Leg 53 - Kiama to Port Hacking

This was a trip of around 40nm and presented similar conditions to the previous day. A brisk 20- occasional 30kn westerly had us moving along quite nicely with just the headie up and not always all of it. Plenty of 7-8knot SOG activity gave us an average trip speed of 6knots and by staying inshore we managed to evade most of the fetch.

The landscape altered quite markedly as we went along beginning with what looked like some sort of ancient lava flow just north of Kiama.

A pink dawn sky north of Kiama.

Gradually, the heavily industrialised silhouette of Port Kembla and Woollongong emerged but the slightly tainted air was what really gave it away. Whatever was going on there was being blown right at us.

 

Luckily for us, Saturday morning didn't seem to be a time for a lot of shipping activity and the queue of tankers, freighters and container ships that stretched for 5-10nm and contained 10 ships didn't seem to be moving at all. Each of the 'parked' ships was checked multiple times on our AIS just in case one would trick us and start moving.

 

A particularly large ship in profile and the last in line - an LPG tanker.

We had a very pleasant journey with plenty to look at, including the Sea Cliff Bridge at Stanwell Park. It is supposedly one of only a few such structure in the world. The coast highway swings out onto a bridge over the ocean for a distance of nearly 0.5km. We stared at it for quite some time but didn't think to photograph it. Click the link above because someone else has taken care of it for us!

Before we knew it, we experienced a lot of aircraft traffic overhead and there it was 

- the silhouette of the Emerald City itself - Sydney!

The bombora!

One last obstacle before we swung into the Port Hacking waterway.

We picked up a courtesy mooring at Jibbon Beach and marked the occasion with a beer.

Cheers Geoffers - your 'Scaramouche' stubbie holder is enjoying the trip.

After taking in the surroundings (and a beer) and checking the forecasts we decided that Jibbon Beach would hardly be the place to stay for the, still strengthening, westerlies so we headed over to Gunnamatta Bay; somewhere recommended by Carol and Jeremy, our friends who call this part of the world 'home'.

A cliff side view of the channel into Gunnamatta Bay.

A sunset sunburst.

A contrast to the natural views we've seen over the last few months.

We are in the BIG SMOKE now!