Another lighthouse moment

We are now in Sydney Harbour and it's 10.30 on New Year's Eve morning. Once again we've anchored in what we hope will be a prime spot in Farm Cove, next to the Opera House, for tonight's fireworks.

We were sorry to leave Pittwater, though. It's such a pretty and diverse area with quiet backwaters and bush trails at one end and a full-on yachting centre at the other. Our last day was spent at anchor just inside Barrenjoey Head and Palm Beach (where the TV series, 'Home and Away' is filmed). We climbed up to the lighthouse and then had fun swimming in the fairly substantial surf.

Looking south over Palm Beach towards Pittwater 

Christmas and Boxing Day

Christmas Day aboard Maunie was a very sociable time - we had Adam & Cindi and Kerry aboard so the table extension in the pilothouse was set up and was soon loaded with some lovely food and drink. Perhaps thankfully, the weather was cloudy and cool so we thoroughly enjoyed the day without overheating The food element was, of course, a bit different from the traditional British turkey and sprouts:.

Sling another prawn on the barbie

Always rely on local skills - Kerry in charge of the barbie whilst Di, in the cabin, looks after the drinks

At the lunch table

Pavlova and Di's orange and almond cake for pudding

After all this, Boxing Day was a complete contrast. We took the bus down to Manly, at the north end of Sydney Harbour, and walked up to the cliffs of North Head to watch the start of the Sydney Hobart race.

A big crowd assembles 

Adam gets the Big Lens out whilst Di and Cindi share a joke about focal length

The conditions for the race start were pretty gentle so we had plenty of time to watch the big fleet tack out of the harbour.

And they're off..

The black sailed maxi racers soon left the rest of the boats

A race-changing moment - Wild Oats (with the Audi logo) is on port tack so has to give way to Comanche...

Wild Oats tacks right in front of Comanche

The tack is completed but Comanche raises a protest, saying she had to take avoiding action. At the end of the race (which smashed the record by 5 hours), Wild Oats was 35 minutes ahead of Comanche but the protest committee upheld the protest and penalised Wild Oats by 1 hour, handing line honours to Comanche.

The Clipper round-the-world fleet took part

A fun day was had by all

Merry Christmas!

Wishing you a very Merry Christmas from Pittwater. We're staying here for Christmas Day and then will get the bus down to Manly (in the NE corner for Sydney Harbour) on Boxing Day morning to watch the start of the Sydney - Hobart race from up on the cliffs of North Head.

It has been really hot here but Christmas Eve sees the arrival of what's known as a southerly change - the winds from the south are cooler, will bring some rain and we could get some pretty strong wind overnight. A sociable day is planned for tomorrow, though!

Well do a proper update again soon but, in the meantime, from the both of us:

Graham & Dianne 

A sunny video

If you are missing the sunshine at the moment, here's a little video of our passage from Newcastle to Broken Bay (just north of Sydney), taken a couple of days ago:

The Kindness of Strangers and Things That Go Bump In The Night

It's been a busy couple of weeks so here's a bit of a catch-up on life aboard Maunie. When we last wrote we were enjoying Port Stephens, with lovely, sheltered anchorages such as Fame Cove to explore:

We motored round to a little seaside township called Lemon Tree Passage where we joined in a very convivial BBQ with several local yachties and new-found friends Michael and Annick from the German yacht, Lucie. As we have found elsewhere in Australia, the locals are really friendly and eager to help in any way they can but we nearly had to call on that help a day or two later.

Watching the forecast, we decided to sail some 37nm down the coast to Newcastle on Thursday. Newcastle, unlike its namesake in the north east of England, is still a huge port exporting coal but, since the closure of the big steelworks in the early 90's, it has, like its namesake, had to re-invent itself. Once-redundant dockyards have been re-developed with bars, restaurants and apartments and it is becoming quite a trendy city in which to live. The mix of the new developments and the busy port sounded quite appealing after the serenity of Port Stephens but the clincher was the Hunter River on which it lies or, more specifically, the Hunter Valley wine region about an hour's drive inland.

We found on-line the last two seats on a minibus tour of the wineries, leaving Newcastle on Saturday morning, so booked them, thinking (wrongly as luck would have it) that we'd easily get a space in the 180 berth Yacht Club marina. Unfortunately there happened to be a racing regatta that weekend so we were told, firmly, that the place was full. Bugger! We couldn't find an alternative berth and, not wanting to leave Maunie at anchor in the fast current of the river whilst we did the wine tour, we asked our new-found friends from the BBQ if they had any local knowledge. Well, they sprang into action but couldn't confirm anywhere safe but we were offered the loan of a car (probably not a great idea after a wine tour!) and even a lift there and back! Such generosity was overwhelming, particularly when our little problem wasn't exactly a life and death situation. Far more serious, in Graham's view.

However, some more searching on the web suggested a possible but long-shot solution for a berth for Maunie; we read that there was a small, two-boat pontoon on the waterfront that was managed by the Maritime Museum and that it might just be possible to rent a space on it. Simple, we thought, let's phone the museum but, no, the phone rang unanswered, the emails bounced back and the website wouldn't work. Bugger, again! Di then had a stroke of genius: we used Google Street View to find the name of a bar just opposite the museum and she phoned it, talked to Brendan the manager and he kindly offered to walk over and give them a message. It turned out the museum's phone and internet system had failed but one of their kind folk phoned us on their mobile and, voila, we had a berth! 

Maunie's exclusive downtown pontoon, with bars and restaurants just to the right of the photo. Of course we went for a meal in Brendan's bar, Dockyard, and introduced ourselves to him

We had some time to explore the town and walk out to the headland overlooking the port entrance and really liked Newcastle.

One of the huge (up to 800ft) coal carriers leaving the port

The oldest NSW lighthouse (1853), with the newer port watchtower behind it, at Nobby's Head

Looking back from the lighthouse to the city. Nobby's Head was once an island so this is all a man-made causeway, built in the 1800's by convict labour

We sampled the delights of a Sydney icon, now with a branch in Newcastle. Harry's Cafe de Wheels is a converted tram-car serving a particularly Australian delicacy....

.... meat pies topped with a thick dollop of mushy peas, finished with a ladle of gloopy gravy. Cordon Bleu it isn't but tasty and filling all the same.

The ships (about two or three per day) coming in to the port were met by a helicopter which landed on their huge decks to deliver the river pilot, who would guide them in to the tricky entrance, and then three or four hugely powerful tugs would shoulder against the massive vessels to guide them to their designated loading berths. As the tugs returned to their moorings, just opposite Maunie, they would occasionally show off their amazing dual-drive propulsion systems that would allow them to spin on the spot:

The tugboat equivalent of doing donuts

Little did we realise that we would later be cursing some of these tugs... More on this below.

Meanwhile Graham was delighted to find a brilliant display of Porsches, past and present, outside the Newcastle Museum, organised by the local dealership and owners' club.

An immaculate 356 with 1970's 911 behind

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This one was a bit of a tear-jerker. The 968 was the last front-engine Porsche and we had one, a rare 1994 Club Sport in bright yellow, for about six years. Graham still misses it! 

Anyway, the real reason for our visit, the Hunter Valley wine tour, took place on Saturday and was excellent. Four wineries, from the huge McGuigan to the tiny Macquariedale Organic Wines, were visited with around 30 wines sampled. Plus there was a visit to a chocolate shop, a cheese and wine pairing session and a lunch at a craft brewery, with beer tasting, of course. Ish was a nabshulely magnifishunt day!

Di adopting the tasting position at Ridge View winery

The Macquariedale Winery

Matilda Bay Brewhouse menu

There had to be a downside to all this fun, unfortunately. At 4.00am on the Monday morning we were awoken to Maunie being tossed about like a toy boat - a huge wake from a tug in far too much of a hurry to return to his mooring had us roll and crash against the pontoon, in spite of our fenders. Quite an alarming way to be woken, it must be said. A phone call and email to the Port Manager responsible for all the tugs (at a company called Svitzer) resulted in a long letter of apology, telling us that he had forwarded our email to all 107 crew members in his team and that several of his skippers had responded in dismay on reading it. Hopefully no other yachts will suffer the same experience as a result and, thankfully, there was no major damage done to Maunie.

We have now moved on to Broken Bay where we have experienced the hottest temperatures of the voyage since we left England - close to 40 degrees C. We're in great company with Adam and Cindi aboard Bravo and will be in this lovely area up until Christmas.

Day-sails down the NSW coast

When we first sailed in these waters, a year ago, we were in a bit of a hurry to get south to Sydney so we did some long, overnight passages to cover the miles quickly. This year we decided to try to cover it in more relaxed and manageable day-sail chunks, partly for comfort, partly to see the coastline and partly because of the weather. We chatted to a semi-retired professional fisherman the other day and he told us that the weather patterns are becoming increasingly unusual (how many times have we been told that on our voyage?); the normal summer north-easterlies haven't become established yet this season and the south-going East Australia Current is much closer inshore than normal. 

We've certainly experienced some very light winds, which tend to die away to nothing at night (another reason not to do overnight sails) so we've spent time in some interesting places waiting for wind.

Port Macquarie was one such spot. A thriving holiday town on the mouth of the Hastings River, Port, as it's known, has a little marina which allowed us to replenish water, fuel and food but we really enjoyed the quiet anchorage up the river.

A photo of our chart-plotter - Port Macquarie is at the bottom of the picture and Maunie's river anchorage is top-left.

We were surprised to see this 125ft dredger being towed up river past our anchorage. There's quite a substantial shipyard upstream.

We left Port on Monday for the 35nm passage down to Crowdy Head, a tiny man-made harbour that interested us when we first read about it. Captain Cook first sailed past the place on the 11th May 1770 and, depending on which story you prefer, named it either because he saw a large crowd of Aborigines watching the Endeavour from the headland or because he had a crew-member called Charles Crowdy. The bay had a reef projecting northwards from the point so it was used by early European settlers as a relatively safe anchorage but the modern harbour was completed in only 1972.

Our pilot book, published in 2010, warned that there is often a swell surge in the harbour and that the long visitors' pier (visible in the middle of the harbour in the photo above) could be uncomfortable to moor against. However it said that it was sometimes possible to contact the Fishermen's Co-op to secure a berth on the busy fishing boat jetty on the east side.

In seven years, all has changed, we discovered. The fishing fleet (once around 30 trawlers) has gone, the visitors' pier has been condemned as unsafe and the whole place was almost deserted, with just a few holiday homes occupied. The helpful radio operator at the local Marine Rescue centre told us we could moor alongside the new unloading dock (pretty much the only sign of recent investment) and we spent three very comfortable days there, waiting for wind, doing boat jobs and exploring.

The Crowdy Head harbour. Abandoned fisheries co-op to the left, old pier in the middle and practically-empty fishing boat pier to the right

Calm water in the harbour, with just one catamaran for company

The cute Crowdy Head lighthouse, built in 1872

The view down to the harbour

Maunie on the new wharf with expensive holiday homes behind

It was hot in the still air - up to 32 degrees - so Maunie sported her full complement of sunshades.

Sunset with some rain in those clouds

A present from a local fisherman - two delicious Red Snapper

On Thursday the NE wind finally began to show signs of turning up and we had a lovely 77nm sail south to Port Stephens, a huge natural inlet that's bigger than Sydney Harbour but which has no industrial settlements, just a few little holiday towns. The Parasailor flew for about six hours and we picked up a free visitors' mooring in Salamander Bay just before dusk.

Heading into the sunset

Salamander Bay is handy for a big shopping mall so, since there were no shops at Crowdy Head, we did a quick supermarket run then sailed across, in a fairly brisk 23 knot NE, to the wonderfully calm Fame Cove.

We only tow the dinghy in flat water as we have heard too many horror stories of them flipping over in big waves.

Even in such tiny coves, there is a good sailing social life to be had. We went aboard the German HR35 'Lucie' whose owners Michael and Annick we met in the Boat Works when their boat was hauled out next to us. It turned out to be Michael's birthday so we joined them for cake, sparkling wine and a good laugh with more German friends.

There are lots of anchorages to explore in Port Stephens but we are watching the weather with interest. The big high pressure, mentioned in the last update, has stored up a lot of heat inland and further south and there are warnings of big thunderstorms and flooding in the state of Victoria (south of New South Wales) and the lower regions of NSW so we don't know how that might influence the timing of our plans to get to Lake Macquarie and then on to Pittwater.