Winds were about 15kts and easing when we left with some pretty heavy swells and local seas generated by the big low that went through a few days before. It was uncomfortable.
The problem was as usual, we were out in quite heavy quartering swells with no real wind to stabilise the boat. 15kts is fine normally but it eased to between 5 and 10 pretty quickly and so the boat was rolling, noisy and pretty uncomfortable.
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| Confused and choppy seas close to the heads at Port Stephens. The swell seemed to get bigger overnight instead of lower as forecast.. Poor Terry! |
Terry did everything right this time taking kwells 30 minutes before we headed off just after lunch and no-doze to counter the drowsiness. But we were both feeling a bit queasy as the sun went down so we didn't eat much, just hot beverages. Terry lasted until 8:00pm when she took her eyes off the very dim horizon for a few seconds and lost her cup of tea.
For some reason, she seems much happier lying in the V-Berth when she gets sea sick. This seems counter to my understanding of what is actually happening to the body but it certainly works for Terry so she retired to the V-Berth and I soldiered on through the night with Al Stewart, Donovan, Dave Crosby and Grace Slick for company :-). Terry got up and even though still feeling sick, spent a couple of hours on watch over midnight while I crashed in the sea berth!
We made really good time in the end and even turned the engine off for about 8 hours when the wind picked up overnight and the swell dropped. So we got to Port Macquarie a bit earlier than we anticipated so we hove to outside the harbour entrance and dozed for a couple of hours.
The leads were great but a bit dim with the sun rising behind us. They use a sector light showing red when to the port of the channel, green when to starboard and white when you are on the money.
Crossing the bar into the harbour wasn't as bad as I expected with just the swell to worry about as it was coming from the port stern quarter, slewing the boat sideways as it washed through under us. I soon got the hang of steering through though and ended up looking behind me almost as much as ahead.
We decided to treat ourselves to a berth at the Port Macquarie Marina and pulled in just after 10:00 am next to the fuel dock. We moved later in the day to another berth further inside the marina to make room for a chap in his boat with a failed engine who was towed in by marine rescue. From what he was saying, he got water in the fuel somehow and had a bad electrical short when he was trying to bleed the water out to get the motor started again.
Boats.. Always something to fiddle with. I've added "fix the staysail roller fuler and simplify the air-con/water-maker raw water intakes" to the list of things to do after this short trip.
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| Venture at rest in Port Macquarie |
I take it you got that bottom photo while I was still asleep?
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