Leg 50/51 - Bermagui - Broulee - Jervis Bay

Departing Bermagui was with a degree of reluctance. We'd really enjoyed the town and the refuge it provided from not just one, but two East Coast Lows! What we were not going to miss was the tromping of feet across our decks. During our time in Bermagui harbour we first of all had a catamaran with a crew of 4 rafted up to us and later a yacht with a crew of 5. While everyone was very respectful, the daily shore visits for meals, shopping, laundry, ablutions etc amounted to the pitter-patter of a lot of feet. We were already planning on a 07:00 departure but were awake from 03:15 when the yacht crew next to us began preparing for their 04:00 departure to catch the high tide that they needed to transit the entrance.

 

The entrance was looking calm. It won't be long before these new pens are filled.

 The Co-op jetty, our virtual home for close to 2 weeks.

 

The mountain that creates the wind-shadow at Burmagui.

They say if she is wearing a petticoat it will rain. No clouds today. Goody for that!

Montague Island has a lighthouse. Full stop.

The 'Manhatten skyline' was a container ship.

It emerged from behind the island in the shipping lane and really made us look twice!

We mostly motors-ailed for our day-hop delivering us to the back of Broulee Island for the night. Our arrival was filled with nostalgia for The Bloke. When we'd lived in Canberra in the late '70's and early 80's, we were frequent visitors to this bay, camping at the Barlings Beach Caravan Park and The Bloke surfing at the nearby Tomakin Beach. We even saw Hayleys Comet from Broulee.

 

We forgot to take photos except for the sunset. We were well tucked in behind Broulee Island with it's shoaling reefs that act like groynes. The swell still wrapped around though giving a rolly night. We were more than happy to leave by morning. An early start was necessary: miles to cover skipping both Batemans Bay and Ulladulla.

A fascinating geology revealed along the coast.

Shame the visibility was poor.

We sailed with only the jib as a way of avoiding the boom slamming as we rolled with the swells. We were staggered to have encountered 3-4 yachts during the day, all traveling southwards. That is to say we saw them hobby horsing southwards, slamming into an oncoming 15-20kn wind combining with the swell to create a nasty chop.

We were eager to hear the weather updates as we went along because the northern horizon was not looking at all good, prompting us to reduce sail as a precaution.

We were pretty certain that we'd be getting wet pretty soon but we were not sure if what we were looking at contained W I N D as well as rain As it turned out, the southerly that was delivering us into this cloud burst turned into no wind beneath the cloud and then became a northerly as we popped out the other side. This in part explained the appearance of the boats traveling in the opposite direction. The opposing winds pinned this cloud formation to the one position for several hours. We were pleased to motor out the other side revealing the entrance to Jervis Bay.

 Point Perpendicular at the head of Jervis Bay.