The first installment of the chronicle of our passage up the Australian east coast – ultimate destination: the Whitsunday Islands!
We’re making good time. The first couple of days/nights (Thursday 22 May and Friday 23 May) we had a wild time, with the wind south-east to south-west between 15 and 25 knots. We made 180 miles in the first 24 hours, with average boat speeds above 7 knots, and got to Port Macquarie on Saturday morning.
Greg and Ben, my crew for the trip, had a baptism of fire… Both were sea-sick 15 minutes out of Broken Bay. They recovered later in the day but succumbed again as soon as it got dark and they lost visual reference to the horizon. Admittedly, it was pretty daunting conditions. After 4 days of southerly breeze, there was about a 3 meter swell, diagonally across our course. Sunny Spells rolled quite a bit as we were running on a broad reach with the wind on our starboard quarter. Downwind sailing is not her best point of sail! We had a lot of green water across the deck from starboard to port and everything was soon wet down below (this was a disappointment after all the work done to seal the deck hardware…).
I was feeling a bit queasy myself, but enjoyed the thrill of my first offshore passage in Sunny Spells. She was trembling like a thoroughbred as she raced down every swell, getting above hull speed with white water streaming out from the stern. Hour after hour
without let-up…
As it breezed up through the morning I started reefing the main until we were running with two reefs in 20 to 25 knots of true wind. Later in the day the breeze abated to 15 -18 knots and we shook out the reefs to keep pushing on.
The first night watch was not good. I organized us into three one-person watches, with me floating on Ben and Greg’s watches. Suffice to say that I didn’t sleep at all.
It was a relief when my watch started at 4am. I noticed the breeze beginning to average above 15 knots, so Greg and I put two reefs in the main before he went below. Quite a thrill going forward to the mast in the dark while sailing at hull speed with the boat rolling in the swell! I was grateful for the jacklines running the length of the boat and the security of a harness.
Soon the wind was pumping at 24 knots from the south-west and we were flying again. At daybreak, about 10 miles south of Port Macquarie, I was treated to the sight of a pod of dolphins frolicking in the bow wave. They were really active, with one jumping clear of the water and doing a half summersault back in. It made the trials of the night seem trivial…
Crossing the bar into Port Macquarie was nerve wracking! With the heavy swell there was a huge breaking surf on the bar (I wish we’d taken photos!). The coastal radio seemed to think it was okay… We were all on deck in lifejackets and were grateful for the security once we started surfing over the bar with this 5 tonne surfboard and me at the helm shouting “don’t broach, don’t broach!!”
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