Coffs Harbor

View from the top of Mutton Bird island back over the marina in Coffs Harbour.  If you zoom in we're about dead centre of the marina (side on with a burgundy sail bag covering the mail sail.)

 

 

Cleaning the days catch

Klauss cleaning the fish and his very captive audience.

Good morning

Early start, left Trail Bay 3.00am

We have 4 more hours before we get into Coffs Harbor.

Trial Bay

Dropped anchor in Trail Bay at 1530. Great day motor sailing from Port Macquarie, we've done 37 miles in 7 hours. Swell was being is and we also had a south westerly of about 6 knots as well in the morning.
We'll eat early and get up before dawn to go to Coffs Harbour.

Last night in Port Macquarie

Heading off in the morning with the rising tide. Probably stay overnight in Trial Bay and then do an early start on Tuesday to Coffs Harbour.

Sydney Boat Show

Last week we looked at the weather we've been having up here in Port Macquarie and it hasn't been bad and we probably could've kept going up the coast last week but we decided we'd go to the boat show instead.
It's always nice to see what new things are available and we want a new VHF radio that has AIS built in so we took the train down to Sydney on Thursday and came back yesterday.
Stayed with Dave and Nat on Thursday and Friday night and spent the whole day walking around the boat show on Friday.  They're rebuilding the Sydney Convention Centre so they had the boats outside in Darling Harbour as per normal but we had to take a ferry to Glebe Island where they had all of the inside stuff in marquees.
As usual we saw things fitted to boats that look pretty good and this is an example that might make it's way on to our boat. So simple.

Didn't get the fixed VHF radio that I want but we now know where to get it from and which one to get.  We did however buy a handheld VHF which has a 10km range.  Always good to have  spare and most of the time we'll be within 10km from the coast anyway.

Coming in to Port Macquarie

Apparently they removed the old triangle leads a while ago and now they have a light that shows green if you are too far right, red if you are too far left and white if you are spot on.
Roughly speaking, the correct transit is a heading of 224 248 degrees which will see you on the white light.
The light is at the bottom left. The yellow line is our track across the bar.

(Needed to edit that, when we left on Monday the 4th August I took much better notice with Belinda watching out the back and calling out when I was in line with the white light. The white light shows when the bottom of the three dotted lines is in line. It really feels like you're going way too close to the northern wall but there you go.)

The best weather we've had for weeks

Went for a walk into town to see what's there. Found a pub for a light lunch and a beer overlooking the Hastings river. About 20 degrees, blue sky, no clouds, just a breath of wind.  What more can you ask for?

Port Macquarie

It's a beautiful morning in Port Macquarie, Martin is cleaning EverRest's port side, removing the black marks she received from our overnight stay at Crowdy Head. Today we are going ashore and have a look around town, hopefully find a place to buy white pigment to change the colour of our epoxy to match our gelcoat.

Crowdy Head

So last night we stayed at Crowdy Head on the old fuel dock but for ages we've either been on a mooring, anchored or tied up to a floating dock.
When we tied up at the old fuel dock last night we didn't even give the tide a thought.  We were just so knackered after the 14 hours that we tied up, had a beer, dinner and then bed.
We woke up at midnight with a loud crack (just happened to be low tide) and then saw this.

Problem was we'd tied up completely wrong for the conditions / position and when the tide dropped (about 1 metre) the rope had just got way too tight and pulled the bolt through and broke the cleat.

Now that we're here in Port Macquarie we'll get that fixed before we move on and remember to not do that again.

The old fuel dock.

Selfie at the Crowdy Head lighthouse

Belinda on the phone to her dad