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.