Jaunting around Jervis Bay... jolly marvelous!! (quite a few pics)

TUESDAY July 8^th – FRIDAY July 11^th JERVIS BAY / HUSKISSON

Twas a rough and crappy sea.... aaarrrrrhhhhh!

Rough seas tossed my pastels completely out of the cupboard and on to the floor. This is the result. Luckily only one or two were broken.

Next morning we were off again, this time to Jervis bay. No whales were seen along the way but I held hope that we wouldn't go the whole way up the coast without another encounter. Rounding the corner into the bay was a lovely surprise as it opened up before us, big and blue and well protected. Poop covered public mooring buoys were available so we took the one nearest to the small bay inlet of Huskisson and chilled out for the rest of the day.

A popular place to poop

Venture in beautiful Jervis Bay

The view towards the small bay at Huskisson from the boat

The next morning it was in the dinghy and off into the town of Huskisson, and what a lovely little town it is. Walking around I came to think that, per capita, Huskisson has more coffee shops, cafes and eateries than seems possible to sustain, but almost every one had someone sitting out under the verandahs or inside their very individual facades and sipping, or nibbing, or slurping their way through their chosen repast. I also indulged in the best beef and gravy roll ever! Perhaps not the best breakfast fare but I simply didn't care. We took a bit of a wander towards the Jervis Bay lookout areas and decided that it would be much better with the bikes as there seemed to be quite a good bike/pedestrian track. Huskisson also seems to be somewhat of a Mecca for whale watching. Unfortunately it didn't happen there for me (although the day after we left a whale apparently came right into Jervis Bay and frolicked about for ages.... I believe I may have already mentioned something about my bad timing!) By early afternoon we were back on the boat and making plans for the following day. 

One of the many tour places in town. There's everything from whale and dolphin watching to fishing to seeing the sights beyond town.

Oh and apart from whale watching, there's kayak and canoe hire, bike and board hire. So many things to do.

There were a lot of parrots about the place but this is the only really decent photo I got. Does it remind anyone of John Travolta in Saturday Night Fever or is that just me?

 Late morning once more and with the bikes aboard the dinghy, we again made our way into the tiny boat-filled inlet, unloaded the bikes, got them all set up, checked that we had cameras, snacks and water, then promptly realised that the helmets were still on the boat. So, back to the boat went Cap'n Tweaky whilst I babysat the bikes. Luckily the weather was glorious so the delay was more than welcome as I soaked up the sun. We did a little bit of exploration near the inlet, found the public loos and then headed towards the bike/walking path. 

Dave in the dinghy after retrieving the helmets.

For a Thursday the joint was jumpin' with live music emanating from a nearby hotel and because it was school holidays, kids ran hither and yon in the parklands and playgrounds that dotted the foreshore, bouncing about like little squealing jumping beans on a chocolate high. The path, which was wide and roomy enough for both cyclists and pedestrians, was also filled along its length with everyone from mad joggers and toddlers on trikes to elderly people strolling along with their equally elderly dogs. It was a lovely family atmosphere.

The fantastic bike path .......

.......and well maintained beachfront plantings.

The picnic/barbecue/park area about halfway between Huskisson and Vincentia

Some of the sad tree vandalism

 

We cycled from Huskisson to Vincentia, an 8 kilometre round trip with wonderful views of the bay and with a really interesting beach. In Vincentia we thought the path petered out (but I have since learned that it picks up again further on and goes out to the nearby peninsula so maybe if we come here again, we'll do the whole thing), so we turned back. Unfortunately not all of the foreshore is beautiful as the above photos show. Some idiots, in their infinite wisdom, have vandalised and killed several small copses of trees (and quite frankly it isn't hard to figure out who may have done it when you consider that the trees may have blocked a few views of the ocean, but proof is lacking).

Half way along we went beachward and took a look at the wonderful carvings in the rock along the shore, done by Mother Nature herself. Sometimes I'm astounded by the amount of natural beauty there is around us, if we take the time to really look. Here are just some of the photos we got of the fantastic beach rocks that edged part of the white sandy beach, which actually went a very long way.

Super wide beach at low tide.

 

This is a little rivulet that was cut into the rock and had become a home to tiny things

The shapes that had been carved into the stone over time were just beautiful.

Occasionally there ARE straight lines in nature.

Just a weather beaten stump but one that I thought was interesting. I see someone yelling or maybe singing.

I thoroughly enjoyed Huskisson, with it's beautiful, relaxed atmosphere and family friendly feel, clipped parks and clean streets, tours galore, bicycle hire, its plethora of eateries and very amiable people. I would recommend it. Unfortunately we couldn't stay longer as we once again had to move with the weather. Here are just a few more photos of it. The latter were taken as we were leaving this lovely place.

Just another view of Venture as seen from the rocky beach we were exploring.

The northern 'corner' of Jervis Bay, Point Perpendicular, as named by Captain Obvious! He's the one with no imagination, unlike some of the more unusual names we have come across, which I think were named by Captain Obscure.

Around the front of Point Perpendicular and the coastline is magnificent as the spray spreads curtains of mist in front of the cliff faces

Just some of the wonderful striated cliffs along the coastline.

 

Location: Huskisson NSW 2540, Australia
GoogleMaps | GooglePlus Local

Bermagui to Jervis Bay. Rolling along again.

We both really enjoyed our stay in Bermagui where we met some really nice people.    The new marina there is in a great spot and the managers (Keith rates a special mention) were really helpful.  The fish co-op actually doesn't manage the floating marina berths but I'm still grateful to Shane from the co-op for telling us we could take up the berth.  Thanks Shane!

We headed off for Jervis Bay at 11:00 with another overnight in front of us.  When we planned this voyage up the East coast, it looked like we would be able to day sail almost all the way once we passed Eden.  But the reality is quite different.

For instance, between Bermagui and Jervis Bay, there are 3 other possible safe anchorages, so for the 90 mile trip, we could in theory do it in 3 or 4 nice easy day sails.  However, two of the three (Narooma and Batemans Bay) have river bars.  Our weather windows are also quite short with only a couple of days in each week where we can be sure to make good time so we have to make sure that when we stop, we can safely hole up for a while.

Narooma bar has a bad reputation.  We were advised by a few people to give that one a miss.  Batemans Bay is a slightly different story.  The bar there is actually quite protected by Snapper Island but it is very shallow.  We were advised by locals to only try crossing it at high tide which means timing your arrival pretty carefully.  There are spots to anchor in Batemans Bay (before you get to the river bar) but they are pretty exposed to the prevailing South West swell from what we can gather.

That left Ulladulla.  We were originally going to head for there but that meant leaving early in the morning and the winds were not favourable until later in the day so we opted to head directly for Jervis Bay instead.

So things seem to conspire against making short hops at least until we get more confident about how the boat handles bar conditions meaning we are doing more overnights than either of us would like.  And as you an see, there's a very complex decision making process you need to go through before you leave a safe spot heading for another.


Jervis Bay is one spot we were both really looking forward to.  and it turned out to be as beautiful as we expected.

Venture at rest on a mooring in Jervis Bay.  Point Perpendicular in the background.

When we left Bermagui, we expected the wind to be South West and it was but it was a little too much south of west meaning we had to tack up the coast again and it was rolly and not very pleasant.  Terry had a much better time of it though and wasn't sick once!  She had taken a quell before going to bed and had another just before we left and we think that helped a lot.

The wind strengthened to 15 knots during the night which helped stabilise us and then swung more westerly allowing us to move into a reach for a while which was very pleasant and almost relaxing.  But the last 25 miles or so saw the wind swing around to the North West and strengthen again to 25 knots.  We ended up close hauled most of the morning and pounding into the swell so the fun meter (thanks Phil :-)) dropped way back towards zero.

Before nightfall, I'd put two reefs in the mainsail but at this point, I was wishing I'd put the third in as well.  We were heeling constantly at 15 degrees (perfect for for close hauled work) but going to 30 degrees in the gusts (not so perfect and quite disconcerting).  But we arrive outside the heads at about 10:00 am and tacked into the bay around Bowen Island.

Volunteer Marine Rescue (VMR) were again just wonderful to deal with.  They really look after the cruising sailor and to be honest, I'm not sure what we'd do without them!  VMR Jervis Bay gave us the lat/long of some visitor moorings on the West coast of the bay at a place called Huskisson so we headed directly for there and picked up the mooring first time around :-)  Terry is getting very good at this!

Location: Jervis Bay Territory 2540, Australia
GoogleMaps | GooglePlus Local

Fishing in Bermagui

Our pretty poor attempt at fishing in Bermagui.

Lots of fish there but watch them scatter as they catch sight of our baited hook!

I'm glad we have room on the boat for baked beans!

Location: Bermagui NSW 2546, Australia
GoogleMaps | GooglePlus Local

Dolphins in the bow wave again :-)

Some video of dolphins we saw as we left Eden for Bermagui.

Never gets old :-)

Eden to Bermagui arriving after dark.

We left Eden about 8:00 am the next day mainly because we really wanted to get further north and there was a weather window of sorts but also because the weather seemed to be turning nasty and we didn't want to risk getting stuck there for a week or so.  Next time we are down this way we'll definitely spend some more time in Eden.  It looks like a lovely town and well worth exploring.

After we left, I started ringing around looking for a berth in Barmagui and initially had a bit of a shock when told that there was no chance of getting a berth or anchoring in the harbour but I later contacted the fish co-op there who said they could put us up on a floating berth.  We had some other options like an overnight sail further up the coast or anchoring at Merimbulla or Tathra but none of those seemed like much fun so we were pretty relived.  Another lesson learnt..  Arrange the next berth before leaving the current one :-)

About midday, I saw some water spouts about 2 or 3 miles away off our starboard bow and called Terry up into the cockpit.  While she was still trying to orient herself, I saw a tail silhouetted against the horizon lift up and go slowly down and what looked like a breach.  Unfortunately, Terry didn't see it and I didn't get any pics.  We did get some pics of another blow a few minutes later and around 3:30pm we saw some more blows a long way off and I got a very blurry photo of a tail!  I'm sure we'll see them a lot closer as we keep moving north.  We also saw some seals and dolphins of course :-)

Our first photo of a whale!  But so far away.

The trip was around 45 miles (about 9 hours) and so we expected to be in Bermagui just before dark.  The weather was quite nice with the wind expected to be West to Southwest and 10 to 15 knots which would be just perfect weather for a sail up the coast.  However, the wind turned North early and so we were fighting a headwind most of the day.  We tried to move off the coast a bit thinking the wind would be different with no luck and we did catch a bit of a sea breeze (turning the wind more easterly later in the afternoon which helped a bit, but the headwinds slowed us down significantly so we ended up arriving after dark.

This was the first time we'd entered a strange harbour after dark so we were both very apprehensive.  We prepared as best we could and headed in.  The harbour does not have a significant bar but we did have to give the headland a wide berth and then turn south to enter the harbour between the breakwaters.

The leads were easy to spot (big florescent blue vertical bars) so we followed them in.  I was a bit anxious as we headed down the channel as it was pitch black except for the lead lights high up ahead of us and I knew we had the breakwater rocks about 10 meters away on the port side and the other breakwater about 20 meters away on the starboard side.  And I knew that the channel turned to the right just by the entrance to the actual harbour so we had to leave the leads and turn right at some point or we would run into the breakwater on the bend.

It was easy in the end.  We saw the harbour off to the right as we came down the channel so we headed in and found the berth on the T-head of the floating pontoons just inside the harbour mouth and tied up at the second attempt.  I didn't get quite close enough for Terry to step off the first time so I had to back away and push the stern around some more for the second attempt.

We were both relieved and quite proud of ourselves that night so we celebrated a bit before crashing early

Location: Bermagui NSW 2546, Australia
GoogleMaps | GooglePlus Local

Lakes to Eden, rolling madness

Never leave on a warning was something we were told before we left Adelaide.  But it's more of a guideline.  It's the "vibe" really more than a rule :-)

Warnings are for forecast areas which are big stretches of coast including way offshore.  If the wind is expected to go greater than 30 kts in any part of that area, the BOM issue a strong wind warning (rightly so..).

In this case, on Tuesday night there was a strong wind warning for the East Gippsland coast (Lakes to Gabo Islan).  More detailed info (like MetEye) was showing the strong winds were going to be more than 30 miles off shore.  Closer in to the coast, it was going to be a balmy 10 to 20 kts calming down in the afternoon.  Thursday was going to be almost dead calm 5 to 10 kts but building on Friday and Saturday as the next low pressure comes through.

Wednesday morning came and the BOM had declared a strong wind warning for Thursday as well!   However, the more detailed info still suggested we had good winds over our track to Eden on Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning so we decided to go.  The fact that there was another low pressure moving in from the west clinched the deal as if we didn't leave then, we'd probably be Lakes for another week at least.

When we left Lakes, it was blowing about 15 kts and most of that afternoon and night, we had between 10 and 15 kts (exactly what we expected) but it was blowing from the West, directly behind us as we headed East.

With the wind directly from behind, there is no sideways pressure on the sails to counteract the way the boat tilts when a wave passes under you, so the boat rolls.  You can reduce the rolling by changing direction to put the wind on one side or the other.  Of course that means you are not heading where you want to go anymore so every now and then, you change direction to put the wind on the other side and end up zig-zagging (tacking) towards your destination.  The trick is to find a happy medium where rolling is reduced but you are still making good time.

Unfortunately, Terry got sick very early (I was feeling queasy myself) and she never recovered.  I think I was ok because I was busy tweaking the sails trying to stop us rolling quite so much.

Things got a lot better after we turned the corner by Gabo Island and we could move into a broad reach (with the wind about 130 degrees from our heading).  That heeled the boat enough to stop the rolling but that was in the early hours of Thursday morning.

So we got to Eden at about 14:00 on Thursday, almost exactly 28 hours after we left Lakes Entrance, with Terry recovering and me completely knackered after going right through the night.

And we met another couple there on a Beneteu First 41 who had got in the day before from Port Welshpool.  They had it considerably worse than us with 40 kt + winds and big seas and they were in the process of drying everything out as they found leaks they never knew they had.  They did Port Welshpool to Eden (230 miles or so) in 30 hours!  Dave (yep another one) said that they had a very nasty ride broaching a few times, surfing sideways down waves with the boat tipped over so far that he could see dolphins underwater through one of the port holes.  In comparison, we had it very easy.

In retrospect, we should have realised that the wind just going to give us some shit and prepared ourselves better for a bumpy ride.

We've still got a lot to learn but we're surviving and getting stronger all the time :-)

As fisherfolk, we make great sailors. :) (Eden and Bermagui)

THURSDAY 3^rd July  to Eden

The beautiful sunset before our most horrible night sail so far!!

A little bit about Eden

The trip to Eden was a super long one (28 hours) and completely unpleasant, as my previous post indicates. The seas were, in a word, CRAPPY. Horrible, rolling, wavy, vomit inducing shite. Yep... that pretty much covers the sentiment.

We were only in Eden overnight and I only have a couple of photos so I shan't dwell on it except to say that we did meet a wonderful couple, Selina and Dave (yes ANOTHER Dave) and had a lovely dinner and chat with them at the local fish and chippery. I will say that where we were docked really tested the knee goblins to their full extent as we had to negotiate slippery timbers and great height in order to get from the boat deck up onto the jetty. It reminded me of Goolwa when the water disappeared and the 6' climb we had to get up on to the jetty there from our little 20' Austral.

I would have liked to stay a little longer but we had to leave with the weather so the next morning we were off again. Oh and happy birthday to my darling girl Sarah!!

Venture, 2nd from the right. It was an okay spot but when the tide went out it was a long climb back down into the boat

Fish and chips with our new best buds :D Selina and ... yes you guessed it.... another Dave!!

Boyds Tower is located at Red Point, on the southern headland of Twofold Bay.

This historic 5-storey sandstone tower was built in 1846 from stone shipped from Pyrmont in Sydney. Ben Boyd intended The Tower to be used as a lighthouse to guide home his fleet of ships, but permission to light it was refused by the government of the day. It was later used as a vantage point for whale spotters.

 ***************************************

FRIDAY July 4^th - TUESDAY July 8^th to Bermagui

 

We left Eden for Bermagui (pronounced Ber-ma-goo-ee) at around 8am, expecting to be all tied up and relaxing before dark. Alas, t'was not to be as we found ourselves trying desperately to beat the sun as we hurtled (okay maybe hurtled is a little bit of a stretch.... perhaps chugged... oh fine.... crawled!) against a strong current. 

Just a couple of the dolphins that kept us company on this part of the trip.

It wasn't all bucolic boredom and motionless monotony because,much to our amazement and something that bumped the thrill meter to 9 for a short time, there were.... WHALES! Yes, actual whales (maybe just one actually but I remain positive) way out in the distance, barely visible but still there. Dave caught sight of a breach but missed the photo opportunity and I managed to see some blow sprays and tail splashes. We got a few photos but only one showed true evidence... and that's more than enough! I just wish we could have been closer but I really didn't mind too much.

IT'S A WHALE TAIL!! Yes, it's a long way off but it's there. :)

The best spot in the marina. Very lucky.

By the time we reached the narrow entrance to the small harbour at Bermagui that was home to more boats than it seemed plausible to hold, from small yachts and runabouts through to huge trimarans and massive commercial fishing trawlers, it was full dark. We were trying to follow the leads into the entrance, which was fine except that the place was lit up like Carnivale in spring and the reflections of all those lights in the water made it feel as though we were heading into a blinding kaleidoscope. The further we inched into the bay, the more confusing it became as we searched out amongst the many vessel filled fingers and docks and moorings and rafted boats, the T-head upon which we were to tie up. Our eyes darted like those of a chameleon on speed, everywhere at once until suddenly, to our right, appeared the glorious sight on one long, lovely T-head on a new floating dock and to top of the relief, it was dead easy to get to and tie off. Our first night approach and tie down was a complete success and though stressful, it felt good. 

The following morning Dave got up early to look for public toilets and just to scope things out. For someone who nowadays thinks that 7am is the devil's time, it was almost all I could do to drown out the background noise and grab a few more zzzzzz's.  

 When Dave came back and I'd had a couple of cups of the old wake up nectar, we ventured along to the docks and upstairs to one of the lovely cafes that overlooks the water to watch the goings on. The early morning gumbooted fishermen had come in with their catches and the docks and wharf were buzzing with the sounds of forklifts hefting big plastic containers filled with a variety of fresh seafood and trailers piled with huge yellow fin tuna being towed along behind tractors. For a small port, it was full of action.

The fish cooperative is an important part of Bermagui's history and future

Add caption

Multiple boats rafted up in the bay. We were exceptionally lucky not to have to do this.

Yellow fin tuna fresh off the boat and on their way to the market The large plastic crates are also full of fish.

One of the tuna fleet heading out

Zane Grey. Some important fishing dude.

We then wandered further along the wharf area and strolled down some of the docks to look at the boats. Dave, much to my surprise, admired a catamaran. They've never been a favourite of his but this one just caught his attention. I figured he just needed a strong coffee. We walked quite a bit further and found ourselves at the breakwater where we had entered the night before. It looked to be a tight squeeze but we figured that if these massive tuna boats manoeuvre in and out day and night with no problem, then for us it was a doddle.

Another view of the breakwater and entrance. When entering or exiting the small harbour, the boats must keep to the right of the tree side of the inlet where that small boat is. It's pretty narrow.

The edge of the breakwater leading into Bermagui.

The Bruce Steer Pool next to the breakwater

Yet more ways to die. Gawd!!

For the next few days we hopped on the bikes and explored the hamlet of Bermagui and found it to be a thoroughly charming place that was actually a lot bigger than we first realised with a lovely bakery and a small supermarket.

We saw our first beach-side 'swimming pools' in the shape of the Bruce Steer Pool which was flanked on one side by the breakwater and the Blue Pool a little further around the coast. These pools meant safe swimming was possible in an area where I can imagine the seas to be quite treacherous at times. 

 

 Left: 

The Blue pool and the steps leading down to it. It's a lovely sheltered area with tables and chair and flat spots where you can lay a towel.

Right:

Waves crashing over the pool wall with the overflow filling the lower of the pools.

During our time at the dock's T-head, several people, including some really young kids and their granddad came and fished from a tiny decked bit that was directly at the back of the boat. We soon found out why. Underneath the boat and the dock and easily seen in the beautifully clear water, were literally hundreds upon hundreds of bait fish, all about 8cm – 10cm long. At one stage a small fishing boat pulled alongside and rafted up to us, lowered down baited lines (no need to cast.... it was basically drop'n'catch) and pulled in fish after fish until they had enough to use to attract the small amount of larger fish they were going out to catch. They were nice enough to give us some squid as bait just in case we felt like having a go.

Just a few of the many hundreds of stupid fish under our boat

So, what do you do when you have seen a little 5 year old girl catching these abundant fish using nothing but bread as bait? Naturally you try it yourself and since we had real bait that we knew worked, we figured it would be easy and we may be able to use the fish to catch ourselves something bigger for dinner.

We prepped the line and carefully baited the hook with some squid and then decided it might be interesting to film the catch so we got the little underwater camera ready for all the action and then dropped the line. Well, you've never seen a school of fish scatter so quickly as those fish did! It looked exactly like a sheen of oil does when a drop of detergent is plopped into the middle of it. Those fish shot away from the hook quicker than a blink until they formed a perfect ring, swimming around and around the bait. Not a single fish ventured nearer than about 40cm and we realised in that moment that we are perhaps the most crap fisherpersons ever. It made for an interesting video and our laughter can be heard even though the camera was submersed. I think vegetarianism is a distinct possibility.

We did a lot of cycling/walking, exploring the edges of the coast and discovered some lovely places along the way. Here are some photos for your viewing pleasure. :D

The view out through the breakwater entrance.

A layer of early morning mist covers the sea.

The gorgeous view across the bay.

A wider shot of the same view. It was breathtaking.

Some of the rugged and rocky shoreline along the western side of the town.

And more of the rocky bits.

And more, with rock-pools.

And... you guessed it.... more of the rocky, rugged, rock-pooled shore.

Perhaps not the best place for a bench that's supposed to be looking out over the beach. Like... worst view ever!

And this is the view one is meant to see from that bench. Time to trim the shrubbery methinks!

The day before we left we went to the Bermagui Country Club (oh yes dahhhhling... the club eh what!) for a shower, since these appeared to be the only public facilities in town. The woman in charge was lovely and didn't charge us, which was unusual but welcome. The showers are fairly ordinary but they were hot. Once again we prepared ourselves to leave in the morning.

And before I go.... some birds. :)

A heron that had made it's home on the dock we were in. Seriously, this bird had attitude!

And last but not least, another magnificent pelican, one of the many, many in the harbour that would wait patiently for the amateur fishermen to come in and clean up their catch across the harbour from us and toss the scraps to the waiting maws.

Never leave on a strong wind warning!

Okay.... so here was my 24 hours from 9am Wednesday, July 2nd to 9am Thursday, July 3rd....

9am, eat breakfast (crumpets with cheesybite). After a little discussion we made the decision to leave. There is a strong wind warning but it seems as though the wind will be from behind. Unfortunately the waves and swell made the strong winds 10 times worse.

10am leave Lakes Entrance. The water is a rough, rolling, lots of swell, the boat is rocking and lurching, it's fairly windy. Sails up for the next 26 hours.
 
10.15, take Kwells sea sick pill
 
10.30 ..... run downstairs to the toilet and vomit
 
Have a cup of tea, grab the bucket that's tied to the back of the boat.... vomit. That bucket will be my close companion for the remainder of the journey.

Vomit again, go and lie down for a few hours. It's now 11.30am.
 
Up at 2pm, vomit 2 more times throughout the afternoon
 
Afraid to eat now so sip water.... vomit.
 
5pm, Dave's getting tired so he goes to lie down ready for his watch. He should be up at around midnight or so.

I bid him goodnight by vomiting.
 
I eat some dry crackers, take Kwells, take a No Doz
 
Within 5 minutes I vomit again and then yet again a little later. So much for Kwells. Then I vomit once more for luck.

Dave gets up at 7.30 as the wind has changed and it's getting rougher... he can't sleep so he empties my bucket and joins me in the cockpit. I vomit.

8pm, I have developed the shakes, am feeling completely shattered and, at Dave's prompting and reassurance that he'll be fine, I go back to bed and vomit

5am I get up because I know that Dave must be exhausted. He takes one look at me and orders me back to bed. I have a splitting headache (most likely caused by dehydration) so take panadol with a sip of water, hoping it'll stay down.... it does and I do as I'm told and go back to bed.

Up at 8.30am and fine now that the weather has calmed and it's daylight.

By 9am, I feel fine.

It was an 11 vomit journey, a record for me so far. 


Poor Dave had been at the helm all night and almost all of the previous day, setting his alarm for every 15 minutes so that he didn't sleep but could doze a little. He was exhausted when I eventually got up but wouldn't go and lie down so he dozed in the cockpit for a little while, then would get up, tweak stuff and not settle. Eventually the wind dropped away to almost nothing, the seas calmed and the sails came down and engine turned on. I then ordered him downstairs and into bed. He stayed for a little while.


Seriously, I never want to sail when there is a strong wind warning, especially when it is going to be through Bass Strait, one of the most notorious pieces of water in the country. I NEVER want to break that record again.

Location: Eden NSW, Australia
GoogleMaps | GooglePlus Local

Early morning in Paynesville

A big bunch of birds went by the end of the dock this morning.  This is a short clip off the end of the video I took as they headed out into Lake King. 

I'd post a whole lot more but we're bandwidth poor :-( 

An update from Paynesville

Venture in Paynesville. 
You can see the Motor Yacht club in the background which
houses the great facilities.  The marina was built and is managed by the
Gippslands Lakes Shire Council and they are doing a brilliant job. 
Thanks Leasa!

We managed to find a nice spot to hang in Paynesville at the Slip Bight Marina while I worked on the vulnerability assessment (VA) for CQR.  While I was doing that I also took time to work on the engine a bit more..

I did an oil change (including the oil filter) at Lakes just after we arrived.  That all seemed to go well but when we moved to Paynesville, we found that we had a major oil leak (like around 2 litres per hour).  I could see a lot of oil on the starboard side of the motor but couldn't locate the spot the oil was coming from so I got in contact with a local marine diesel mechanic (Mat Henery), recommended by another sailor here, and had him come down to take a look. He also had trouble locating the leak so we decided together that we needed to remove some bits so we could see what was happening.

So the next day, I took the exhaust manifold off and removed the oil cooler.  Sounds easy eh..  Anyway, I could see lots of oil around the oil cooler and it was starting to look like we'd found the leak.  It turns out that when I changed the oil filter in Lakes, I had damaged the oil cooler..   Also, the mechanic found a blanking plate on the motor behind the oil cooler that was loose and also weeping.

It's a design flaw IMHO.  The oil cooler sits unsupported except for some hoses above the oil filter and below the exhaust manifold.  The gap is small and the oil cooler actually rests on the oil filter.  To spin the filter off, I've always had to lever the oil cooler up a bit with a screw driver while with my other two hands, spin the filter off.  This time I'd managed to damage a brazed joint on the oil cooler with the screw driver.  

Damaged oil cooler jammed in above the filter.
You can't see the damage in this view as it's behind the cooler.

 
When I took the manifold off, I also found that the weld at the back had failed again and it was leaking exhaust gas into the boat.  Luckily, that break must be quite new as I've been keeping an eye on it since it failed in Pittwater last year.  I even put new batteries in the carbon monoxide detector a few months ago!

Mat took the oil cooler and manifold away to get them fixed and I carried on with the pen test.

A few days later, I had finished the VA and Mat was back with the parts.  The oil cooler had been completely rebuilt with both end caps removed, the leaks fixed and brazed back on.  The manifold also had a nice new weld with some substantial filletting this time to add some strength.

New weld on the back of the exhaust manifold. 
The fillet is a lot bigger this time so I'm hoping it will last a bit longer.

He also brought a remote oil filter kit.  This is a fitting that screws onto the housing on the engine that normally takes the oil filter with some pipes that carry the oil to a new housing attached to the starboard bulkhead instead of the motor.  So now, I can use standard Ford oil filters (a whole lot cheaper than the westerbeke ones) and I don't have to prise the oil cooler up to change the filter anymore!  Bonus!

The remote oil filter mounted on the Starboard bulkhead.

The next job was cleaning the oil out of the bilge.  Not a nice job at all.  We ended up (including the pump out, rinse and repeat cycles) giving Mat something like 20 litres of horrible brown sludgy stuff to take away and dispose of.  The bilge is now quite clean (relatively speaking) and we won't be leaving a film of oil everywhere we go!  Another bonus!

Anyhow, we put it all together yesterday and fired the motor up again.  After some hiccups with air locks in the fresh water side, it ran up to temp nicely and sounds pretty sweet with no leaks that we can see!

Repaired oil cooler in place.  You can see a piece of rubber placed between the
cooler and the oil filter housing to prevent wear on the cooler (Mat's idea)
And the filter has been replaced with the remote filter kit.

The last job was to replace the old oil soaker pillows under the motor with some new ones so we can see if it is still leaking in the future.

All in all, a most productive couple of weeks.  I can't recommend Mat (the mechanic) too highly.  He went above and beyond to help us out and really came through with the welding, the oil cooler re-build and finding the remote oil filter kit.

Mat Henery of Henerys Automotive, Truck and Marine.  Give him a ring if you're in the Gippsland Lakes area with engine trouble!

Stop press:  I just got another call from CQR and there's another little job I have to do before we can leave.  It works out pretty well though as we don't have a weather window to leave until after Tuesday next week so as long as I can finish it over the weekend, it won't hold us up at all.  In fact, we might just hire a car and check out the snow up in the mountains before we leave :-)

Terry is in the middle of a much bigger (and probably better) post about our adventures in the lakes too BTW..