Shorts Days with Short Hop to Seal Rocks

Since we were barely one week beyond the winter solstice - the shortest day of the year, we were endeavouring to keep our day-hops short. From Port Stephens onward, traveling north needed both swell height and the tides to be factored in. In order to access safe harbours such as Laurieton/Camden Haven or Port Macquarie we required low swell, and even then wouldn’t be able to enter any of those destinations until at least 2-3 hours into the making tide. We had already ruled out re-visiting Forster -Tuncurry. The tidal rip there making anchoring, with a decent rode paid out, very awkward and the mini-jetties, we found last time, a nightmare to lasso.  Laurieton was our target to sit out 3 days of northerlies.

 

Our anchorage at Wanda Beach was great for southerly conditions.

Departing Wanda Beach heading for the exit/entrance to Port Stephens.

We were just one of 3 boats heading out.

 

On the solstice, sunset was 4:48pm so with the shortened days we planned to leave Port Stephens and 'steal a base" by anchoring at Broughton Island. It offers a good range of anchorages. However when it came to it, the Bloke decided that we'd continue on a bit further to Seal Rocks. Why pull up at midday when we could keep going for another 3 hours? Although known to be swell prone, we thought we might get a bit of kip there before moving on.

We rather liked the look of Seal Rocks. The holding was excellent in sand and the anchor snatched in very positively. We imagine that it must be a popular spot in the summer.

The swell does sneak in through this gap,  but less so at low tide.

Definitely a gently shoaling surge beach at the throat of the bay.

Cheerful bird outside the laundry at Nelson Bay marina.

Fish and Chips at Patonga

Passion for Fish and Chips means the Bloke is frequently making destination plans around the availability of such treats on a Friday. He eagerly seeks them out as a reward for good deeds done during the week. Since our intention was to rendezvous with Southern Belle for one last weekend before heading away from Pittwater northbound, a Friday Lunchtime Fish and Chip prospect emerged at Patonga.

The Patonga Pub

 

We’d never gone across to the northern shores of Broken Bay and the tending northerly weather pattern fitted in with the Bloke's scheme. The Patonga Pub is highly regarded as a destination and to further encourage visitors using a water approach, they have 2 courtesy moorings. First come, first served. No bookings are required although anchoring is also a viable option.

The Patonga Pub has been renovated and upgraded to a very high standard and it’s not hard to imagine that it would be heaving with patrons during the summer. It was still doing a brisk trade on this chilly June afternoon. Our flathead and chips ‘hit the spot’ and required a walk around the historic village of Patonga to help ease it down before returning to the boat.

 

The old school house

A Lucky Swap’N’Go

“Use it or loose it” is a common enough saying but when it comes it plays out in wicked ways. Leaving the boat unattended in a marina is asking for trouble so returning from a month away visiting the family on both sides of the continent (by plane) left us very exposed. What woukd we discover this time?

OK so the front heads looked like the joker valve may have been a bit leaky. We’ll swap it out with a spare to stop ‘back leakage’. On the face of it, Zofia was pretty clean. The waterline couldn’t be described as a scum line. Topsides weren’t covered in bird poop. So far so good. 

Waiting first pick-up with Coles crossed off the list.

A day spent re-provisioning with the help of cruising friends George and Gail (SV Southern Belle) saw an efficient conversion of $1,000 to a pile of goods. 

Now to stow it all away - groan!

We were feeling pretty pleased with ourselves. We planed to cast off the lines on Wednesday after a water top up and last minute wash. Fuel could be obtained at RMYC en route to Coasters retreat. Phew, how good would that be?

The Bloke fired up the motor. Looking good. Switching on the navigation equipment however delivered a different message. “Computer says NO!” Our Raymarine C80 Chartplotter has been a bit temperamental, occasionally displaying white lines and ‘snow’. No amount of rubbing, squeezing or blowing with compressed air would make a difference. B U G G E R! We’ve already costed the replacement of our original and ‘now superseded’ system. I’ll say it fast ~ $15K . Youch.

It does rather pay off to get to know your neighbours. The Bloke took no time befriending Jon and Prue from a larger Jeanneau further up the jetty before we’d even abandoned Zofia to her deterioration. Over sundowners he’d learned that they were up for significant rewiring after a nearby boat took a direct lightening strike. Their own boat was in the highly charged fallout zone. A Raymarine technician was on our jetty attending to their boat at the very moment we discovered that the computer said “NO”. After obtaining permission to speak with Prue’s technician, it turns out that our C80 problem was quite common. Who knew? We could wait until next week for their electrical guy to take a look and fix ours or we could Swap’N’Go with a reconditioned one they happened to to have at the workshop. 

 

Testing all the input signals - the radar sweep in purple. 

Aquatronics took our old display back to base, transferred our waypoints and returned with the replacement. There were only a few settings to reinstate via the Presentation/Chart layers menu:-

• - Radar. ON
• - AIS layer ON
• -Baud rate adjustment for the AIS display because our AIS is a Simrad via the System setup/ System integration menu.
• NMEA port settings value = AIS 38400

Happy Days are here again. From the look of it: Job done!

You don’t get much luckier than that and $325 sounds soooo much better than $15,000. And better still, just a 2 hour turn around and we were on our way! 

Michael
Aquatronics Marine

Mobile: +61 418 441 140 

Office Tel: +61 2 9905 5655

Michael@aquatronics.com.au

www.aquatronics.com.au

Consigned To Spares

We’ve been scrutinizing our anchor chain when deploying the anchor of late. Is the chain stretched and twisted? The bow rollers certainly look a bit worn. It’s a bit of a chicken/egg conundrum. What is causing what? Replacing the rollers might provide some answers, however you can’t just buy them.

We trawled through old photos. What did the bow roller originally look like? What kind of profile did they have to begin with? In any instance 97mm width replacements were nowhere to be found. They’d need to be machined for us. 

Bermagui proved an opportunity too good to miss. We would be tied up to the Fishing Co-op Wharf for 4-5 nights meaning we would not be dependent on our anchor. There's a reasonably big fishing fleet based in Bermagui and a boat yard to support it. There was a fair chance we’d be able to get a new replacement pair of bow rollers machined.

Wear was very evident on both rollers and it was quite square on one of them. No wonder the chain was bouncing under the anchor locker lid.

The Bloke walked across to the boat yard each day to check on progress and luckily they were able to manufacture the replacements. They are not white but apparently made of a much stronger material. Fingers are crossed that twisted anchor chain is a thing of the past. If not, our problem could be associated with stretched links. This would point to the need to replace the anchor chain. In truth it's probably a bit of both. Fingers are crossed for improvement and the original rollers have been consigned to ‘spares’.

Post script: The groove in the new roller was not deep enough so we had it re-machined in Bundaberg. The workshop asked for a sample of our 10mm short link chain to better model the guide channels. We are now delighted with the outcome. The chain deploys with less twists. The Blokes enthusiasm caused 3 more boats to get their rollers re/done too! 

Friday Fish and Chips and a Day in Dunnalley

“How lucky?” is was what The Bloke was thinking. Our early transit time through the Dunalley Canal would enable us to anchor/moore/come-alongside in good time for a walk to have a Fish and Chip lunch. It was Friday after all! There was rumour too that there was a bakery. Could the fish and chips be bested by a sausage roll perhaps? In any instance, we needed an in-going high tide, especially since we had Chris on Bilbungara trailing us in a deeper drafted vessel than ours; if we got stuck he would know he was in trouble too!

Shane, the canal operator, was ready for us and we’d actually traversed the shallowest part - the channel approach in, before reaching the bridge and the Canal itself.

Bilbungara followed us through. This perspective makes it appear that the Canal is a serious affair but it's actually a bit 'agricultural' and more like a trench created by a farmer with a backhoe.

This old manual signal tower, gives an indication of how long the Canal has been in existence. It was opened for use in 1905. These days traffic is managed by significantly less athletic means via VHF radio and mobile phone.

 

Once we got through we opted to raft-up to the public jetty to make access to the bakery and fish and chip lunch a little easier. Conditions were mild. A northerly kicked in overnight and made for a very unpleasant night. The Bloke and Chris were sipping coffee at 3am while I snored my head off.

Ignore The Bloke in this photo, he does not actually know what he's pointing at! It's a tricentennial memorial to the discovery of Van Diemen's Land by Abel Tasman in 1642. Blackman Bay, to be honest, is quite a strange place to arrive, but Tasmania was not known to even be an Island until about 150 years later. Forget all that Captain Cook stuff, Tasmania was a going concern long before 'Botany Bay' and all that malarkey!

The Dunnalley Pub has a bit of a 'folly' decorating a drainage dam adjacent to their car park.

 

The Dunnalley Pub.

The tide can rip through at up to 17kts, according to the Canal Manager, Shane.

  

It's a funny place allright!

Not where The Bloke got his Friday Fish and Chips but another worthy place to visit.

Port Davey Heathland Flowers

The soil around Port Davey, Bathurst Harbour and Mallaleuca is very impoverished and such that it is, is composed of degraded quartzite rock mixed with meagre humus created from those few hardy plants that have managed a toehold in this windswept and inhospitable environment. Clefts between hills have some shrubs and even some trees but for the rest, button grass is the ‘feature’ vegetation. Areas closer and lower to the water are constantly being leached and contribute to the tannins in the water. The waterways are the colour of tea and being freshwater do not mix with seawater. The seabed is shaded by the tannin-load of the surface freshwater layer and sea life reportedly includes organisms normally found in deep ocean.

 

I took a lot of photos of plants while climbing Mt Beatie and found they didn’t vary much throughout the area. In fact, Mt Beatie had the best range and display of any part we explored in the SW Wilderness.

Everything was small, woody and without extravagance.

  

  

  

  

  

  

Hillclimbing Mount Beatie - Day 3 Port Davey Visit

Having completed our inspection of Breaksea Islands early in the morning, we were left with plenty of time to do our first shore expedition and climb Mt Beatie. Our efforts were to be rewarded with some spectacular views both over Port Davey and down the Bathurst Channel.

Only our dinghy was not in this shot. The Bloke had other ideas about where to come ashore.
 

Our dinghy, all alone.

 

Tannin stained water.

Looking South West beyond Breaksea Islands

Breaksea Islands

Up top

View to the Mauvereens.

We could see the clouds that heralded a wind change, so after climbing down we headed off to Anchorage #3 in as many days - Spain Bay.