Author: chrisbtanner1980

We woke to a calm morning after the night’s gale, and the weather forecast looked like there was an opportunity to sneak up the coast 120-odd miles to Coffs Harbour where we could check out of Australia (there are only a limited number of Ports of Entry [exit] into a country where the customs and border officials are). Sydney and Newcastle yet again had floods and torrential rain during the storm; we’d dodged a bullet by being a little bit further north (although rain isn’t usually a problem when you’re on a boat, it’s pretty well sealed against water).

I dropped the mooring in the pre-dawn and motored out towards the sea. Port Stephens doesn’t have a sandbar all the way across the entrance, like most of the east coast Australian rivers, but it does get shallow, and the large swell from the gales in the south was pushing up some considerable waves. We loitered around inside the bay, watching a couple of sets coming through, and decided it was OK to push out. Large waves, but very gentle lumps; no breaking water.

Once we were out at sea, the girls got up and joined me on deck, but the sea was very lumpy and not comfortable. Both felt a bit seasick. Whales joined us for part of the trip, some even coming as close as 20m from the boat, their huge bulk making us feel very small. Tilly was so excited!

The light winds meant we had to motor all day, which is not only noisy, but the lack of pressure on the sails makes the boat roll around in the worst way – not pleasant. A couple of times during the day the autopilot hydraulic pump stopped. A tap from a hammer got it going again, but it made me nervous. Single-handing is fine when you have a machine to steer the boat, but without an autopilot things get a lot harder. It was a sign of things to come…

We had a couple of hours of sailing with the engine off from 8-10pm, but then the wind dropped again. With only one night at sea and Rose not feeling up to watches, I kept going through the night. At 0430 the log reads “engine off. dark skies aft. pushing against some current”… then engine intermittently on and off for a few hours until at 0730 the wind backed, strengthened and we were off!

The next log entry at 2100 that night is “Coffs marina. Made it safely in” … the period between that and the last one was a day of nasty, wet, windy and very unpleasant sailing. The wind picked up to a full gale at times, the waves were all over the place due to us being quite close to shore and the wind blowing against the south-flowing East Australia current, but thankfully the autopilot held out.

Approaching a harbour on a lee shore (downwind) is never ideal; if things go wrong the risk is that you are pushed ashore. I’d pushed as hard as possible to get to Coffs before dark, but it wasn’t going to happen. Options were to stand offshore for the night (in a near gale) or try an entry into the harbour. I was tired, Rose was keen to get in, and I had word that the entrance is “all weather”, so we committed. With 30+ knots of wind behind us, and a nasty swell, turning around wasn’t really an option.

Thankfully the leading lights were bright through the torrential rain. Keeping them in line wasn’t easy; the waves were huge; I think I’m glad it was dark and I couldn’t see anything around us. The staysail (inner jib) hadn’t furled properly and was banging around horribly and loudly, I raced the engine hard to get steerage, and we surfed in on what felt like whitewater. Eesh.

There was no way we could get into the marina with the jib unfurled – the wind would prevent us from steering properly, so we anchored in the outer harbour (still in over a metre of swell and lashing rain) to sort that out. Once it was safely rolled away, we motored in to the dock, with James waiting to take our lines and feed us some hot soup – very much needed.

Somehow Tilly had managed to sleep through the whole lot in the forward cabin; flogging sail, anchoring and all. She’s earned her sea legs!

There’s a large protected bay just north of Newcastle which looked worth exploring, and the short (6hr) hop up there took a bite out of the longer passage to Coffs Harbour later.

A straightforward passage with easy sailing (including some spinnaker time) brought us in to Shoal Bay mid afternoon, where we anchored off the beach. Tilly mastered casting with her new fishing rod and seems to be hooked; she loves it! No fish here though.

After a peaceful night at anchor we went ashore in the morning and climbed Tomaree Head; one of the hills guarding the entrance to the bay. Amazing views from the top; into Port Stephens and out to sea. Even found a little coffee cart for Rose to get her morning fix! Had lunch on a remote beach, played in the sand, then headed back to the boat to move on to the next spot, deeper in the bay.

Bad weather was on the way so I wanted to find somewhere more sheltered, and Fame Cove looked perfect. A small protected bay a couple of hours upstream. No wind, so we motored, coming in at dusk. Picked up one of 5 moorings, one other boat there, with a couple of kids aboard.

Tilly tried her hand at fishing again, this time trolling gently behind the dinghy, and we picked up three fish. Now she’s really hooked! Not big enough to eat though, so we put them back. “But I want to keep one as a pet!”

The next morning we headed over the way to Soldiers Point marina to see if we could find our way into town; yet another trip to the hardware store, and to try and find some fishing gear for the offshore passage to New Caledonia and for in the islands. Larger lures, stronger line etc.

We tied up to the visitors dock and walked for ages; no buses or easy rides round here. Found what we needed, headed back to the boat, spent the afternoon sorting things out, then treated ourselves to takeaway pizza from the marina restaurant. Mmm.

It was dark when we left the dock, heading back to Fame Cove, but dead calm and I had our previous GPS track to follow in, so it was straightforward to get in safely and we found the same mooring ball easily enough.

The forecast gale came in overnight and through the next day, keeping us aboard. I tried out various rainwater collection methods; once we leave Australia and access to marinas, we will need to be self sufficient for as long as possible and collecting rain is an important way to extend our range. In a short break in the weather tilly and I headed over to say hi to the other boat in the bay; a young family living aboard and gradually heading north to the Whitsunday islands.

We explored a little up the creek in the dinghy; in the drizzle. Saw a few birds but not a lot else; and couldn’t go ashore as the rocks were all covered in sharp mussels which would damage the dinghy (and our feet!).

Checked the forecast again, and decided that if the wind had abated by the morning, we’d catch the (narrow) weather window and head up to Coffs Harbour. At this point the Fosters (our buddy boat from Ballina) had been toying with the idea of sailing for Noumea from the Gold Coast, which would have added another 130 miles to our journey north … but they chose the same weather window to go south instead to Coffs for a rendezvous with us.