Making our way north

Here it is mid February and we are late making our way north to Brisbane and on to Bundaberg to work on CYAN.

We spent almost 2 weeks in Broken Bay, a breathtakingly beautiful area 1/2 day north of Sydney, waiting for elusive winds from the south to blow us on northwards. We decided to knock ourselves out cleaning and re-oiling ALL THE INTERIOR TEAK WALLS and cabinets. It turned out to be a huge job and we went through lots of Nuprin feeling all of our years and then some! It looks like new from the inside now, with new rugs and decorator cushions. We sorta miss that ole smell of mildew, tho!!! We just need to work up that same fury on the exterior next month when we need to renovate the teak and wax the fiberglass!

We set out from Broken Bay with some good south wind on Feb 10 and made it as far as Port Stephens Bay, getting only 80 miles north of Sydney. These southern gift winds were part of a monster high pressure system near Tasmania that dryed out Melbourne and encouraged those fires in South Australia you made have heard about. The fires left many homeless and even killed over 200 people. This system whipped up a series of lowpressure systems off the eastern coast, where we are in New South Wales. Each low had a clockwise circular flow and an eye like a small cyclone. These lows have been happening for the last seven days we have been waiting. We have seen loads of rain and roaring winds continously from 20 to 35 knots in this protected bay and they were over 50 knots off shore as this photo shows in the orange areas. One gale warning after another and many flood warnings. This shows the low after it had moved away from the coast.

CYAN was anchored well and rode it all out with several other boats in Salamander Bay and we made many good friends as well as seeing some old cruiser friends, Three Ships and Allaban. We can't complain about the fun we had passing the time. There was a good little mall near by, nice walks, a wonderful marina...it was one of our favorite stops. We were invited to a yacht club as honored guests for dinner by new friends, David and Lannie on Gypsie Lee. We also met George on Thalia 11 who at 76 is still single handing after making a circumnavigation in '94.

I included the photos below to show what we do to kill time while waiting for weather...laundry, shopping, downloading, sewing, refueling, and of course by-passing the leaking hot water heater. That's one more thing to buy when we get to Bundy in March.

Looks like Thursday, the 19th will be good to go all the way to the Gold Coast Seaway and on to Manly off Brisbane. Should take us 3-4 days...about 350 miles but some of it takes waiting for the right tides to go through the shallows inside the seaway.

At least we have predicted winds from the south even if there are showers included. They just come with the package. We will post more updates later...all this is just day-to-day cruising life but it's what's happening in our lives and actually we are having a great time even if it's not the expected schedule!!