins, pale now, stared back at the churning mess they’d just come through. The confidence and jovial bravado was gone.
Captain James kept his eyes forward.
“That,” he said quietly, “is what happens when you cross a bar in the wrong spot.”
Kevins swallowed hard.
“Yeah… won’t be doing that again.”
Captain James replied “Hell no! But we’re still here to tell the tale and that’s all that matters!”
Behind them, the bar continued to break…unpredictable, indifferent, intolerant!!!
