Float Your Boat 4 Coombabah, Queensland, Australia
By Herbz on 23-Oct-11. Waypoint GC36G5H

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 visited upon, however despite a good 10-15 minutes of searching, I couldn't find any evidence of this cache. Since the previous caches had been quick finds, I soon concluded that this cache was missing (as previous logs didn't note that there was any trouble locating this cache). I even suspect this cache may be missing since September 2021, with it being missing as the reason why TripleTurmoil couldn't locate the cache.

My coordinates kept pointing me back to the large mangrove tree, and since I brought with me a swag of supplies, I decided to replace the cache on behalf of the CO. I've placed the cache high above the water line, and it is now a small pre-form container attached by wire. I do believe that I've made a good job of this replacement if I do say so myself. I did bump into the CO later in the day, who gave permission (and thanks) of this replacement. 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.

Another I forgot to add my name with the date logged. Was having too much fun. Ticking of most of the series. Tfth

Couldn't spot it. Probably easier in a kayak than a boat

Cool thanks

Found on my kayak tour.
TFTC

Muggle65 and l are staying at a friend's place with Coombabah Creek waterfront views. We were being watched through his binoculars as we approached this one. Gave a wave before we approached GZ. Thank you for placing this one. We are thoroughly enjoying the afternoon

No:3 for this series, cruising up the creek, past my mates place. If you’re reading this wave to the guy on the deck of the blue building as you yak past. Cache in good condition

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 third cache for the day.

Find #2916

TFTC ***Herbz***

Nice to get out on the water and do some exercise. Nice paddle to this one, which was third on the list. Very quick find and we didnt get muddy. This area reminded me of Jacob's Well but on a much smaller scale.

Couldn't get near ski so out goes anchor and a muddy slippery walk ensued but nice quick find tftc Lokky1

We had a bit of lunch and then headed down to this one next. While my muggle husband was happy to keep fishing, I took the opportunity to head down and grab the last couple in this series. Found safe and sound, TFTC!

This one was damp inside. Wow. I am having so much fun finding these.

Muddy at low tide

Its been two years since my last trip in this waterway with muggle son and today he decided to bring me back out for an early Mothers Day present. We had a fun filled day with lots of laughs with a beaut picnic lunch on the tinnie and grabbed a few caches in the process. After hiring the boat in Southport, we headed to this part of the creek after finding FYB #6. Good size cache placed which enabled me to have a quick find here today.
TFTC Herbz
Found May 12, 2018

Great find. With geo buddy Brad. His first time cache. He had the kayaks. Time for the next one

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#4 and we are starting to notice the diminishing water situation. We are needing to choose where we go carefully in spots, although it's lovely because all the seabirds are wading in the water and we get to see them up close. There's lots of oyster catchers about, but my favourites aren't wading they are soaring on the thermals above us, sea eagles and whistling kites are out and about today. I was able to spot this cache quickly and some handy mangrove roots meant that accessing the log was not too hard a task. TFTC Herbz

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. Lots of laughs along the way today. 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!

What a team! Yes to the WADERS! Log is wet! But signed and we are off again! Thanks 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.

4th find of the day.

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

We are back at the Gold Coast for a week, visiting family & time to get away to do some geocaching.
Today was the perfect day to get out onto the water. With my brother as skipper we headed out along the river. Tide was still a little low so we had moments when we finished up on sandbars.
Favourite point added
Thanks for placing this cache Herbz

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.

As there was room for only one boat at a time at most of these caches, we sometimes took it in turns to get to GZ - depending on boat speed. But we never missed a cache!

Found on 20th April 2016. TFTC.

Also this cache was a quick find.

We were enjoying the cruise back along the creek and picking up the caches along the way. the 3 boat flotilla arrived for this one It took a while to determine the right approach as the GPS did not have the details of the location and it was the crew of the yellow submarine who spotted the cache first.

Another one down, Thanks Herbz

While out on the high seas for a spot of plundering (cache finding), our merry band of sailors* motored to this island and with many eyes searching, the cache was found quickly.
Logbook handed around and signed by all then returned.
Maneuvering 3 boats around near GZ takes skill and teamwork and a whole lot of fun.

TFTC

(* RoddyC, Crew153, Venn Family, Temingi, DiamonJs, Rusty85, Team Benders, Nadine1989, Patrol14)

Out on a high seas adventure with our 3 boats. I Team Benders 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.
I was lookout for the caches and I spotted this cache which patrol14 was quick to grab. All the other boats zoomed into sign and we returned the cache to where it came from.
TNLNSL TFTC Thanks Herbz All good with this cache

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.

This time, it was Patrol14's boat which arrived at GZ first and made the find. The big yellow bucket is just too big and slow.

TFTC Herbz

Quick find for this one by me then a hand the log around 3 boats while Rusty85 hangs in an unstable situation lol. Group of canoeist's going past gave us a long look but hey we were having fun and they weren't close enough to see what we were doing. 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

Log book was wet

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

finding some sand along the way ... just makes for more adventure

another log jammed in and this one is completely wet

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

Cache number 4. Log was pretty damp in this one, but were still able to leave our mark.

TFTC

We were definitely starting to get quite tired by no.4 but we were keen to keep going

Found with the tough mothers and the geokids!

Oh dear, another long stretch to paddle! The wind had picked up in places making it tough to paddle, but nothing is ever too tough for us Tough Mothers! We had a little rest and a quick snack here before moving onto the next one. TFTC!

Tough Mothers were a bit ahead and had time to eat. Not me, off they went again, with conditions not improving. At this stage, had adjusted the stroke to counter the strong tendency of going right persistently. I grabbed Geokid Tobias a banana from my pack and one for me too. Not an easy thing to do in a kayak, peel and eat a banana while paddling.

Off agin to the next, another long stretch, my cousin and I seemed to be scooting along very quickly, despite the wind, having a much younger man in the back seat paddling we streaked ahead. I made it to this cache first and set about retrieving the cache, my youngest daughter hopped out to get the cache. We waited here for everyone to catch up and had a snack. Tftc

Boy is this mud sticky. Tide starting to get very low now. Just came across a very large stingray in the shallows.
Another easy find once we got to the shore.

Thanks

I think it was on the way to this one we went on a sand bar and I thought there was a deep hole but it was actually a big sting ray which darted away and scared the crap out both of us,found the cache,no problems so far.TFTC.Herbz

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 #3554 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 Herbs

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!

The youngsters on board certainly aired their views on the usefulness of the clues at this cache as the container proved elusive for some time. Eventually it was located and once again our various initials were added to the logbook (writing the full names would have taken us all day!) before heading off again. TFTC

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.

The cabin boys were sent in to grab this one, but after some difficulty, Admiral (ret) Mark had to climb ashore to help. All in in good order here.

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

Pete

#2,670

Paddling on from No3 we were getting in some kind of rhythm and arrived at No4. Due to low tide we weren't getting park and grabs, we had to squelch through some very sticky mud to get this. MrsG quickly learnt, if she was to end the day with thongs she'd better leave them on board. TFTC Herbz.

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!!

Hoping for another quick find, I took out my eagle eyes and scanned the mangroves as we inched closer.

Found it again!! Yippie! I'm getting good at this now!!!

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...).

Much like the last one, a reasonably quick find as we are getting to know the COs Modus Operandi

TFTC, Herbz

Out and about in Coombabah Creek for a boating adventure with Slow Puncture and Team DNA. Another park n grab, easy find of a well placed hide. TFTC

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.

This was the cache where the Captain found his beloved green bucket a little over two years ago.. not the last one as he thought. We pulled up in the tinnie and after I wrapped a rope around a branch I held us in place while the Captain went ashore... well ... to grab the cache anyway. I signed my name in the logbook and the cache was replaced as found. Thanks for the cache Herbz.

TFTC

Third and final cache in this series for today as we were running out of time before our lift home arrived. 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.
On our return leg from number 7 we stopped in here and I had quite a long wade through the mud to reach the cache.
Thanks for the cache.

Had to paddle a bit in our little motorboat to get there..

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. The next ones were easy finds. Some low waters tried to keep us far, but we managed to get thru

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.

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 hit low water on the previous cache but nothing like at this one so Mr "Dhobitock" got out and pulled us thru the water to GZ.

Once we got close enough the cache was easily found, nice hide!!

So that was 3 out of 4 with the determination to get No 1 on the way back down river.


Thanks Herbz for taking us on this cruising adventure.

Corrected date.

This entry was edited by Couchmen on Friday, 15 November 2013 at 08:14:01 UTC.

Log to follow when we get home

This was the fourth 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 headed out from Jabiru Island and thankfully it's high tide.
I could see the big mangrove tree over the top of the others before I got to GZ. Glided straight through a spider web which made me lose focus and came to an abrupt stop on a mangrove root. With the web on my face and the spider on my lap it didn't take long before I was in the water jumping round like a freak. Lucky no one was watching me. Retrieved cache, signed log and heade on. Thanks again Herbz,even with the spiders its been great so far.

A short trip between caches on the incoming tide. I passed some pelicans and other birds just after this one. Only seen one boat so far and it was a "ranger" boat.

We figured out we could approach this cache very closely with the tide the way it was, and, inspired, I decided to try to grab it without exiting the boat! Managed, too, though there was a tricky aerial descent into the boat after replacing it. Captain Terror did his good deed for the day by saving a crab and CITOing a bucket (later a home for a jellyfish). Lots of spiders in the mangroves, though. TFTC, Herbz. =^.^=

La Kedi and I were out on the water in the geocaching canoe, carving up the creek at a full 8km/h at full throttle and this was next one along. As we had motored along, we saw hundreds of large jellyfish and we felt the need to somehow catch one. It wasn't a nice feeling everytime the oputboard hit one and gave a sloppy sort of a jolt. As we got near this one, I spied a bucket on the shore, washed up.

We navigated a channel, at one point churning up some mud with the prop, but with a bit of paddle power, we got there, found it and signed the log.

On our return to deeper waters, I stopped to retrieve said bucket, for a CITO if nothing else. Having said that, I still have it stored with the canoe TFTC Herbz, another gem in this golden series and afavourite point of course

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 30m) and you guessed it more mud, but this time it was the deep like the up to your knees sort complete with shell fragments of which IolantheK cut her toe (she's such a trooper [^]). I ended up turning back to see if I could get the kayak any closer whilst IolantheK battled on all fours. She ended up finding the cache and signing for both of us (This was definitely the hardest one to do at low tide).

We continued paddling to get to "Float Your Boat 3"

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 5 for us. This one was really hard with the low tide The island had an extra sand bar around it that we couldn't get the kayak over as the mud was impenetrable, then a strip of water, then more mud before reaching GZ I was almost up to my knees in it So glad to finally get this one, then almost crawled through the mud back to the kayak. TFTC, Herbz.

Nice cache!

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

Found after a long muddy walk. Couldn't get in very close from the near side with our boat so had to walk in from the far side. Again the geokids and geomut loved the mud. TFTC

Geokid found with Cowpatty 3. Geomum had to work

This was the next one on our radar today while out in the boat with Stairman1, geodogs and geodaughter. The day was starting to warm up so we decided to find a nice shady spot and grab some lunch before heading off to this one. Another cache that I didn't want to get my feet wet on . Stairman1 did the honurs and signed our names in the log. Thanks Herbz

Found with goldielover. Bit of a trick getting to this one with out getting too wet and muddy. Managed to find a nice slippery branch to use for a bridge. Signed the log. The tide is starting to drop now and I have no real idea where the deep parts are. We have already managed to deepen the chanel a couple of times.
Thanks Herbz

It was high tide whilst Noo82 and I were doing this series, so we were able to paddle right up to no.4 without getting muddy feet. The day was getting on and we thought it was just about time to go back. We knew there were a few other caches hidden on the shores of the mainland and checked out our GPS for their locations. It was only then that I realised there were in fact 6 in the Float Your Boat series, not 4 like I originally thought! We checked the distance to the next and knew we didn't have the time. We were a little disappointed but agreed we could come back for them another day. We made our way back to the car with sore arms and shoulders and hundreds of mosquito bites. It was a great afternoon out on the water, and much more challenging on the ski rather than a boat (not that I have one)! TFTC Herbz, I really enjoy a challenging series and one where I get some exercise doing it.

Number 4 was as far as KateRX and I were going today.
We could see the cache along with a water bird sitting next to it. The bird let out a squark and took off giving us room to retrieve the cache so we could sign the log.
TFTC Herbz, so nice to get out on the water and do some caching.

Onto this one - and thankfully to some welcome shade. Radnoski swung through the mangroves to retrieve the cache he had spotted. We signed the log and decided to "take 5" - with a few chocolate bars and drinks. We weighed up the option of going back and approaching the others from another angle... or to coninue on. We decided to continue on TFTC Team Herbz

Out doing the series of kayak caches with Fangsoki and the Cow.

By this stage we decided to just do all six in one go and not worry about moving the car and kayaks halfway through.

The cache was found and the spot ended up being a great spot to stop and have a snack and some water before pressing on to the last two caches.

A helicopter was flying around the area. Possibly spraying the area for mozzies.

Thanks for the cache Herbz. Cheers.

A nice paddle on a cool day, a FTF.A great series
Thanks

just a photo

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