Brisbane River anchorage

Last night I exited the Brisbane River like a thief. I have enjoyed my time in Brisbane but the facilities leave a great deal to be desired. I anchored in the river between Mowbray Park and New Farm. The bottom is mud and the strong current reverses. This means the anchor resets four tines a day. And drags. I solved this problem by adding a stern anchor to keep from swinging out into the channel. That worked until both anchors started to drag. Last night at slack tide I had enough, hauled both anchors and departed.

There are a lot of mooring balls (and boats) in the river but almost no guest balls. The mooring fields occupy the best anchorages. It is hard to find a spot as the few guest facilities are almost always full. Finding a place to land a dinghy is also difficult. The fields are not well marked. Traveling down the river at night I had to keep a very sharp lookout to prevent Reboot from hitting moored boats with dim anchor lights.

Then of course there are the Citi-Cats. These ferries run at high speed and wake every anchored boat as they pass. And sometimes they pass 30 feet from the boat. Not pleasant.

All said I enjoyed Brisbane a lot. I wish they made it more boating visitor friendly.

Fair winds and following seas :)