Down the coast to Sydney

We had a great sail for 4 days and nights down the coast from Brisbane until we hit some strong weather coming from the south and decided to duck into Lake MacQuarie to wait it out. We were just 60 miles north of Sydney and had a nice 4 day rest there meeting locals, walking around town and watching races.

The sailing south along the Australian coast is flukey sailing....there are currents and eddies. Sometimes we hit the southerly current going 2-3 knots and flew and sometimes the wind would come from every direction at some time during the day with lumpy seas to motor into. We had to use the engine about 1/3 the time. It was all quite scenic and the coast was far more covered with mountains and cliffs than we expected. The whole coast is quite shallow for several miles out so the swell is not bad.

We arrived in Sydney on Monday, Dec. 8th, in rain and 25 to 30 knots of wind and anchored right at the famous Opera House in Farm Cove which is more impressive than in photos. This place is very well designed! We just left the dinghy at the pier, ignoring...or conviently overseeing a sign that said "no vessels without permission"...we thought they meant really big boats and not little dinghys!!! Anyway they left it along for several hours while we walked all over town and also got tickets for performances.

We only stayed one night at this anchorage. Lots of ferries zoomed past and sightseeing boats drove all around us while we had sundowners. It was so rocky with the swell from their wakes that we kept spilling our coffee!!!

We changed to another anchorage and then got a nice surprize....an email from the Australian Island Packet Dealer who saw us anchor, looked us up on the net and sent an email for us to call him. We had anchored right in his condo's bay and he swam over to visit with a cooler of beer and invited us to dinner. That's Aussie spirit!!! This is gonna be a great place to visit.

We will soon leave this bay called "The Glebe" to go to Cammeray Marina to our mooring for a month to get settled in. We have work to get done on the boat and routine doctors to see. All part of our time in port.