As Good As It Gets

Weather forecast once again bad:Actually terrible. Not just thunderstorms. Been there, done that in Queensland. Not just rain: 100m - 200m predicted. We’ve had that before too and let’s face it we are equipped for ‘wet’. We are sailors after all. The wind though is something we do try to evade. With 40kts predicted we needed to plan carefully. Where to hide?

Calm before the storm

The dawn sky, with just an overnight sprinkling of rain was,  likely the nicest view we might get for the day. The sun, once up, was not really penetrating the thick clouds. It was gloomy and the rain getting heavier and the wind, while initially comparatively light at 25kts, was forecast to reach 41kts.

Everything is relative. We’ve become accustomed to 30kts. In fact we sat in 30-40kts on anchor just last week. A westerly or northerly, or anything in between, is fine in Gunamatta Bay. It’s a long narrow inlet and a fetch not really an issue. Wind from the south impacts quite differently - a funneling gutter with the opportunity for fetch to build all the way from Bundeena. Our prospects of a happy life on anchor, or even the newly discovered courtesy mooring looked bleak.

But we did get lucky! The Cronulla Marina had 2 vacancies that came up. One for Onora and one for us. We stayed at the Cronulla Marina 3 years ago and they were kind enough to allow us to tie up our dinghy there during the preceding week. This made coming ashore for The Bloke’s #6 rated Sausage Rolls, shopping etc... all the easier. Little did we know our ‘thank you’ box of cake slice would be good karama for finding a marina berth!

  

Sharing is caring. 

Taking Jim and Jeannie to sample more 'quality' sausage rolls last week.

Photos, courtesy of J. Foley

I noticed some water spray inside the salon before heading out in the rain to catch up with The Bloke for coffee at the very cultish “Grind” coffee shop. On return,  the spray had become a trickle and running towards the electrical panel! Yikes.

For now, we had bluetac, gaffer tape and disposable nappies keeping an internal flood at bay. Tomorrow we hope for finer weather (even if windy) so that the Sikkaflex Gun can come out for a more robust solution. While we waited for the tempest to deliver, we decided to watch a movie or three. ‘As Good as it Gets’ caught our eye on the menu. It was a good fit. A feel-good film and we didn’t recall it as having much rain in it!

   

Real time rain radar (l) and the wind predictions (r). The 'baby-poo' yellow always gets our attention and as for the orange and red, well you can guess?

Cronulla Marina (02) 9544 0888
Family owned and run. Well maintained floating jetties. Super friendly. All vessels well supervised. Fuel dock and pump-out. Inexpensive by Sydney standards. Only deficit is the amenities block which they are waiting for approval to rebuild. Shopping and public transport (easy airport access) immediately to hand.

Retracing the Sausage Roll Trail

The Bloke's quest for the best sausage rolls rarely takes a back seat and could even be a driver for our retracing of steps southward. Many have been purchased, examined, tasted and some immediately binned. Queensland has not been a bountiful ground for these tasty morsels, hence the need to take the tropical shirts on a tour and hunt them down.

Peter from SV Novae did all he could to placate The Bloke by creating this batch of noteworthy Amateur Division sausage rolls and serving them up at Great Keppel Island but this just fueled the desire.

To Pittwater we must go! Would the highly ranked rolls from the Cottage Point Kiosk and Boat Hire be just as good as they were in his memory? Trent was up for the test. He'd been warned by Bruce the Vice Commodore of the Kuring-Gai Motor Yacht Club whom we'd just met at Soldiers Point Marina, that The Bloke was on his way.

 Barrenjoey headland with it's lighthouse welcoming us back to The Pittwater

The Bloke with Trent, creator of highly ranked Pork and Fennel sausage roll delights

 

Pittwater is in any case a jewel and The Bloke was fixated with a return to our favourite bay, Castle Lagoon. Apart from being beautiful and sheltered too, it's only a short dinghy ride away from Cottage Point, coffee, Sausage Rolls and a somewhat acclaimed Fish Curry.

 

Onora anchored up and with stern secured to a rock.

A masterclass from dual world circumnavigators.

 

The Bloke got several others involved in his enthusiasm too. Jim and Jeannie from Onora, recently returned to their vessel from a summer in their home of Chicago hastened their arrival from Newcastle to participate. Bob and Pam from MV Karajas who we'd met in these waters 3 years earlier were keen to join in too.

 

Jim and Jeannie would never have guessed their 49th Wedding Anniversary meal would have included a Sausage Roll!

Lunch at the Gong

We wanted to progress our southward journey towards Tasmania and having spent a few days in Cronulla we’d arranged to rendezvous with Onora at Jervis Bay. A westerly was predicted and according to Predictwind nothing more than 20kts. An offshore breeze would make for flat conditions. We seldom get to sail on a westerly. Prospects were OK. So off we went. Onora departed at a similar time but from Sydney Harbour. A 20 foot advantage over our hull length would have us converge at some point during the passage.

Initially we were motor sailing, then just motoring. Next going along nicely with full rig but it wasn’t too long before we sailing on jib alone. Radio messages between ourselves and Onora exchanged news of inconsistent conditions. By lunch time we were looking very seriously at our options. Jervis Bay was not going to be our day’s destination. That much was certain. Wooolongong was not far away, perhaps we could stop by and assess, or even stay, but it would be for several days by the look of the upcoming weather predictions. How would this pan out?

The public mooring in the tiny harbour, already full with a couple of dozen boats on moorings was clearly visible from the sea. It was enourmous and unused. We picked up the mooring just long enough to determine that we'd be on the tiles once the westerly died off, even at high tide. Furthermore, we'd be helpless in stronger winds predicted from other quadrants. We made and ate some lunch at The Gong (as it's known by the locals) and resolved to return to Cronulla on the same westerly we'd sailed in with. This was no place for us!

 

This harbour s not home to many boats at all. 

Anchoring is out of the question. 

 

Remnants of an historic wharf

Goodbye Wooloongong!

Crazy sea state near the sea bridge along the Illawarra coastline

 

The wind was hooting for our entire trip back with gusts in excess of 40kts across our decks. The surface of the water just lifted off onto the air. The boat was getting caked with instant-dry sea salt. Bullets are a well known phenomenon coming off the Barrington Tops, we were later told. It was just too dangerous to attempt to sail when wind would accelerate from 10 to 47kts in a heartbeat so we worked the iron jib (motor) hard and returned 6 hours later. The westerlies were so strong and prolonged that topsoil from central New South Wales, after years of drought, was blown across the Tasman Sea as far New Zealand. Were we surprised? Not in the least!

Turning directly into the wind as we entered Port Hacking we achieved barely 2knots speed over ground. Onora was forced to anchor west of Jibbon Beach waiting for sufficient tide to enter Gunamatta Bay with its deeper draft. The public mooring we'd enjoyed in Gunamatta Bay was unsurprisingly occupied by the time we returned so we anchored further north from this starting position - a nett loss for the day of 150m northward - Tasmania might as well be the moon!

Soldiers Point Indulgence

We’ve raved before about Soldiers Point Marina in Port Stephens. Recommended to us by our sailing mentors, Carolyn and Andrew Bellamy, we’ve been passing on our recommendations too. By and large we’ve become quite good at avoiding marinas but this one is the Gold Standard and although on the expensive side, could we pass up a chance to visit again? Hell no, and we quickly reconsidered a proposed 3 night stay and took 7.

http://www.soldiersptmarina.com.au/

This time we were visiting ‘off-peak’ and out of season, so flower baskets were not yet in place and the morning coffee with paper and afternoon cocktail deliveries weren’t on offer but we still got to enjoy the many other treats and at a lower tariff. 

As West Aussies, we particularly enjoyed the America’s Cup themed cruisers lounge. In addition to a monster flat screen TV playing a documentary of the Western Australian Alan Bond Syndicate - Australia II,  1983 America’s Cup victory, there is a lot of interesting Ben Lexcen memorabilia on display. Ben Lexcen being the boat designer who conceived of the revolutionary ‘winged’ keel. Since the weather was cool, we used this facility each evening for our 5ers and enjoyed a complimentary wine and beer or two.

We’ve said it before but you never really appreciate the level of underlying tension that the cruisers life entails until you have an opportunity to tie up to something solid and have a little time’off watch’. A bit of pampering is the icing on the cake. 

Being alongside provided some social opportunities too. After near on 5 years afloat there are by now a few regulars we enjoy catching up with. Some are based in Port Stephens and only spend the winter aboard their boats on a cruise to Queensland. They are aquatic versions of grey nomads - no 4WD or caravan just a yacht instead. Melbourne Cup day meant a luncheon needed arranging too. Locally cultivated oysters were purchased from Holberts just upstream. The Lexus courtesy car came in handy for that bit of hunting and gathering. 

It wasn’t all play though. Poor Marilyn, our dinghy, is getting a bit world weary and unstuck; in need of some TLC. Re-gluing some seams on the underside was made possible on the wide jetty alongside us. For good measure, The Bloke decided that some 2-pack paint he had lurking in the lazerette (with the addition of some black tint) could be put to good use. We’re unsure how long we can keep rescuing Marilyn but she’s looking cute for now.

All in all, a devine week taking ‘time-out’ for a battery recharge. 

Coffee on the jetty.

Replacing our Fluxgate Compass

The Bloke has being driven crazy by our Raymarine C80 Chartplotter display. Quite randomly the boat icon that displays on the electronic chart has begun to be unreliable. The display for vectors is fine; things like the heading and wind speed, but the boat icon occasionally reverses or goes sideways! Mr Murphy who is constantly lurking and enjoying such opportunities, more often than not reverses the icon at the worst possible moment, for instance, whilst traversing a tight channel. This is as much an annoying distraction as unsafe. Hours of research on the Raymarine knowledge base has pointed to a likely culprit - the Fluxgate Compass.

Our Chartplotter and ST6002 Autopilot are by now old and superseded. If we are lucky it will only be a Fluxgate Compass issue. If not, we could be up for a new computer/chartplotter - think big buck$$. Oh, and should it be a Fluxgate Compass issue, Raymarine no longer manufacture them anyway. The newer E Series Autopilot/Chartplotter systems don’t use them. A replacement might be difficult to obtain and in any instance, more likely to be 2nd hand than new. The Bloke is not giving up without a fight.

Baby steps and a process of elimination would be required to resolve this and fingers crossed that it's not a fist-full of dollars to remedy.

Here is the Fluxgate Compass.

Note the weight at the base that assists with the gimbal effect.

Step 1 Upgrade the Raymarine firmware. 

The final firmware upgrade for our by now, legacy Raymarine C80 Chartplotter, was released in 2012. Until now we'd never thought nor needed to install it. This should have been a fairly straightforward matter but wasn't. We located a pair of brand new blank 2GB SDK cards we’d bought (with difficulty) the previous year when wanting to download extra charts for the Pacific. The Chartplotter couldn’t read the cards. It was manufactured before cards of this capacity were produced. We wondered if our efforts would end right here and The Bloke was pretty annoyed with this prospect. I then suggested checking our original SDK card, the one that held only the charts for Western Australia. We at least knew that it did once work. Would it have enough space to also accommodate the freshly downloaded firmware upgrade and data back-up?  Fortunately it did and so did the back-up that was necessary of stored Way Points: hundreds of Way Points and chart embellishments such as where we’d previously anchored. It was now possible to run the upgrade. Phew.

During the installation The Bloke needed to confirm deletion of data. He hesitated, his finger hovering nervously over the button for some time. Delete? What if this all went to custard? Happily the firmware upgrade was completed without incident. As a bonus it also meant that our new brand new 2GB STK cards could be read by the system for future backups and file transfers. The firmware upgrade did not however, fix our spinning boat icon. Move on to Option 2.

 

The Fluxgate Compass conveniently located behind the holding tank.

Who'd have thought! 

Step 2 Recalibrate the Fluxgate Compass.

The Raymarine knowledge base didn’t actually explain how the compass could become uncalibrated but recalibrating was the next thing to do. We needed calm water and then to motor the boat through a series of 2 minute circles while clicking the key sequence to initiate a factory re-set and to then adjust the off-set between the Autohelm and the boat compass. Sadly, still no joy. Move to Option 3.

  

 The Bloke checking the replacement with his multi-meter. 

Resistances were in the correct range, unlike our existing one.

Step 3 Install a replacement Fluxgate Compass. 

The Bloke’s internet search lead to eBay, which indicated a $250-300 AU outlay plus a wait for delivery. This had the potential to delay our trip south. The cost? Well, we'd just have to wear it. We did strike a little luck here though. A post on the Sailing Australia Exchange - Buy, Sell Swap Services Facebook site came up with a a reply within 20 minutes for a Still-New-in-Box replacement for only $180 AU from people we knew. AND they were only a day away from us. They were waiting for the very same weather window to travel south from Southport and would be delayed long enough for us to rendezvous with them. Golden!

The said device has now been installed. We’ve traveled 320nm since, in which time there has been an improvement but an incomplete fix. We’ve had a 2nd go at recalibrating the new fluxgate compass but no real opportunity to test it for a prolonged period. Our previous recalibration efforts were for the old one. We'll get to try things out on our next leg from Port Stephens to Pittwater on Sunday. Wish us well. If this replacement is unsuccessful we'll be parting with a lot of boat dollar$ sometime soon!!

 

Connecting the device to the Autohelm computer.

As usual, locker contents have to be removed to access anything.

Catching A Ride on the East Australian Current

Deciding on a return to Tasmania for the summer means a southbound passage down the East Australian Coast and a new experience. Yes, we’ve returned from The Whitsundays to Mooloolaba in 2016 and then from Bundaberg to Brisbane in 2017 but we’ve not actually been south of the Queensland border on Zofia for 2 1/2 years since Leg 64! This is not for lack of ambition. We need northerly winds to achieve it and while there seem to be regular periods of northerlies south of Cape Byron, we’ve been looking/waiting for the northerlies to occur between Southport (Gold Coast) and at least Yamba AND for them to last more than a teasing 6 hours. Weather systems appear to split at the most eastern edge of the continent. From observation, what we want is for the centre of a high in the Tasman Sea to sit above (or north) of Lord Howe Island.

Gold Coast Seaway Tower

We were not the only boat waiting around for weather systems to sort themselves out. More and more boats were slipping out through Wide Bay Bar to Mooloolaba or Moreton Bay and then proceeding through the inland route behind North and South Stradbroke Islands to areas around Southport and the Gold Coast Seaway. We would be ready if a forecast really did eventuate. So many times in previous weeks it really looked like an opportunity was coming only to see the forecast we wanted shrink and then vanish altogether. Meals made for passaging needed to be eaten up and fresh ones prepared. Each time we’d be psyched up and then get deflated with the arrival of 30+kts Southerlies. Grrrr. But the day did come and we were ready.

Looking out to sea

We planned on taking the Northerly weather window as far as it would take us. In the end it became a case of how far the East Australian Current (EAC) would take us. This southbound current can provide an assist of 2-4kts. Across 24 hours it can mean an extra 45nm (83km) traveled. As a rule we calculate on achieving an average SOG (speed over ground) of 5kts (5nm per hour- or 9.26km). With the EAC we were averaging in excess of  7.5kts rendering our calculations for arrival times to logical destinations (re-tracing our earlier northward trip) completely invalid. We headed off-shore to roughly the 100m contour, 7-10nm offshore to locate water temperatures elevated from the coastal 24C to 26- 27C. Bingo, we were on the free ride offered by the EAC. Day1, Southport to Coffs Harbour: 168nm 23hours. For us that’s hooting along!

Goodbye to Queensland and the Goldie

On Day1 we experienced following winds but a residual SE swell which kicked up against the current to deliver 2.5m seas plus an uncomfortable boat movement that didn’t really suit either of us. I felt slightly queasy and fatigued and took meds while The Bloke, although not seasick, was completely unable to settle for his scheduled rest break after dark. This completely threw our watchkeeping rhythm out of whack and exacerbated feelings of fatigue. Having passed Yamba ahead of schedule and in the dark, we reassessed where we could realistically and safely pull in for a rest. Coffs Harbour was our candidate and we hoped it would provide a better option than on the way north when we had poked our nose in only to declare it useless and press onwards to Yamba. On this occasion it was a bit kinder. Still rolly but tolerable enough for 2 tired sailors to get some kip. We’d heard that there were now 2 public moorings but realistically we found only one available, if unoccupied. The other looked to have been taken up permanently by a tiny old tub of a boat. Judging by the algal beard it was sporting, it had become permanent for a while. No matter, we were happy to anchor in the good holding on offer.

Bento box lunch in down town Coffs Harbour with crew of Cool Change

A one day break from passaging proved a winner. We felt rested and the seastate was more settled the following day. Even though we motored for the first few hours waiting for the wind to fill, we finished up completing the passage not long after dawn with another 160+ nm behind us. Hello, Port Stephens! We’ve visited before and by now have a number of sailing friends that live there. What’s more, Solders Point Marina is there and the chance of a brief stay too good to resist.

Cool Change following us into Port Stephens at Dawn

Zofia under motor -courtesy of Erika, SV Cool Change

Catch of the day on deck

Dolphins visiting Fame Cove while we slept