Date First Posted: June 8, 2007
Log Entry Start Date - April 3, 2007
Log Entry End Date - May 3, 2007
Locations Covered - Sydney to Brisbane, Australia
Present Location: Scarborough Marina (Brisbane, Australia)
Latitude: 27 Deg 11.6 S Longitude: 153 Deg 06.4 E
Weather: Warm and Sunny
Distance covered since last entry: 531 nautical miles
Total distance traveled since departure from Antigua: 11,261 nautical miles
Commentary:
We
had originally only planned on spending a couple nights in the Pittwater
area of Broken Bay on our way back north. However, we heard from our friend
Don on s/v Aquavit (the single hander from Canada who we last saw in Coff’s
Harbour in January), who was anchored only a mile away. We decided to meet
him in Refuge Bay, a very secluded anchorage deeper in Broken Bay and in the
heart of the Kurangai-Chase national park. Refuge Bay is described as one
of the most popular cruising spots not only in Broken Bay, but along all of
the east coast of Australia. It lives up to its billing, looking a lot like
the North Channel of Lake Huron where we cruise at home. During the summer
the bay is completely filled with boats, which would detract from its
appeal, but now that its fall we were only one of a handful of boats.
Don
had arrived earlier and after we had picked up a mooring we had lunch aboard
his boat and met a friend he had made back in Pittwater, Margaret Molloy.
Margaret is a retired lady that has lived for many years on Lovett Cove,
another part of Pittwater that is surrounded by national park. She invited
us to dinner later that week at her home. When we arrived at her home we
were fascinated by the construction of her home and the view she had of the
cove. Set up on a steep hill, she has a motorized tram to get to her house
from the water and her dock. She and her late husband built their home here
decades ago when there were only one or two neighbors, and they owned a lot
of the waterfront. Since then they donated much of the land back to the
national park, and their original investment of a few thousand dollars is
now worth hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Don
took Nancy on a nature walk in the park behind Margaret's house. Out
of the dozens of photos she took, including out over the bay, unusual rock
formations, and wallabies darting through the woods, this photo of an
unusual plant was one of the highlights.
The
only transportation back to Newport on the other side of Pittwater is by
boat, and even at her age she pilots her boat "Tuk Tuk" back and forth and
remains very active. Margaret was full of stories that kept us
entertained. She is a writer and published a book on the history of the
unique Australian “skiff” sailboat racing. These boats are short but carry
immense amounts of sail, and in the past carried a huge crew for ballast
(some of which were dropped off along the course if the wind dropped).
She
also told of her travels around the world and of being the first woman in
Australia to be taught judo. Just before we headed back to our boat, she
recited from memory the poem of the “Man from Snowy Mountain”, a classic
Australian saga made into a movie in 1982 with Kirk Douglas, and then signed
and gave us a copy of the poem printed in a book with beautiful artwork.
Meeting Margaret was another experience that makes our cruising lifestyle
richer.
Before
we left Pittwater we were invited to another dinner at the home of a local
yacht broker. He lives on the top floor and the end of an apartment
building overlooking the end of Pittwater and across from the Royal Prince
Alfred Yacht Club. Another million dollar view. Joining us that night was
an associate of his who has done a lot of the same blue water cruising as
us, and we really enjoyed talking with him and his wife about their
experiences. Our one or two night stay in Pittwater had turned into almost a
week and it was easy to see why many cruisers spend months in that area.
Next
up the coast is the city of Newcastle. With that name, it is maybe obvious
that coal is the major industry. As the major port for shipping Australian
coal around the world, a near record number of ships (70+) were anchored
offshore waiting to be loaded. Until a decade or so ago, a major steel mill
was the biggest employer, and the city was definitely industrial in nature,
hardly a tourist attraction, and looking pretty rough in places.
When
the mill shut down the city had to reinvent itself to survive, and with a
major federal grant and some pretty impressive planning and marketing,
they’ve begun the transformation to a tourist destination. Much of the
waterfront on the city side of the harbor has been turned into different
“districts” featuring a modern marina, upscale apartments, modern office
complexes, restaurants and shops.
Although
one of the main streets still had its share of seedy shops and abandoned
buildings waiting to be renovated or torn down, we definitely recommend
Newcastle as a spot for cruisers to visit.
On Easter morning we walked along the waterfront and up into town to the beautiful old Presbyterian church, where we were warmly welcomed by the congregation. On our way back to the boat we visited the Sunday markets, held in a renovated warehouse building on the waterfront. It was packed with shoppers and vendors, including a small café serving breakfasts, samples of gourmet recipes being cooked by a French chef, and all accompanied by a woman singing jazz.
It
didn’t take long for Nancy to strike up a conversation with the chef, as
well as the owner of the café, who was also the manager for all of the
markets. Before we left, she had invited them to our boat for a visit,
which turned into several hours of wine, appetizers and conversation.
Laurent, the chef, ironically was a trained marine biologist and had worked
for a while in New Caledonia before coming to Australia. He was also a
sailor who had done the Sydney to Hobart race many years ago. Carolyn, the
owner of the Sunday markets, is married to a man who manages their quail
farm, producing hundreds of quail each week for Australian restaurants. We
were sorry to not stay in Newcastle longer as Carolyn had an aboriginal chef
coming to her home for several days to film a television show and put on
some cooking demonstrations. Once again, our random wandering had
introduced us to some fascinating people.
Our
next stop took us back to Port Stevens, a large bay and resort area we had
visited on our way south. Our first night was spent at anchor in a remote
cove named Fame Bay where we could enjoy the pristine views, a great sunset
and stargazing. Less than a mile from civilization we watched hawks and
eagles, and even saw one of the Australian penguins that live along the
coast. Our next night was at Soldiers Point Marina, at least a 4 if not 5
star facility, with marble restrooms and a sauna for boaters, a courtesy car
we could use, and a prize winning restaurant. We would have liked to stay
longer but we had already moved slower than we had planned and when we get a
good weather window for going north we have to take advantage of it.
When we went south to Sydney, we had the benefit of favorable currents of up to 3 knots, and longer summer daylight making it possible to go 90 miles in a day. “All” we had to do was avoid sailing during the occasional periods of southerly winds. Going north, on the other hand is against the current, and even if we stay close to shore, with shorter daylight, we can only count on 50 to 60 miles. At the same time, with shorter day passages, we are going into ports we passed on our way south, with sandbars across the entrance of a river which have to be navigated only under good weather conditions, and during a specific tide condition that may not coincide with the time when we “could” arrive given the distance from the prior port.
With
that in mind, we left Port Stevens heading for Camden Haven, a river port
about 50 miles up the coast. However, the forecast was good to keep going
overnight and put some miles behind us. We continued on to Coff’s Harbour,
arriving mid-day as an air show was going on at the adjacent airport. We
saw stunt planes doing all kinds of acrobatic maneuvers, old warplanes, and
formation flying and skywriting by a group of six small planes doing huge
loops and dives. We enjoyed spending some more time at Coff's, especially
walking out the peninsula to the rocky point where at certain times of the
year you can see whales swimming past.
After waiting another couple days for a weather window, we continued a further 60 miles up to the ports on the Clarence River. This is one of the “barred” ports that meant we had to time our arrival for between 3 and 8 hours after the low tide. On that day, low tide was at 2PM, so we weren’t supposed to enter the river before 5PM. At the same time, the sunset was at 5:30, and it would take up to 45 minutes after we entered the river to make our way through some narrow and shallow channels to get to our destination at the marina. All in all, this gave us a very narrow window. The southerly winds we were counting on held almost all day, and only for the last 15 miles were we motoring into the usual northeast winds, current, and steep chop, slowing us down from 7 knots to only about 4 knots over the bottom.
We started up the river at 5:15, and all was well until we waited too long to turn in a narrow channel and ran aground on a sandbank. With more time and light we might have stayed in the deep water, but ended up getting stuck for a half hour until the tide came up a bit and a local family on a small boat helped us off the sand. By then it was pitch dark as we got into the marina and had a challenging time trying to do a 180 turn in the narrow end of the marina (with a cross wind) to tie up to the fuel dock for the night. Thankfully some folks on nearby sailboats came to our dock to take our lines and help us tie up. We were glad to be in and it seemed like a long day, even though we were relaxing in the cockpit by 7PM. In hindsight, and given the weather conditions, we probably would have been better off going in an hour earlier with better light and taking our chances with any breaking waves as we crossed the bar. Given that the tides generally shift about an hour later every day, we wouldn’t have had another good day to enter this port after a daysail for at least a week.
There
are two towns on either side of the Clarence River. Yamba is on the south
side, and has the marina we entered. Iluka is on the north side. Both are
popular places for cruisers to visit. We took the park path from the marina
into Yamba and found a neat little town of 6700 people that still had a lot
of tourists visiting due to it being the last week of the Easter school
break. We walked up a steep hill to have lunch at the local hotel
overlooking the river entrance and ocean beaches. Later we stopped to see a
movie at the tiny town theater, our first movie in almost a year.
Nancy got into her entertaining role, inviting the folks that helped us dock over at sundown. Tim on Serendipity is a professional musician that taught at the local conservatory as well as having played in a rock band that toured Europe and actually made the charts in Europe and Australia. Sue on Assegaai, is a single hander who has lived aboard her boat for over 30 years. Although she is very thin and appears a bit frail, she was busy making mechanical repairs to her boat, and explained that professionally she was helping to fit out another boat. Her boat card lists all of her professions and background. Among other things, she is the agent for the Pacific and Australia for Van de Stadt, a yacht design firm in Holland, she holds a MasterClass 5 seaman rating, is a AYF Yachtmaster Instructor, and a Queensland registered teacher.
The next day, Tim dropped us off at the local golf course and we played 9 holes on what seemed like a zoo with wild kangaroos literally everywhere we looked. We were told to simply leave them alone, and this was the first course we’ve been on where a local rule gives you relief to play a new ball if yours happens to land too close to the kangaroos. Nancy had to use this rule once when her shot landed in a sand trap next to the green where a kangaroo was nursing her joey completely indifferent to the golf ball that landed a foot away. We were sorry not to have brought our camera. Later we were told there were nearly 1000 kangaroos that live around the golf course.
We waited several days for a weather prediction of southerly winds before we left. Further up the coast are two more rivers that boats can enter under good conditions, but we were advised to give them a miss and continue non-stop up to either Southport or all the way back to Brisbane. Southport is on Australia’s Gold Coast, an area just like Miami Beach lined with high rise hotels, marinas, and of course beaches and surfers. From Southport there is a network of channels that you can follow through to Moreton Bay and Brisbane. We were told that with the draft of our boat and mast height we “shouldn’t” have any problems if we were going through at high tide, but we also told it is a bit nerve wracking constantly trying to avoid going aground for 20-30 miles. Although it would cut off about 30 miles of our trip back to Scarborough Marina, in the end we decided that if we had to sail overnight just to get to Southport, we may as well as just start earlier and plan on going all the way around to Scarborough.
Typically,
the southerly winds we hoped for never came, but the northerly winds weren’t
very strong, making our passage slow but not uncomfortable. We stayed as
close as possible to shore in order to avoid the southerly current and
generally were only slowed by a knot. However, going around some of the
capes, especially Cape Byron, the easternmost point of Australia, the
current is stronger and the wind is funneled against us. Instead of our
usual 6 to 7 knots, we were down to only 3. Our 30 hour passage north began
to look more like three days.
Fortunately
after motor sailing all night and dodging impressive thunderstorms with
spectacular lightning, the winds died and then turned west and we were able
to make up lost time. We did see a waterspout, which is quickly dissipating
in this photo. We've seen waterspouts in the Caribbean, the
Mediterranean and even in the Great Lakes. As long as they keep their
distance, they don't bother us. Just at sunset we were going back down
the inside of Moreton Bay, and an hour after dark we dropped anchor back
near the sand dunes on Moreton Island where we had first stopped in November
after arriving from New Caledonia. Being just a couple hours away from our
marina, we were effectively “home” after our 4 month cruise down and back
from Sydney. It had taken us, with stops along the way, almost as long to
return from Sydney as we took to go up the Red Sea in 1998.
With
well over a week before we were to fly home (via New Zealand), we were not
anxious to go into the marina when we could stay anchored out next to the
scenery at this remote island park. Further down the shore there is a
resort, but where we were had nothing but huge sand dunes, forested hills
and beaches. The water is a reserve for turtles and dugongs, and in the
morning the local fishermen come by to check on their fish traps.
We
stayed at anchor several days starting on some of the jobs to get the boat
ready for us to leave and enjoying great weather and views of the sand
dunes. We took our dinghy ashore to climb some of the dunes. The water
near shore was very shallow and we had to walk our dinghy in the last 100
yards. When we returned we were able to walk over to a smaller sailboat
that was anchored and aground near shore. This boat has a centerboard so it
can float in less than a foot of water. The couple on board purposely came
in on a high tide and during low tide they are sitting on dry land. This
the first time we’ve ever walked to visit an anchored boat.
Near
their boat there was a large sting ray, and we saw many smaller sting rays
from our dinghy. Overhead there were many varieties of birds. Some, we
were told, had migrated all the way from Siberia. We also saw osprey eagles
with fish they had caught still in their talons, and the shore birds were
very tame as we walked near them.
Eventually
our time was growing short so we returned to Scarborough Marina and have
been working down some long lists to decommission the boat for when we
leave. We’ve made the decision to ship Encore II back to the USA in July
rather than waiting until next January. We’ll be trading cruising in the
Whitsunday islands of Australia this fall for the Bahamas next winter, and
possibly an east coast USA cruise next summer. Encore II will go aboard a
ship that submerses partially to have yachts float on and get secured, then
the boat is raised and the water over the decks is drained. The reverse of
this process will occur in Ft. Lauderdale in late August. It makes shipping
a boat very simple with the least risk of damage in loading and transit.
We’ve used the same shipping company in the past to bring Encore I back from
Spain.
We
have met back up with cruisers that were in the Pacific with us last year.
S/V Towanda from Denmark with Jens and Lene aboard are docked next to us
after having been home for six months. They will cruise Australia through
January and then ship their boat all the way back to the Med. S/V Aquila
from the States with Ken and Janet have also just returned from an extended
home visit and will continue their circumnavigation by way of the Indian
Ocean and around South Africa. The boat just behind us is waiting on
weather to head for Hawaii. We've stayed in touch with Blue Sky, Shiraz, and
others as they head toward the Torres Strait, Darwin, and Indonesia.
We hear from Alicia and Alfredo as they've sailed to Chile, and Smokey and
Sonya cruising towards Cairns. We will miss Australia and all of our
cruising friends as we end up in different oceans, but it wouldn’t surprise
us to run into many of them again. It is really a small world even after
sailing over 11,000 miles. Meanwhile, a final farewell to our bus stop
in Cammeray on one of our many trips to Sydney.
We have been blessed to have had fair winds and seas for most of our trip, good health and safe passages. We are looking forward to being at home with our family and friends.
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This site was last updated 06/09/07