Sunday afternoon – Palm Bay, Pittwater
We took the dinghy ashore for a walk around Palm Bay with the intention of walking to the light house at Barrenjoey Head, but discovered it was National Park so no dogs allowed. We took a diversion along the back beach and came across a film crew setup near the surf club with a number of trucks parked alongside. After a google search, we realised we were walking past the set of Home and Away. Although we don’t watch Home and Away, Georgie was curious to see how the filming was done.
The beach was popular with surfers, paragliders and SUP’s. Palm Beach is an affluent area with steep hills bordering the beach offering fantastic views of the South Pacific Ocean. A building contractor was preparing the foundations of a new home being built on one of these steep hills, we were trying to work out how they got the excavator up to the site and immediately thought of a perfect project for Kevin McCleod and his series, Grand Designs.
Monday 19th April
We picked up anchor at 0500, with a 1-1 ½ metre swell and a south westerly wind of 15-20 knots we departed for Port Stephens.
On arrival at Port Stephens, we found ourselves amongst 100’s of yachts competing in the Port Stevens Regatta. After trying our best to keep out of the way we arrived at Shoal Bay at 1530.
Tuesday 20th April
We took a walk along the foreshore and noticed Tomaree Mountain in the distance. The Tomaree Head summit walk would have been awesome but unfortunately the track had been closed due to a landslide from the recent heavy rain (Georgie was disappointed….not!).
We went for a dinghy ride around to Nelson Bay where all the racing yachts were tied up in the marina. I left Mark, Georgie and Lucy with the dinghy while I walked around to the fish market located in the marina. I could not work out why crews from the different racing yachts were nodding or saying hello, normally racing yacht owners/crew are not overly friendly to cruising/liveaboard yachties. It was not until I was back at the dinghy that I realised they must have thought I was from a racing yacht as I was wearing my very professional looking cap which had our boat name “Escapade” embossed on the front (which Greg, Tan and Sami gave us when we launched Escapade in 2019), haha! 😊
Wednesday 21st April – Thursday 22nd April, Port Stevens to Coffs Harbour
We pulled up anchor at 0900, which is a late start for cruising yachties. We were planning to sail to Forster-Tuncurry and needed to time our arrival with high water. Forster-Tuncurry has limited space for anchoring and Mark wase concerned that there may not have been room for Escapade. Mark called Forster-Tuncurry Marine Rescue to check the conditions of the bar and the availability of moorings. They confirmed that there was not a lot of space available and would depend if any boats left during the day. If we were unable to get a mooring we would have to continue onto Coffs Harbour, which would be a 24 hour trip.
We had perfect conditions with a 10-15 knot westerly and a 1-1 ½ meter following swell. Because the conditions were calm Georgie decided that she was going to try the trip without taking any sea sickness tablets. As we neared Forster-Tuncurry we took a vote and decided to continue overnight to Coffs Harbour.
Friday 23rd April – Coffs Harbour
We arrived at Coffs Harbour at 1000 the following morning. Georgie had a fantastic trip not vomiting once! Initially we thought we would get a berth for one or two nights in the marina, but after finding out it was $75 per night, we changed our mind and anchored in the bay across from the marina where there was a slight swell coming into the harbour.
We took the dinghy ashore and disposed of our rubbish and recyclables, went to the supermarket, and dropped in at the local ice cream shop. Bordering the marina is Muttonbird Island, and a short walk up a steep hill gives a great view of the marina. We were lucky enough to see an air force heavy lift plane coming in to do a “touch and go” at the Coffs Harbour airfield, it was quite impressive.
Coffs Harbour is a pretty location but in terms of cruising it was a long way from anywhere and with bad weather forecast for late Sunday afternoon we made the decision to leave first thing in the morning and sail to Yamba-Iluka on the Clarence River which would give us better shelter from the wind forecast to blow until Tuesday/Wednesday.