Coffs Harbor to Yamba 26/5/2010

Strong westerly winds made a very fast trip from Coffs Harbor to Yamba with smooth seas.
The wind was gusting to 25knts so we put a reef in the main and put the Number 4 on inner forestay and kept the number 3 on, this gave a very balanced helm.

We were expecting to arrive at the Clarance Bar entrance at 4pm about 3.5 hours before high tide, but we got to there at 1:30 only an hour after low tide, because of the westerlies the swell had been reduced so the bar crossing was very easy.

The journey to the marina was interesting, the depth alarm was going berserk as we crawled along the channel that came very close to the beach on Dart Island.

Staying in Yamba for the next week to go surfing for the crew and a trip to Mt Isa for the skipper

First Catch of the trip

Left Port Stephens at 5 am light SE winds for a over night leg to Coffs Harbor, 160Nm.
By 8pm off Crowdy Head a nice westerly land breeze had formed and we where making 8knts through the water but the east coast current was running at 2 - 3 knts ( 6 -5 knt SOG) . By 3am the SOG was down to 4 knts and the wind died.
Arrived at Coffs at 1pm on Monday

Pittwater to Newcastle then to Port Stephens 18/5/2010

Left Pittwater at 6 am from the RMYC, overcast conditions with rain squalls.

Winds SE 15 to 20knts with confused seas. We put the kite up off Norah Heads when the winds dropped.

By Moon island the winds increased so we dropped the kite and polled out the number 3.

Arrived at Newcastle at 14:00 and decided to spend the night at Newcastle marina it was starting to piss down.

We left Newcastle on Wednesday morning at 9 , still raining. Leaving Newcastle harbor was a interesting experience as there was shipping movements every hour.
Once clear of the harbor zone we put the main up and polled out the N0 3 Headsail.

Winds 15 - 20 knts with confused S to SE seas in Stockton Bight.

Off Anna Bay we got hit by torrential rains that smoothed out the seas but with in a couple of minutes the winds strength went to 35 knts. We had a round up with the Headsail still polled out. A bit of a stuff up with lots of flogging we got the head sail down and put 2 reefs in the main and the number 4 on the inner forestay. The wind remained above 30knts for 10 minutes then it dropped to less than 10knts for the rest of the trip into Port Stephens.

Anchored at Salamander Bay waiting for the rain to stop

Finally Left Sydney 17/5/2010

Sydney to Pittwater

After running around like headless chooks we finally left.

Light winds but thunderstorms off shore. A water spout was spotted off Avalon.

Boat Preperation

The davits are on , a great job by Kerry and Jason !