Yep, spoke too soon

Started early this morning just after 6am so we could get to the Swansea bridge by 7am for our booking.  Got as far as ‘the dropoff’ which was only a couple of hundred metres and the port engine stalled.
Fortunately we weren't in the channel which made things heaps easier to navigate with one engine and we came back into deeper water and anchored for an hour or two while I tried a few things.
Symptoms are (apart from the engine stalling obviously):

• small amount of white smoke
• hard to start
• loud (much louder than normal) knocking when starting the engine [only happened once]

and it’s been quite a while (18 months) since we changed the fuel filters.
End result is I've decided that the last time I filled up I may have either got some dodgy fuel (unlikely because I’m not seeing the same issues with the starboard engine) or the tank on the port side has crud in it and has clogged the fuel filters.
Anyway, we went back to the mooring at Marks Point marina where we’ll stay for the week and commute to Newcastle via dinghy and car until we've had the fuel filters changed.  When I've got time in Newcastle I’ll set up a fuel polishing system.  More on that later.

Going north (well a little bit anyway)

So this morning when we left Canberra at 7.30 it was 4 degrees.  At least it wasn’t minus.  Fog around the airport but we had a good run all the way through to Pennant Hills Road where things came to a stand still for a while.  Anyway, all up it took us 4 and a half hours to get to Swansea.
After the hassles I had last time with the bilge pump in the port engine bay I was keen to see how much water there was this time as I’d seen reports of rain up this way.  Hardly a drop in the port side however this time I had a fair bit (couple of inches) in the starboard engine bay and the bilge pump wasn’t working at all.  Broke out the emergency bilge pump to see how that works and found it sort of worked but had two splits in the hose.  It’s kind of like a vacuum cleaner hose with an internal diameter of about 40mm.  Anyway, got enough water out and then decided that both engine bay bilge pumps are number one on the priority list.  Number two on the list is a new hose for the emergency bilge.  Next weekends jobs!
Certainly wont stop us leaving in the morning, we’re booked for the bridge at 7am which is right on half way between low and high tide.  Once we’re through the bridge we’ll pick up a mooring on the sea side and have breakfast while waiting for more water before heading up to Newcastle.
Sunset at 5pm over Lake Macquarie.