Float Your Boat 3 Coombabah, Queensland, Australia
By Herbz on 23-Oct-11. Waypoint GC36G55

Today, it was the planned [Sand, Salt, Sun; Seaway Summer](https://coord.info/GC8K0CV) Community Celebration Event, and it was an opportunity to integrate a couple of other Gold Coast kayak adventures. My first stop was at Oxenford for [Gilligan's Island](https://coord.info/GC6YJ8B), and then it was a drive to Jabiru Island for a subsequent kayak launch. It was then a tiring 10.3 km paddle along Coombabah Creek targeting the *Float Your Boat* series. The last kayak stop was Wave Break Island, and a memory lapse had me arrive only towards the event's end, as I had thought it was an all-day gathering.
With the kayak packed away for the day, it was then time to visit a few strategic geocaches in the vicinity, which included a serious tree climb, a tough hide, and a strategic Southport boatshed geocache, before driving towards Sinnamon Park to meet the family. After a water park frolic, we then joined other Geocachers to close out the day at the [Squinterville Christmas Community Celebration](https://coord.info/GC8HK7K) Event.

I set out on this kayak departing from Jabiru Island just after 09:35 hr. As I mentioned, it was a total paddle distance of 10.3 km, with a moving time of 2:25 hr. I was moving with the tide/current heading upstream towards Coombabah Lake, but it was paddling against the incoming tide and winds that really made it a tiring affair, getting back to the island at around 12:00 hr, as per my [Strava record](https://www.strava.com/activities/8233820094). My last geocache of the series was found at 11:00 hr, so yeah, a solid hour paddle back.

During my solo paddle adventure, this geocache was found reasonably quickly. This geocache was just enough on land, that I needed to exit my kayak and stand on the mangrove fork in order to access the cache. Otherwise, the cache container and logbook were in good shape. Thanks Herbz for the cache placement and ongoing maintenance. It was another strategic geocache with the *Boat required* attribute that was needed for the December month challenge. I really did love the subsequent small channel within the mangroves that I paddled whilst heading to #4 in the series.

Well timed with a high tide, so ventured/kayak further down the unknown after a nice quick log (thought I'd add name this time). I'm on a roll

Gottit thank you

Found on my kayak tour.
TFTC

OMGoodness. The bloody wind continues to thwart us and the mud here was a living breathing entity that wanted us. Badly. It sucked and tried to pull us to heaven knows where. It was this epic battle that we slowly and dramatically won. And we are only one hour off high tide. The log was eventually signed and we lived to fight our way to the next cache. Thank you for placing this one (l think)

I’ve been aware of this cache since my friend moved into the caravan park across the creek. It’s not been until now that & I have had the chance to cruise this section of the Creek. The mud is such thatslouched knee deep to get a few metres to nail it.

It was nice to get some exercise. I had not been on the water in a kayak for some time, so it was a perfect excuse to get some exercise and grab a few caches whilst we were at it. No-one else out today so social distancing was not a problem.

This was out second cache for the day.

Find #2915

TFTC ***Herbz***

Nice to get out on the water and do some exercise. Nice paddle to this one, which was second on the list. We drove to this one after completing the last one to save on time and get home before curfew. Very quick find and we didnt get muddy. This area reminded me of Jacob's Well but on a much smaller scale.

Decided to bring a ski out for a lil scoot more time to search found it this time tftc Lokky1

Came up river on jet ski got as close as the mud bank would allow me then walked the last 8 mtrs hmm no luck but I was sinking in the mud I think these would be better done by kayak next time Lokky1

Headed down to this one on the ski and after pulling up, I snuck down the little muddy track to GZ to locate the cache hanging exactly where it should be. Back to the ski and boy, it’s having a lovely mud bath today! TFTC!

After 20 months I am happy to report this one is safe and in good condition.

TFTC

Having overshot FYB #2, I continued upstream and descended on FYB #3 a little further ahead. It was now mid-tide but still quite shallow, however the little tinny was not to be deterred and got my posse to within 22 metres of GZ [^]

But then the trouble started The coords and satellite image of GZ had me on the east side of the little inlet... so after 15 minutes of squelching around in the mangroves, I abandoned the thicket of tall trees and moved to the **one** tall tree on the west side of the inlet. AHA! GOT HIM

TFTC - and new Loop 10 DT

Geohubby had an RDO today and it was my day off. He likes kayaking, I like geocaching, so what better choice for an adventure...we're off to float our boat!

Cache#3 and this one was proving hard to find. We had found an interesting skull hanging off a mangrove branch and I thought it might be the cache because of its very precise placement, but no, it must have been put there by the tide. It was geohubby who eventually spied the cache and we were lucky, because we could get the kayak in nice and close, so that I didn't even have to get out. Yay! These containers are great, easy to open and generally quite dry inside. If I put out any more kayak caches, these will definitely be the go! Another goodie Herbz, TFTC

Out and about in a hire boat collecting some water caches Lots of laughs, lessons learned, and stories told. I was told the first letter of each of our names was used to make the team name WADERS which is very appropriate because there was lots of that going on today!! I had such a fantastic day, thanks to team work, and great COs, thanks!

The WADERS (Selva Girls, stortigirls, NeverSayDi, E:), Mr RoddyC and EatSleepCacheRepeat) hired a boat for a day on the water. A bit of a climb here, but one of my caching companions made short work of it. TFTC

Out on a hire boat with the WADERS (Wanda, Amanda, Di, Elena, Rod & Sam) today to claim some water caches and some good terrain ratings! Lots of fun and laughs as sandbars, mud baths (damn soft sinking mud), songs and stories were enjoyed by all. Thanks for the opportunity for a great day out on the water Herbz and Tftc!

Well this one we lived up to our group name!! WADERS!! Thank for the cache!!

Was here with the WADERS Team today ( W-selvagirls, A-stortigirls, D-neversaydi, E-E(:, R-roddyc and S-eatsleepcacherepeat). Hired a boat for the day. What a glorious day with wonderful company.

Been longing to put smileys on this area.

5th find of the day. Eatsleepcacherepeat climbed the tree with shoes on here. Not high heels though!

TFTC Herbz. I would not have dreamt of going to this place otherwise! What a fabulous day even if we hit some sand bars, some accidental swimming and mud baths.

Second of two caches found on Mothers Day due to a surprise by geo son. Couldn't get close enough to the others in the series as he forgot that we had to venture out at high tide and the boat was too heavy to manoeuvre close enough. Thanks Herbz for the great adventure, will be back in the future to hopefully nab the remainder, TFTC.

Out on a high seas adventure with our 3 boats. I was in a group of 3 teaming up with patrol14, and then there was a boat of 4 with diamonjs, Rusty85 and Crew153 and then a 6 seater with RoddyC, Nadine1989, Termingi and vennfamily as they called the yellow sand bucket but I called it the yellow submarine.
The other boats headed off while we put away the last one and as we caught up we saw someone in a tree. Rusty85 was retrieving the cache. We all signed the log and returned the cache to where it came from.
TNLNSL TFTC Thanks Herbz All good with this cache

Almost twelve months ago we first mooted the idea of boating up to do the T5 caches on the northern Gold Coast waterways. Over the last few weeks we settled on today to ire the boat, but somehow it grew to three boats - a party of , including DiamonJS, Rusty85, Team Benders, Crew 153, Nadine1989, Temingi (from Yeppoon), Vennfamily and Patrol14. Our first port of call was Float Your Boat 7, ending up with the GCPT - Humpback Whale.

Our boat was the slowest, so as we were the first to leave the previous caches' GZ we were first at this one, but we overshot the tree, so the second boat retrieved the cache. All signed and sealed, the cache was returned and we were on our way.

Found on 20th April 2016. TFTC.

This was our next cache on our day on the water.

It narrow channel to get to the one would only allow 1 boat in at a time and as we had arrived first it was up to us to use the oars to push us in to get close and Rusty85 jumped over the bow and managed to get the cache without getting wet.

The cache was handed around and the other boats headed off for Number 2 while rusty85 replaced the cache.

TFTC Thanks Herbz

While out on the high seas for a spot of plundering (cache finding), our merry band of sailors* motored to another mangrove island and all eyes were searching for the elusive treasure until the call was made - "I see it". Logbook retrieved and signed by all then returned.
Another interesting FYB cache in a great location.

TFTC

(* RoddyC, Crew153, Venn Family, Temingi, DiamonJs, Rusty85, Team Benders, Nadine1989)

Nice day out on the water for my birthday. TFTC

RoddyC extended an invite to me a couple of days ago for a spot on a hire boat to collect some T5 caches. We rocked up this morning at Southport and we were introduced to the plastic bucket, as coined by Mr Patrol14, - a large, yellow, plastic thing with a 6hp motor which was to be our transportation for the day.

I was given the job of pilot and told to head north. A long way north. I think it took about two hours for our plastic bucket to reach Lake Coombabah at it's top speed which was well below the posted 6 knot speed limit. We had to watch as the other hire boat disappeared into the distance. How they didn't collect all the caches before we got there I don't know.

RoddyC had planned the day so that we were heading downstream on the outgoing tide and the channel this cache is in was just a little too shallow for our yellow submarine. I found it was easier to get out and push the boat rather than paddle.

Rusty85 was the one to make the find.

TFTC Herbz

Nice quick find on a great day of caching. TFTC

Gotcha !!! An invitation from RoddyC to join a crew of pirates on a raid of treasures hidden around the Gold Coast waterways was very welcome. Hopped out of the hammock before 5 bells and set sail for Crew153's anchorage to stow away for the land trip south to pick up " The Yellow Pearl " or should that be Peril ? , our Pirate Ship for the day. Think she needed careening as we were the slowest boat in the fleet of three. Still Captain Blair or should that be Bligh did a sterling job of navigating the Good ?? Ship through the treacherous shoals and sandbars to the hidden treasures we were seeking. Didn't find any treasure but we left our marks " X " in each of the Treasure chests we found.
Thanks to Capt. Herbz, Capt. Terror and the other pirates that hid the treasure chests we searched for.

The day was an eye opener for me .Thanks to all involved.

Found

found it

Found with barbbowman fasted59 and JAT

We were out for a day of caching with barbbowman, FastEd59 and bubba89 trying to increase our difficulty / terrain average to 1.9 It is slow going, but we know we will eventually get there Even though it was an overcast day and we had to make our way through a few showers, we still had a very enjoyable day out, mostly on the water.

After finding a few nearby caches, we soon launched our boats for the main event for the day. We admired the scenery as we made our way along this part of the river system, taking care to keep watch for areas of shallow water to avoid running aground (we only did that once or twice ). On arriving at ground zero, we were able to locate the cache easily and with our names added to the log book, we were off to continue our adventure.

Thank you Herbz for having placed the cache and maintaining it for everyone to enjoy

way down south for the day with fasted59 bubba89 and JAT

bubba did the signing while i hugged the tree

Down the coast today with barbbowman, bubba 89 and Just a Trifle.

By the time we get to this one, we are starting to find a few shallow spots. Not enough to slow us down yet.

TFTC

Another short stretch to this cache which renewed our energy. Again we were first to reach the cache and set to retrieving the cache, my oldest daughter got out and had to climb a little to reach the cache. All good here and off to the next. Tftc

Ok krissy and I made it to no.3 , it was quite choppy out here today we had a 5 min break at this one and waited for everyone to catch up

Found with the tough mothers and the geokids!

This one was a bit higher. Thankfully kids are great climbers! The water got very shallow here making it tricky to paddle. Actually I was amazed at how shallow the water was in this whole area. I expected most of it to be a lot deeper. TFTC!

Tough Mothers were somewhere ahead, oh, there they were. Still my boat was floating like a kayak - oh, that's what I was in. A bright yellow one. Still the Beatles came to mind, something about a yellow submarine. Ah, the wind dropped - no, wait, it didn't.

On the home run now. With the tide retreating at a gallop we were making great time until we shot past this one. Then had to paddle against the tide to get to the cache. Great series

Thanks

Some big fancy houses on the banks,nice scenic views,going well,no DNfs that's the main thing.TFTC.

A boating adventure today with 22 out of 23 found (2 unloved) with Gulliverstravel54, cantcachus2014 and i. Starting our day at the runaway bay boat ramp (630am) we only had a small window it find 16 of them before the sea way was in a lock down at 10am as the 1st Xcats power boat championship was here on the gold coast and we didn't want people watching us while we were finding all the hides. Out of the area and clear of the lock down but 30mins we headed north the find the others, low tide up this way played havoc and killed so much of our time up this way. tftcsl

Find #3553 Today we had aquired a vessel with which to collect some T5 caches and our team Of Gt54, Forbiddenground and Cantcacheous 2014 set of early this was the one of many TFTC

Went out today with Gullivers Travels54 & Forbiddenground to finally clear off these caches and turn them into smiles. Some were easy to get to, others were a bit tougher. We all hade a great day and adventure. Thanks to the CO's for placing these caches. Tftc

TFTC Note to self; check the tides first and come at high tide - gee this mud is thick and sucks you down and holds onto you. LOL.

Today was a mix of Gilligans Island, Patrol Boat, McHales Navy and the the 1983 Americas' Cup. Lots of had with a group of friends out in the bay with a penchant for geocaching.
We had mechanical mayhem, leaks and lateness, injuries and incidents, wet and windy, sandbars and scratches.
We enjoyed the series that took us from Jabiru and wound through the mangroves south to our final destination.
Thanks for a great day Herz!

With the wisdom of age the elderly statesmen on board sent the youngsters into the trees to do the hard work. Once the container was identified the old hands took over and added the necessary names to the log book. Another mission completed and off we headed to the next one.

It was time for fleet maneuvres and the Float Your Boat series looked like just the spot to put Admiral Seff's fleet through it's paces.

With Admiral SeffnJarah and his brother, Admiral (ret) Mark, in command of the two fleet vessls, the small flotilla ventured along Coombabah Creek, finding caches and battling with the mud, mangroves, shallow water, and even Herbz's over protective guard dog.

Whilst Seff took the northern channel, we opted to circumnavigate the small island and hugged the southern shore where we had to battle the shallows. As a result, by the time we arrived at GZ, everything had been found. Onwards to the next.

Many thanks to my ship mates today. Thanks for the cache, Herbz.

Pete

#2,669

We were thrilled to be finding the Float Your Boat series. It was low tide but that's a minor detail when you've just bought your first kayak ever and are dying to try it out. We parked at the boat ramp and paddled off a bit unco-ordinately to this cache. All nice and easy, especially as it was MrG who leapt into the mangroves. TFTC Herbz.

Hubby has a new kayak which he took out today to find his 1st cache in. Unfortunately the tide was running out quiet quickly so it took some manouvering to place the kayak in the right position to stand & retrieve the cache.
Thanks Herbz for placing this cache

Out on a southern adventure with Orange Crew and Luke from Slow Puncture and boy were we in for a day of surprises, ending in one of the worst storms in 30 years!!

I've been keeping an eye on the radar, watching 4 different storms all tracking north east, right towards us. They seem to be ambling along with no great hurry at this point, so the adventure continues.

As we direct the Silver Bullet in towards GZ I spot the cache already and call out to the disbelief of the others! We were expecting this one to be as hard as the first two were, but, this was to be the new trend for most of the others in this series!!

I even managed to stay in the boat while retrieving this one!!

TFTC

Today, Team Armenia set out for an excursion to the Gold Coast, primarily to attack Wavebreak Island, Terror Island, South Stradbroke Island and Coombabah Creek in Orange Crew's powerboat (tinnie).

Why Team Armenia? ORANGE Crew, Team DNA (of RED Rocket fame) and Slow Puncture (of BLUE Thunder not-so-much-fame). Know your vexillology, people (Yes, I did have to look up Armenia's flag...).

By now, we were getting the hang (literally) of these caches and this one was found it quite quick time.

TFTC, Herbz

Out and about in Coombabah Creek for a boating adventure with Slow Puncture and Team DNA. A super quick spot and grabby Angela without getting feet wet. Yeeha off we go to the next one

I had been bugging Captain Terror to let me borrow him and his canoe to grab these caches. I have been attempting to get my average Terrain higher and this was definitely a great place to grab some higher terrain caches. After a slight fail yesterday we were out on the water this morning and were making our way from cache to cache.

As we came around the corner into the little inlet the Captain told me how he thought this was the cache where he found his green bucket. A bucket that has been kept to this day and used whenever the canoe was taken out. .. turns out it wasn't this cache at all....

We found the cache quickly and without any hassle. The tinnie was pulled up and the Captain used his long arms to grab the container for me. Once my name was added the logbook and container were replaced and we were off for the next one. Thanks for the cache Herbz.

TFTC

Decided to skip #2 after realising we were on the other side of the small island and didn't really want to constantly fight headwinds. Will definitely be back for the rest. TFTC

I have hired a Kayak for the week-end and was going to make the most of it.
After an outing yesterday I was all set for another outing today.
I teamed with IolantheK again for another adventure.[^]
With the tide coming in (we thought) we decided to head all the way to end, number 7 first.
We soon discovered that the water was still leaving the creek.
So a stop on the way was in order.
The first of the series for me with only a short walk in the mud.
Thanks for the cache.

We had to wait and did float your boat 4 first because straight there where number 3 was was a canoe fishing!!!!

Staying with family in Oz, luckily Brad has a boat so wow lets find some caches.

had a great time looking for these, spotted a few mud crabs and dropped some crab pots.

we was nearly up to our waists in mud a few times as the tide was going back out and had to get wet to manouver the boat... but hey thats all in the fun.

Even had a swim in the creek to get cleaned up after taking the boat out of the water nice strong current was swimming and getting no where.

Brad said " Crazy Pomme " i know its you winter and its too cold for you guys hahahaaha.

Tftc

A day of geocaching with our friends the Couchmen started. The weather was not looking good but finally we just had just some drops.

We started this series with the first one, but since we could not locate it we just went on to the next ones.

Easy find

Thanks Herbz for this cruise, and Couchman for sailing the boat

These water caches have been sitting at the top of our unfound caches list for so long because we couldn't get hold of any sort of water craft with a motor.

It would have been nice to think we could borrow a canoe or kayak and paddle our way around but when reality bites we are just too old and unfit to even attempt it.

I had never been out on a houseboat and Geo Wife had only been on one once quite a few years ago so we had the idea of combining a houseboat holiday with a caching adventure.

Our next problem came when it wasn't possible to take the boat under the Jabiru Island Bridge, we solved that by hiring a motor for the tender and getting special permission to use it up the lake.

We invited our caching friends the "Dhobitock"s to visit it us on the boat for the day and they jumped at the chance of picking up the "Float Your Boat" series.

A mishap had spoiled the start of our break away yesterday so I was looking forward to a positive day today.

The weather forecast was not looking good with possible showers and thunderstorms but that wasn't going to deter us.

Geo Wife sent us off with her blessings, so all provisioned up we headed off from north of Jabiru Island.

We had started our journey on the incoming tide so were a bit caught unawares when we hit low water.

Well there was nothing else for it than to get out the oars and paddle/push our way into GZ.

We all spotted this one at the same time but Mr "Dhobitock" took the honours of grabbing it as he was at the front of the boat so easiest to get in.

We pushed our way back into deeper water and headed on up.

Thanks Herbz for taking us on this cruising adventure.

Corrected date.

This entry was edited by Couchmen on Friday, 15 November 2013 at 08:12:52 UTC.

Log to follow when we get home

This was the third of 8 caches today out on Coombabah Creek. I didn't realise until now that it was a 12km round trip. With just a kayak and paddle Im going to be sore tomorrow.
I slowly cruised into the channel trying to find it without the Gps but that didn't work to well for me. Such a nice peaceful spot right here. Found it hanging right where the little blue dot told me it would be. SL. Thanks for a great series of caches Herbz.

Merrily paddling along with the tide. Patches was cruising along at a decent speed even when I was not paddling I saw this one on my approach and managed to tuck the ski into the mangroves at a suitable point.

After Captain Terror's aerobatics at the previous find, it was my turn to stand in the bow of the boat to reach this one! Happily managed without ending up in the drink . Doing a U-turn in here was a bit of a challenge, but having a determined pair of cachers aboard, we had it sorted in no time. TFTC, Herbz. =^.^=

La Kedi and I motored on downstream towards this one in the mighty geocaching canoe and when I saw it was up a narrow little inlet, I almost cut the power. However with the outboard almost idling we managed to get quite close before having to pull the pin.

As we motored past I spotted the cache and got us into position, leaning out to grab it. It wasn't until I had my hand on it that La Kedi spotted it at all. Again the pencil in the container saved the day. Enjoying this cruise immensly. TFTC Herbz

IolantheK and I hired a 2 man kayak from Roscoe Brisbane to try out our boating skills on the EKKA P.H. We could have picked a better tide as this cache series are easier to get at during high tide, hey but we still had a fun day.

We launched at Daisy Elms Park Boat Ramp at Coombabah. After collecting "Float Your Boat 2" we headed down steam to "Float Your Boat 1". We then decided to go all the way to "Float Your Boat 6" and work out way back via the other caches to our launch site.

Arrived close to GZ (about 25m) and you guessed it more mud, but this time it was more like sand [^]. IolantheK hopped out and took no time at all to locate the cache and sign the log.

We continued paddling to get to back to Daisy Elms Park Boat Ramp a great day indeed [^]

The cache is dry and is in good condition.

TFTC Herbz

My geospouse T-Tech and I have a mad kayaking and caching day coming up soon, so we figured we'd better get in some practice This series seemed to meet all our criteria for today's outing: not too far a drive to get there; an easy launch spot; doable within 10 kms of paddling; and a tidal area, but somewhat sheltered as it is a little further back from the coastline. We put in at Daisy Elms Park boat ramp at 10:30am as the tide was going out.

Number 6 for us. After the mud we ploughed through for the previous cache, this one was very pleasant. Although the tide was heading back in, the creek here was dry, so we expected to have to wade through mud again, but the sand was hard. Bliss! T-Tech stayed in the kayak while I made the find. TFTC, Herbz.

On a side note, we headed back to Number 2 to have one last search for T-Tech's sunglasses, and I found them! Woohoo!

Nice cache it was a bit tricky to get from my kyayk!

Found during a days outing on the tinnie with GeoDog. TFTC.

Quicker than the others. A bit less mud to cross but the depth made up for it.TFTC

Geokid found with Cowpatty 3. Geomum had to work

Our third find with Stairman1, geodogs and geodaughter. When we arrived at the GZ Stairman1 jumped out to grab the cache and the smallest geodog thought he would follow, falling in the water . Lucky there were no sharks to make lunch of him . Stairman1 quickly grabbed the cache and signed it and then put it back. Thanks Herbz

Found on a great day out with goldielover. Little drama here when the dog fell in. But other wise no problems.
TFTC

Noo82 and I eventually made our way to stop no. 3. It was a bit further than the last two, so we stopped for a drink of water whilst signing the log. We were unable to rest for too long though - the mozzies were all over us. I'd packed just about everything else in my backpack except repellant. We quickly moved on.

Number 3 down, this one was a bit further to paddle but the weather was perfect for it and hardly another soul out on the water today.

I sincerely hope I am remembering these in the right order We all managed to fly past this one before doing a u-turn. Radnoski found the beast safe and sound. It is in great condition. These caches remind me of the ones in Dohles Rocks in northern Brisbane. TFTC Team Herbz

Number three in the series with Fangsoki and the Cow.

My cache blindness had gone away and I spotted the container this time. Now to get the little fellow.

A nice quiet little channel.... or so we thought.... we were going with the flow drifting towards the next cache when we heard a noise and along come two motor boats up the narrow channel. At this point I decided to actual turn my kayak the right way around the right way and get out of their way.

Thanks for the cache Herbz. Heaps of fun.

Another FTF in this great series.
TFTC
SL

just adding a photo.

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