Heading North

Arrived in Yamba the afternoon of the 26th, and had a great trip, averaging about 8 kts. Yamba might have a great pub, but the safe anchorages are all in low water areas and we had a bit of difficulty finding a spot. This was compounded when we tried to get a mooring in 20 kt winds and discovered the strength of the crew wasn’t up to holding onto the boat hook as it grabbed the mooring bouy. The Captain then had a go, with no success, and we managed to lose both boat hooks overboard before the obvious occurred…use the anchor! It’s wet and blowing a gale outside now but the boat is dry and cosy and big enough to not trip over each other.

Going back a few days…we left Port Stephens for Forster in southerly winds and low swell, overcast but not too bad – used the preventer and had no trouble. It took about 6.5 hrs, sailing most of the way. We were overtaken by “Easy Rider”, which normally I would object to, but that was ok on account of Rob was there to help us tie up at a small jetty on the Tuncurry side of the river. We had a few beers with Rob and Henma on their lovely cat¬ – the skippers talked boat stuff and the respective crew talked crew stuff.

The morning was dead calm so we upped and offed to Port Macquarie, motoring all the way…given that it was a mill pond (see above photo)as we approached Port, we checked the forecast, which was good so we decided to go onto Coffs, which would put us there a little after midnight. Saw our first whale jump out of the water and heaps of dolphins, which do not hang in the one spot long enough. The crew blamed the camera, so looks like we have to get a new one. The going was easy until we passed Trial Bay at about 7.00pm -the wind picked up from the south and away we went to Coffs, genoa only about 2/3rds out, engine on, and speeds 8-10 kts. Nambucca came in and out of view and the rain eased a bit as we approached Coffs…once you’ve been into a port, it’s easy, but the first time at night was a good work out, figuring out what’s where and where to aim at. We arrived a little after 1.00am after 19hrs - engine didn’t miss a beat and the boat looked after us as we didn’t over stretch it or our ourselves. After 3 attempts at reversing into an empty berth, the Captain gave up (blame it on the wind) and drove it in nose first…I think the crew thought that that was a good decision. The one good thing about arriving at 1.00 am, there isn’t any one around to watch.

Spent a few days with Mum down at Nambucca and had a nice birthday dinner …first time in 30 yrs that we didn’t celebrate it with Meg – Happy birthday Bloss. Met Ted and Lynne and picked up a drogue that was kindly given to us by a friend of mum’s (Thank you Jim and Barbara - hope we never have to use it) who did what we are doing a few years ago and the drogue was the last thing left from their sailing adventures.

We ended up staying an extra night in Coffs on account of we slept in…the plan was to get up early (3.30 am) and go, but that was too hard so we had a easy day in Coffs, checked the weather for the following morning, which looked good for the trip to Yamba if we arrived early afternoon and beat the heavy weather that was working it’s way.

Now we are looking to leave Yamba in a couple of hrs - the forecast is OK, with decreasing seas/swell, and we’ll go provided the seas over the bar allow it. We’ll overnight in the Richmond River and then on to Southport and hopefully some sunny days.