Monday 29th November to Wednesday 1st December – Bermagui to Lakes Entrance

Monday

We had a number of discussions with Peter and Sal (MusicMaker) with regard to the weather windows available and whether we should go straight from Bermagui to Lakes Entrance (which would be a 26 hour trip), or stop at Eden and then leave at 10am the following morning which would get us to Lakes Entrance on a slack tide the following morning so we could cross the bar.

The weather was looking good for the next 3 days so we decided on not making our life harder than it needed to be by stopping in at Eden. This would remove 6 hours from our trip the following day.
After a walk, paying the marina bill, and filling up the water tanks we dropped the mooring lines and motored across the Bermagui Bar. The swell was still rolling through at up to 4 metres but they had a period of 8 seconds so it was comfortable. We put up the main sail and genoa, turned to the south and settled in.
Arriving at Eden at 1630 we dropped anchor in East Boyd Bay behind the woodchip mill. It was a great spot with a sandy beach and an impressive historic building Edrom Lodge overlooking Twofold Bay.

Building work on the Lodge commenced in 1910 and was completed in 1913 at a cost of £34,000. The 28-room manor was named for and modelled on Logan’s Scottish home. During its construction a small temporary settlement was established to house some of the 300 workmen employed on the project. A small sawmill, carpenter and blacksmith shops were built. Bricks, made locally at Fisheries Flat and locally quarried granite were transported to the site using bullock teams. In 1980 Edrom Lodge was classified by the National Trust for its Federation period architecture and gardens. Today it is under long term lease and is available for conferences, educational and group activities.

Tuesday – Wednesday

At day-break Peter & Sal motored across to the Eden chandlery to pick up a new battery. Upon arrival at Eden the previous day, Peter had noticed a smell and discovered one of his batteries was smoking, the consequences if Peter had not noticed could have been terrible.

Mark had done the math working back from the predicted slack tide for crossing the Lakes Entrance Bar the following morning. Based on his calculations we would leave Eden at 1000. A couple of hours prior to us leaving a 180-metre wood chip ship was guided to the jetty by two tugs and began loading. We had front row seats as we were only a few hundred metres from the action.

Mother nature had provided perfect conditions for the last leg of our journey. The sun was shining, we had a tail wind of 15-20 knots, the swell was less than a metre and we were averaging 7.5 knots.

There were a number of other yachts making the run from NSW to Tasmania and Victoria. As day turned to a starry night sky the excellent weather conditions continued right through to the last two hours when the wind died off.

Followed by Peter & Sal we crossed the bar at 0430 and tied up at the Flagstaff Jetty. After a glass of bubbly (to celebrate our safe crossing of Bass Strait) we waved goodbye to Pete and Sal as they made their way up the lake to Paynesville. Mark, Georgie and I attempted to get some sleep but we were unsuccessful – maybe due to the excitement of being home.

EPILOGUE

It took us 11 months to circumnavigate Tasmania and voyage up the NSW and QLD coasts to our turnaround point Townsville. We saw some incredible places and marine/wildlife. We met a lot of amazing people who have become good friends and we caught up with family who live in Queensland. Unfortunately, we don’t get to see them very often which made the time we spent with them even more special.

Sailing was a huge learning curve for all of us and we still have so much to learn. There are places that we would like to go back to and other places we would avoid. I had to learn to be patient…you can’t control the weather. We learnt that Kelpies can adapt to living on a 46 foot yacht. Our herb garden survived and flourished. You do not need a lot of material objects to make life easier/enjoyable. The simple things in life are often the best. There were a lot of good and bad times which is all part of the adventure when you are “living the dream!”

To wrap up our adventure here are a few statistics:-

• Total Distance Travelled = 5,196 nautical miles
• Total Engine Hours = 793
• Total Fuel Used = 5,096 Litres
• Average Fuel Consumption = 6.0 litres per hour
• Average Speed = 6.6 knots
• Maximum speed = 9.5 knots
• Total Generator Hours = 280
• Fuel Economy = 0.9 litres per nautical mile
• LPG Cylinders Used = 5 x 9kg
• Money Spent on Ice-creams = $325.00