30:19S 153:09E

Around the world with the Aqualunies
Jonathan & Gabrielle Lyne
Sat 5 Mar 2011 06:45
COFFS HARBOUR, NEW SOUTH WALES, AUSTRALIA Saturday 5th March, 2011

We are storm bound in Coffs Harbour as a 'Southerly Buster' blows, pushing up a huge sea. We arrived in the harbour bay late last night and had a very rolley night at anchor. At 9 am this morning we managed to get a berth tucked inside the marina. Quite interesting coming along side the pontoon as the southerly was blowing us right on to it, but Jonathan's skill came to the fore and we managed, after a 2nd go, to drift (at least not quite drift it was fast) down on to it, I jumped down to cleat up the warps and try to push the yacht off the pontoon a bit, as despite the fenders being in the water they were still being pushed up by the pressure of the yacht. We will sit here until things dissipate, but hopefully it will go down to 20 knots SE which will give us a nice sail up to Brisbane. It has rained nearly all summer up here the ground is sodden but at least it is warm. We had a bit of a slow sail up as far as here as there was a current of 1.8 knots against us even though we kept in close to the coast. Because we were late leaving Sydney we are doing some overnight sailing up the coast.

We had a great time in Sydney. The first night we met up with three sets of old friends for dinner (they were away over Christmas so didn't see them then), the following night we went to a friend's house for dinner and then we decided to stay on one more night as we met some fellow Royal Cruising Yacht Club members and organised to get together for dinner which was fun. BANG went the diet.

Coffs Harbour is small and because of the rain quiet, some good seafood restaurants though. We caught lots of Tuna coming up the coast so I have suggested to Jonathan we eat on board tonight.