Thursday 15 January and Wednesday 28 January
Thursday 15 January 2004 your time
Well we have left Sydney and have started our trek north, although the first leg was pretty short, 15 miles to Broken Bay / Hawksbury River area. Parts of the area are National Park and parts are out lying Sydney suburbs. Currently anchored in American Bay, tied to a mooring actually. There are over 100 moorings in this bay and Refuge Bay adjoining it and people have told us to just take one and if the owners show up then just move. So that is what we are doing as over half seem empty each night. Have been told this might change with the coming weekend but we will see. Just seems wild with so many moorings here and so much more relaxed than in the US. Currently gray and rainy so we are trying to catch up a bit with correspondence and refilling the depleted cookie jar. Had a great sail up two days ago in a southerly so made quick work of the 15 miles. Plan to explore and hang out for a week or so before heading further north to the greater Brisbane area where we will leave the boat when we fly home. Still need to organize a marina but have emails out on that.
Wednesday night your time 28 January
Had a good two day trip up to Coff's Harbour, stopped Tuesday to get diesel and explore town for the day. Had dinner and showers then headed out just after midnight for Clarence River to arrive mid-day. Weather still looked good, or so we thought, so we decided to continue on to Southport, another 100 miles. Late afternoon, after about 30 miles, the wind came up out of the NE then the thunder started. They have the most amazing storms here. We had a black, space ship shaped cloud go overhead with baby water spots starting and gusts to 30. After that passed over, there was a towering thunder head just northeast of us that spat lightning bolts and glowed red in the evening sun. That was enough for our nerves and a test of the relationship, We decided to turn tail and run back to shelter at Clarence River. We had to heave to and stand off amongst the fishing fleet for 5 hours till the sun to come up. We've have now taken naps, are cleaning up the boat, and will explore Yamba and Iluka on the Clarence River. We are planning to stay here through tomorrow (Friday our time) then check the weather again. Leaving maybe Saturday maybe Sunday to head out. We have seen more thunder and lighting in the past week than we think we have seen in our entire lives! Take care, Hi to everyone,
love -- Paul and Suzette