Touring Bribie Island on transit sand banks

Trees/Land Grass/Seagrass/Sand

 Spent the morning walking the beaches of Bribie Island. I keep being drawn back to Red Beach which runs along the southern butt end of the place. As location location location goes, Bribie's bottom coastline faces out into Moreton Bay as though it's the stage in a grand amphitheater.

Moreton Island to the east; Deception Bay to the west; and in front -- due south -- is the middle reaches of Moreton Bay -- a vista that obscures as the pollutant haze over Brisbane town drowns out the landscape.

We got there at the head of the tide -- 11.38am as one fisher folk told me with confident precision -- and there wasn't much beach left in these recent days of High High Tides.

While we walked east with sea eagles hovering above us for a couple of kilometres, my fun began when I retraced our steps and decided to follow the beach around the corner into Pumicetone Passage and  meet up with the significant other at Buckley's Hole.

En route the beach was littered with the filleted carcasses of large Jew Fish (Mulloway). The story told is that they were caught by trawlers as by-catch, quickly filleted and their remains thrown over board. Given that the fishing limit is set at two -- along this beach  there was forensic evidence   of  a massacre.

As I trudged forth , now with the tide turning, the wet sand was softer and spongy so I sunk into it, up to my knees on occasion,  so that trudging with two dogs in tow required some muscular effort.

When I rounded the point and started along the coastline of Pumicestone Passage  the risen tide had stolen the beach I assumed existed.

The mangroves were inundated and without evident pathways I had to keep to what was on offer in way of a solid beach.  Unfortunately, I soon found myself -- and the two dogs -- wading on a sand bank that ran 50 metres parallel to the  Mangrove covered shoreline.

I assumed Buckley's Hole was some where in among the scrub but I couldn't see it from the water, let alone work out a route to get  to it. So I just followed my sand spit under water hoping that if I kept to the yellowing  I'd keep my head above the deep.

My transit sand bank  running parallel 50 metres  from shore

 I  sand banked it like this for about 500 metres, before seeing that at the end of my transit  bank the 'gap' between sandbank yellow and the greening depths was about 15 metres -- so into the briny I go holding my  gear above my head to keep it from getting wet. 

I just made it to the shoreline with my feet still on the bottom and two dogs playing seals around me.

 I'd overshot Buckley's Hole by a kilometre and had to find my way back through local roads, in time to catch the significant other exiting the Buckley's Hole Reserve after an encounter with a Brown Snake.