17th October 2017
Time for the last leg of our journey, an
overnight sail back to Pittwater. At our long term average speed of 6.3 knots
we expect it will take us 24hours.
High tide at Camden Haven is 7.43am, and
there is a NE swell which will make the entrance a bit bumpy, so we waited till
7am to raise our anchors, so that the tidal flow is greatly reduced, but still
coming in.
There was plenty of water under us in the
river with 1.1m under us at the lowest point and not too much incoming current
to push against. The swell offshore is 1.5 to 2m, and it is very rolly at the
entrance, so we patiently climbed our way up over one steep swell after another
until we were over the bar and into deeper water. It was slow progress and we had put our
mainsails up in the river so just had to take it easy till we were out. The
breeze was ESE and already blowing at around 15 knots.
We had put a single reef in the main,
assuming that the forecast would probably be understated, as it has been
recently.
Once clear of Point Perpendicular, we were
able to set our course and had a beam reach all of the way to Seal Rocks in
15-20 knots of ESE Breeze. We made very good time averaging around 7.5 knots
for this leg shaving about 2 hours of our estimated time.
Once around the Cape, we had the wind
behind us, and the headsail came in. We were quickly up over 7 knots and the
wind increased to 25 knots. Our peak speed was 12.4 knots, but the sea conditions were not pleasant, with a
predominant swell from NE and a secondary swell from the South. The seas were
well over 3 m in places. It was particularly unpleasant off Port Stephens, but settled
once we were abeam of Newcastle.
We sailed for 18 hours, only needing some
engine assistance for the last 3 hours when the wind had dropped, and
thankfully so had the seas. We rounded Barrenjoey at 3.30 am, and were
comfortably on a mooring at Coasters Retreat by 4am. Run to Paradise arrived
about 20 mins later.from lifting our anchor in Camden Haven River to tying up to a mooring at coasters took us exactly 21 hours.
We had a stiff drink and went to bed, glad
to be home.
