Final leg of our cruise

Tuesday 26th / Wednesday 27th October




We left our anchorage at Laurieton at around 8.30am, and by 9 am were clear of the bar and raised the mainsail before heading South. It was only a light breeze from the North and we motor sailed with and without a headsail against a current of around 0.5 knots. Our plan was to enter Port Stephens around 8 pm. By the time we got to Seal rocks it seemed it may be more like 8.30pm, and a check of the updated weather forecast showed a southerly change now forecast from around noon Wed instead of the northerlies all day we were hoping for.



We decided to sail past Port Stephens and continue on to Broken bay, as the seas conditions were light and the North Easter was building and expected to get to around 20 knots by midnight. So we headed out to sea to see if we could find the ea st Australian current which can be as strong as 4 knots going south. We ended up about 40 miles off the coast at one stage in 140m of water with little evidence of the current being found. Nevertheless, we were no longer pushing against a north flowing current, so made good time with the strong breeze. There was a period of around 2 hours abeam the top of Stockton Bight where the seas were too rough for the auto pilot and I had to steer for a few hours, otherwise it was a smooth trip.



We arrived at Barrenjoey at 7.45 am, 153 nm later. By this time the wind had gone SW but we were beyond caring, and motored around to Yeomans Bay, picked up a mooring, had breakfast and shower, and then some well earned sleep.



It was an overcast day with a bit of rain and the southerly change hit around midday making us grateful we had decided to run straight through, otherwise we would have been beating into this all afternoon.



We will take the boat back to the marina tomorrow morning and have organized for Nicole to pick us up and take us home.



Thursday 28th October



We woke early and motored around to the marina at around 6.30am. There was only a light breeze, but it looked like it would rain any minute so we were keen to get in and secure before getting wet. It was also cold. We have stopped complaining about the weather up north.



As we were backing in to the berth we could see all of our mooring lines were a mess, all but the bow line lying on the marina leg. Fortunately, we thought this would probably be the case and had set up for Carole to be able to step off and try and sort it out from the marina leg. She has had lots of practice whilst we have been away.



Everything went smoothly and once secure we had breakfast and had a shower at the marina. Nicole arrived at 11am, and after lunch we headed home.



I checked the log and we have covered around 2,700 nautical miles since leaving Sydney in June.