Almost Home - Port Stephens to Eden (5tth to 19th November)

Well we managed to catch up with Rob (Morelli) while we were at Port Stephens.  He dropped over to the boat the evening of our arrival and then we dropped over to see his house (in work) the following morning which was great.  Was also nice to get off the boat and go for a wander to stretch the legs.

We were planning to head up to Nelson Bay for the evening but ended up dropping our anchor off the Anchorage Marina and went ashore for a lovely meal in the resort which we all enjoyed.

On the morning of the 8th we departed from Port Stephens and headed into Newcastle.  We caught up with a Kath and Peter which spent time with Kath and Brian up at the snow this year.  Thanks to Kath we got a full tour of Newcastle and had the best ribs ever and the local surf club.  We didn't have a long stop at Newcastle and we headed down to America Bay in Broken Bay on the 9th.  On the  way down we were lucky enough to sail through the race fleet heading up to Cabbage Tree Island which is the qualifying race for Sydney to Hobart.   As well as following the progress of Primitive Cool which has Mark's nephew, Matt, on board we also happened to come across Adrian and his team on Geomatic Allegro which looked far too comfortable to be on an ocean race.

Allegro Geomatic

Yes it is the weekend and a nice one at that but we were all amazed at the number of boats moored up in America Bay - it was pretty much standing room only and luckily there are plenty of moorings there to choose from.   On the Sunday we went up and dropped the anchor off Brooklyn and dinghied over to Dangar Island for lunch.  It is a really pretty little spot and one of those many treasures that you find in this part of the world.  One thing we weren't expecting was that our visit coincided with the annual Bridge to Bridge Race so the whole place was full of petrol guzzling rev heads. 

For the evening we headed over to the very sheltered and much quieter waters of Jerusalem Bay for the evening.  On Monday morning we meandered our way over to Cottage Point for a spot of coffee before heading up to Coasters Retreat in the Pittwater for the night.  The next morning it is off to the big smoke of Sydney. Luckily we managed to get a spot in at the CYCA thanks to Michael that we know from our time at RMYS.  Due to the weather we only got to spend a couple of nights in Sydney and a lot of the time was getting ourselves and the boat sorted for the final push home.  We also had to farewell Brian and Kathy from the crew.

On Thursday 13th we departed the CYCA and had a lovely sail down to Woolongong.   The Gong is a bit of a strange place.  The harbour is rather small and dominated by commercial fishing craft which are not all that helpful  when it comes to yachties however we did find a suitable boat to raft up to and were hoping to have a quiet night on board until the local youth decided that the harbour car park was a great place to do burn outs.  Deciding that The Gong is not quite the place for us we sailed down to Jervis Bay on Friday.  Again we had a great sail with northerlies and were lucky enough to time our entrance to the anchorage at Hole in the Wall, which is at the southern end of the bay, so that the southerly change was not far away.  



The changing moods of Jervis Bay!

We dropped down the dinghy on the Saturday and went ashore to do the walk along the cliff tops above Murray's Beach.  The rest of the time at Jervis was pretty much doing laps as the weather and wind was constantly changing during our stay however, for our last night we ended up back at Hole in the Wall.

As the weather is looking like we may have a window to get across The Paddock on Wednesday we figure we better start making tracks down to Eden.  We departed early as we were not sure exactly how far we would get but decided to continue on and head down to Bermagui which was a big day of around 95NM so we didn't end up tying up until around 11pm so it was anchor down drinks and straight to bed for us.   One thing we have noticed since leaving Sydney was the change in bird and sea life which to be honest is rather disturbing.  So far we have spotted Albatross, then Penguins and this morning we even got to see Seals - these species are all common in higher and colder latitudes which is really not our normal habitat these days - something about this is horribly wrong!  I have even had to take the very sad option of wearing long pants and socks - not happy

Today (which I think is the 19th) we were up at 5am to get down to Eden by the early arvo so that we can stock up on some milk and bread, have a shower and might even get to go out for dinner at the Fisho's club.   If the weather continues to behave itself it will be up very early tomorrow for the trip across the paddock and will hopefully make it into Refuge Cove in a timely fashion as there is a front on its way Thursday evening although the weather modelling seems a bit confused and is changing on a fairly regular basis at the moment.  We do have plan B which is to go to Lakes Entrance but hopefully we wont have to resort to that as we are very much focused on getting home now.  Again if the weather behaves we might actually make it back to Martha Cove on Sunday.

Will right a final note once we get home once I figured out some stats and stuff like that.

Fraser Island to Port Stephens (19th October - 6th November)

It was up at 5.00am at Sheridan Flats to meet the tide to safely navigate THE SHALLOWS in the Great Sandy Strait and luckily we made it through yet again with no issues.  We travelled the 25NM down to Inskip Point before breakfast and had a leisurely day on board.  Next morning it was up early again to meet to flood tide to cross the WIDE BAY BAR along with the other 10boats that were anchored up with us at Inskip Point - the annual migration south is well under way.

As forecast we had light winds and motor sailed our way down to Mooloolaba.   We caught up with Steve Richo on Tardis again who is waiting for crew to arrive before continuing his  way south - all be it at a much faster pace than us!

After a few busy days in Mooloolaba we departed from the marina at 3:30H bound for Southport.  We had a great sail down which was assisted by some very helpful current - it is not often that Sally sits on speeds of 8's and 9's.  We had a bit of a bumpy entry into the Southport Seaway but made a safe arrival and dropped the pick in the very infamous Bums Bay anchorage before heading into the Southport YC marina on Monday morning.    We found getting a berth on the Sunday a little tough as our arrival just happened to coincide with the V8 Supercars!. 

Surfers Paradise

Brian and Kathy, our new crew, arrived on Tuesday arvo and will be on-board with us till we get to Sydney in a couple of weeks which is great.  During our stop over we did the obligatory trip to Seaworld which happened to be a first for our visitors.  As always it is a great day and we thoroughly enjoyed the Seal and Dolphin shows as well as the other sea life on show.  Kathy and I were even brave enough to tackle a couple of the rides including the new Storm ride which is based on rescuing people in a cyclone - maybe a little too close to home for comfort - but it was a lot of fun. 



SeaWorld

Dolphin Show

30th October and we are on the move again. We departed the Seaway at 8.30 on our way down to Coffs Harbour which is a 158NM passage.  Luckily we had a bit of current assist for most of the trip which is always appreciated.  During the passage we saw a heap of trawlers which we figured must be out  catching lots of prawns and bugs for all those Cup Day functions.  We also had a ship which seemed to find Sally very attractive  to the point where we had to take evasive action to keep out of its way (despite that we are broadcasting our position to the world on AIS)


Not what you want to see at night!


















Coffs Harbour Marina

We arrived at Coffs just in time to have showers and head up to the Yacht Club for a long lunch and not long after that we were all tucked up and sleeping soundly.  We had a lovely couple of days at Coffs and did the obligatory walk up Mutton Bird Island - which is aptly named as it is covered in Mutton Bird Nests.  On the 4th November (Cup Day) and it is on the move again which seems to be the way at the moment as we are hoping to get Sally home by the end of November.




We did the 175NM overnight passage down  to Port Stephens which ended up being a lovely down hill sail although we did have to push current for a fair bit of the passage which did slow us down a bit.  There was plenty of things to keep us entertained on the passage!  We listened to the Melbourne Cup en-route and between the four of us we picked all three spots on the podium!  We also got to see a whale show which was very exciting as our sightings of whales have been few and far between this trip.  We also had a plethora of ships traversing up and down the coast - luckily most of them kept their distance however, we seemed to have at least one that we were monitoring closely to make sure they kept their distance.


We arrived in Port Stephens just after lunch and headed up to a mooring in North Arm Cove where we were lucky enough to catch up with an old friend Rob (Morelli) from RMYS who dropped in on his dinghy for dinner. 

Today we are going up to Nelson Bay for the evening and then we are down to Newcastle tomorrow as this trip south progresses.