With an eye on the weather I went for a morning walk, not fully convinced that we shouldn’t leave this afternoon (rather than early tomorrow) as strong winds were forecast for later Saturday. By the time I returned I had the view (supported by another departing south bound boat) that we should up and go ASAP. By 12:15 we were motoring out against the incoming tidal flow.
The day and the night went reasonably well with NNE winds to about 15 kts max (giving us about 10 kts apparent) and seas around 1.5 to 2 m although a bigger one rolled PILGRIM around every 20 swells or so. With an ETA of 01:00, I elected a 1 hrs rotation so that we both might get a couple of hours off before making port at Nelsons Bay.
The only really notable thing about the night was that it was dark, very dark with no moon and extensive cloud cover. This is not a major drama but does make things just that little bit less comfortable, particularly with a rolly sea and a good deal of traffic about. Of the latter, the AIS and RADAR were both up, as is SOP (Standard Operating Procedures) for PILGRIM at night but by the third watch the RADAR had fallen over and left us almost totally blind. Fortunately the problem was fixed with a cold reset but for this I needed to wait for Paul to wake up as I needed someone at the helm while I attended to the reset, in the meantime I spent the remainder of my watch staring forward into the dark dark night.
On arrival at Port Stephens, it was good (as ever) to be wrapped in that comforting sense of enclosure as we passed the heads of Tomaree and Yakaaba. Following the markers in, we first checked the public wharf for space but finished up on a mooring and by about 03:00, after some ‘post flight’ matters, we were both in our bunks and well and truly ready for a sleep.
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