Travel Log from 2013!!

From reading back on the blog entries, I think we left our travel log at New Caledonia, so for those of you that are interested here is how we got to Port Philip Bay.

As previously mentioned we had a fantastic run from Futuna to New Caledonia, and it almost seemed a shame to stop, but we hadn’t given our advanced notice of arrival to Australian Customs, who requires minimum of 96 hours notice, so we needed to find some internet to do so and we had already planned to stop in New Caledonia .

We spent a week in New Caledonia, manly around Noumea, but with a few nights at anchorages just north of the city, to give us a break from the busyness of the city and anchorage. We saw a wild dugong, met up with friends from Nelson, Whangarei and Tonga as well as making some new friends.

I would like to go back and do some more exploring of this area at some time, especially the more remote areas, but in saying this it would be on the way north as we did find the slight drop in temperature noticeable and we weren’t in the water nearly as much as we had been. 

We left New Caledonia on the 31^st October passing through the outer reef at midday for a planned 850nm to Coffs Harbour, Australia.  Overall the trip was variable, with light winds, to no winds leaving us motoring for several hours most days or higher winds causing us to reef up and down several times a day.  Thank goodness for the generator and the ability to fill up the diesel tank in Noumea just before the credit card expired!

 We had a few exciting moments on the trip, one being during the day when Paige was on watch.  We were expecting a change in wind direction with a front later in the day, but it came through several hours earlier and stronger than expected. I was in the saloon with Paige, and we were sailing along nicely under autopilot, with wind from the N-NE , 15-20knots,  when all of a sudden it went very quiet and in less than 30 seconds the wind hit from the south, 20-25knots.  We hadn’t had a chance to change the sails, and called out to Dan who was having a nap to come and help us.  It took all of us to get the boat back on track, by turning off the auto pilot, sorting out the sails, which were all back winded and sorting out our heading again.

Another interesting time was just on dark of the same day.  Dan was on watch and I was heading off to bed for some sleep. All of a sudden there was a bang and the boat seemed to lurch and feel off.  Dan hurried outside to investigate and in the fading light quickly worked out something was wrong with the genoa.  With torch light we realised the genoa halyard and broken at the entry to the mast and the genoa was trying to fall down.  We quickly furled the genoa and instantly the boat felt sluggish, but there wasn’t much we could do at time. Over his watch Dan managed to get some of the genoa out so that the boat had better steerage and a bit more forward power but we were not making the speeds we had anticipated, so we contacted Australian Customs via the Satellite phone to let them know we wouldn’t get to Coffs Harbour in the time expected.

Finally on the evening of the 6^th of November, Dan once again celebrating his birthday out at sea, we set anchor in the outer harbour of Coffs Harbour. We were advised by the marine radio service there that we would need to wait until the morning to be able to clear customs, so we settled down to a full night’s sleep after another 6 days and 7 hours at sea.  

We had a week in Coffs Harbour, where we enjoyed the Botanical Gardens, the river walkways, the beaches and the pier. We met up with friends that we first met in Tonga and they shouted us a much appreciated coffee at the marina cafe. We spent time on free internet, organising for our mail to be sent to our next stop and sorting out our finances which weren’t looking very healthy, to the point that in the full week at Coffs we didn’t spend any money!

 

 

 

Our next stop was an overnight sail to Port Stephens where we collected our new credit cards, spent some money on re-provisioning the boat, getting Australian sim cards and internet connection. We also met up with the designers of our boat Jeff and Lorraine Schionning and the couple that Dan was to end up working for.  After meeting them, and a very informal job interview we made the decision to head south to Melbourne, Victoria. 

Next stop, Sydney, where we spent a week anchoring for free next to a dog walking park, just around the corner from the Sydney Fish Market where we could leave the boat during the week days for free under the watchful eye of the friendly security guards while we explored Sydney CBD.  We also spent some time with Dan’s brother Andy and on the Sunday morning headed out onto the harbour and up the tributaries.  This was a very nerve racking experience with many vessels out on the water creating lots of wake/wash and not seeming to observe many of the maritime rules for passing other vessels at an appropriate speed or on the right side! We left Sydney early on a Thursday morning after watching the Wednesday night race yachts out on the harbour on our way over to Manley.

 

 

We called into Jervis Bay for a few days waiting for the southerly to blow through, and then headed out again to continue south. The plan was to stop in Eden, but the wind was with us and would continue to be so we decided to carry on around the corner into Bass Straight.  I was a bit nervous about this notorious stretch of water, but we had the weather gods on our side and had a very benign passage, even having to motor at times due to no wind. The biggest issue we had was keeping an eye out for all of the shipping on the way down the coast and in the straight, especially at night, not having radar or AIS (automatic identification system). We again thought to stop at Wilsons Promontory, but realised if we stopped it could be up to a week before we could leave again for Port Phillip Bay, so decided to carry on. 

 

We knew we had to get to the entry for Port Phillip Bay on a slack tide and at the time we made the decision this was looking like what we would have.  Unfortunately the wind dropped away in the night, causing us to motor again, but not fast enough as when the wind came in it was from the South West and building. We didn’t get to the entrance until the tide was flowing out so fast it was causing the waves to stand up through the middle of the channel and at one point we were doing a boat speed of 9 knots, but only making way over ground at 1 knot. In hindsight it was very full on coming into the bay, with breaking waves almost as high as the spreaders, approximately 8.5m high, but at least they were from behind us. We negotiated the entrance by dropping the main sail and coming in with a partly furled genoa, which enabled us to have good steerage of the boat without going too fast.

 At one point I realised Rylee was busy taking photographs out of the side of the cockpit, and realising the conditions suggested he get his lifejacket on.  When he was inside doing so we were hit by a wave from behind with such force that he fell over.  He came out laughing, saying that that hadn’t happened before!  We slowly made our way through, negotiating a route that bypassed the steepest waves through the middle of the channel and avoiding the reef and rocky outcrops that surround the entrance.  We also came across a couple of turbulent areas that we later learned were created from large underwater holes. These were bigger than our boat footprint and when you hit the side of them they took the boat where they wanted, not where you thought you were headed!

After an hour of nervousness an d great skippering from Cpt Dan we came past Queenscliff and headed around the western coast of the bay towards Portarlington.  We made it as far as St Leonards for the first night and were in bed and sound asleep before 8pm after another three nights and days sailing.

The following morning we were up early and made our way around to Portarlington, with wet weather gear on and a wind so cold it was causing our noses to drip!  We were met by Dan’s new employers and had a quick tour of the local area before settling in for our year and a bit in one spot.