I can Fly!

3rd Jun 2010

The night at Trial Bay was surprisingly comfortable with good holding and just a gentle swell. None the less each time I woke I checked our anchor and at 03:00 I checked the weather on the ‘Iphone’, which had good connectivity. The news was not good with the first of what was to become the Lennox Head ‘cyclone’ starting to show up. With 33 kt winds and heavy rain predicted for late morning I decided to up and go ASAP. This meant a departure in the rain and the inky blackness of the night. Not an easy or pleasant task but I was confident that we had a clear departure course and clear run to Coffs.

The passage went well although wet and cold. Well but for a brief exercise in flying! Not the type that needs a licence but the ‘across the cabin’ type. I was coming up from below when the boat lurched off a swell. This happened to be just between changing hand holds so I travel from the top of the companionway, down and across to the galley, impacting the stove with my full weight. Fortunately no damage to me but for bruising but as we discovered latter, the stainless steel hand hold near the oven had bent and buckled upon impact, so I hit with quite some force. Tough or Lucky?

Also of note on this leg was that just out of trial Bay we were passed by two opposite direction fishing vessels, clearly working hard in these horrible conditions. Makes you appreciate the work these guys do. We also had radio and visual exchanges with a couple of other cruisers due into Coffs at about the same time as us, so the seas were surprisingly crowded for such a miserable day!

Entry to Coffs was fine but for a mix up in berth allocations. I suspect that the ‘marina lady’ was slack and rather than get wet she had a guess. This left us manoeuvring in the tight confines of the marina to find our own berth. Once on I set about the usual post passage cleanup to find some significant cracks in the paint on the upper hull. This could have resulted from our night at the Crowdy Pier but its still a bit of a worry that will need investigation but we have time for that as the weather will keep us here for a few days at least.