Overnight Sail to Coffs Harbour

Sunday 8^th October 2017 and Sunday 9^th October 2017

The plan today is to sail to Iluka with Moonshadow, leaving at around 8 pm this evening to arrive at Iluka at around noon on Monday to meet the high tide for the bar cossing. Pip and Marg have a long term friend who moved to Iluka, so they have much to catch up on, and plan to leave their boat their whilst they fly out for a wedding.

We plan to catch up with Carole’s brother David, who owns a real estate agency in Yamba.

It was only be chance that Carole was talking to her parents this morning to see how they were going, when they mentioned that David had gone to Hawaii on holidays, but may now be home. Carole gave him a buzz and sure enough, the phone was answered in Hawaii.

All of a sudden we had no real need to go to Iluka, and as the trip entailed an overnighter anyway, we decided we might as well just go straight to Coffs Harbour, about a 24 hr sail.  Within 30 minutes of making the decision, we advised Pip and Marg of our change of plans, and were leaving the marina heading for the Gold Coast Seaway at 10am.

Farewell to the Gold Coast

The trip down to Coffs was pretty uneventful. We saw lots of whales  along the coastal strip from Southport to Point Danger, from there we headed out to sea to try and get into the East Australian Current, which can give you a great lift heading down the coast. By the time we reached the 80 m depth contour, we had a favourable current of around 2 knots, so settling into following that contour. A large shark following us seemed to agree and followed us for a short time.

One of the many cargo ships we saw along the way

At least out around the 80m depth contour, it is less likely whales will be in our sailing path  home. However, we soon realized, that most of the cargo vessels running our way, use the same contours. We see many vessels come and go over the night on our AIS, and visually as they get closer. We also saw a few trawlers and it is very difficult to work out which way they are going because their nav lights are completely overpowered by all of the deck lighting and none of them have AIS as that would give away their fishing spots.

We motor sailed for the fisrts12 hours, and eventually, the wind turned North and we sailed for 5.5 hours, until the wind died as we went further south. However, we carried the mainsail (with a single reef) all the way from Southport, and got a good lift as we changed angle to head for Coffs Harbour marina. Avlot of the rest of the time we were dead square, but had a good help from the Eat Australian current.

We went  through some heavy rain still making good speed, and moved into the marina at 11.30am. We had to dodge a whale as we were approaching the harbour entrance.

Run to Paradise is already at the marina, having left Southport about 4 hours before us.

There was a healthy swell rolling into the harbour as we entered, but we only had to get the mainsail down, so it wasn’t too long before we were in the comfortable flat water of the marina. We have been allocated a berth on the end of E arm, the first one as you enter the marina, and the wind is back up to 15 knits from the North. As has been the case everywhere we have been, it is yet aother blow off berth and very little room to get in close so Carole can hop off with the mooring lines before we are blown back off the berth.

Eventually we managed to get close enough to hook a line over a centre cleat and then put some power on to pull the boat in sideways so we could get onto the dock with the other lines. A bit of mucking around, but 30 mins later we were tied up.

We tidied up the boat, did the paperwork, and had lunch at a café at the marina, before coming back to the boat for a few hours sleep, after which we had showers and felt a bit more refreshed.

Mica safely on her berth

We share our berth with a bunch of local fishermen, let's hope they are good neighbours

Dalwhinnie arrived at 6pm, and I gave them a hand to tie up, also on a blow off berth.

An hour later, an Eastsail boat from CYCA arrived on our marina leg. We had the same boat near us on our arm at Southport. It is a sail training boat (Beneteau First 40), who were taking on a new crew when we were in Southport for their next leg South, I guess back to Sydney. They pack a lot of people onto a 40 foot boat, so it must be cosy.

Eastsail boat all settled in

Everyone is pretty tired, so we have organized to catch up tomorrow after a good nights sleep.