Updated cruising guide for Queensland

Updated cruising guide for Queensland © Island Cruising and Down Under Rally

Greg Luck has been a frequent contributor to the Down Under Rally Magazine. He has released a new third edition of Cruising the Queensland Coast, his guide for yachts cruising from the Gold Coast to Lizard Island.

While cruising in 2023, Greg was struck by the number of cruisers who had adopted Starlink. The cheapest way to use it is on the Roam plan, designed to work over land. At sea, the very expensive Maritime plan must be used. Starlink "land" includes many islands and some reefs using a hexagonal tiling system. It can be hit and miss as to whether an anchorage or mooring is on "land" or sea for Starlink. New in the 3rd edition, each anchorage and mooring includes a Starlink icon to indicate land or sea.

Along with a print edition, the book comes as an eBook for tablets. However, the big players support a limited number of countries, and usually not the overseas territories of those countries such as Noumea or Tahiti. This has been a problem for some cruisers. The 3rd edition adds Rakuten Kobo, which supports 244 countries and overseas territories with excellent coverage for the Pacific.

The third edition is fully updated with:

• many new public moorings for the Townsville, Discovery and Cassowary coasts and the Whitsundays
• new anchorages, taking the total to 503 anchorages and moorings
• new public pontoons
• updates to the K'Gari Coast for the new Great Sandy Marine Park management plan
• Starlink land versus ocean status for each anchorage, mooring and marina along with the Telstra mobile reception
• digital TV reception strength for each anchorage
• latest marina changes including comprehensive information on super yacht berths and resultant marina berth layout changes
• S63 official Hydrographic chart references for each coast and how to use Australian Hydrographic charts on apps and chart plotters along with other navigation data sources
• expanded coverage of the Gold Coast and Moreton Bay
• recalculated wave roses for recent Waverider buoy placements such as the Wide Bay Bar
• higher-resolution aerial images and photos in the print version
• numerous other changes and updates