Checking up on the seagull
Miss Molly 4
Bob & Peggy Wilkerson/Geoff & Merel Pettifer
Sat 23 Apr 2011 00:56
153:08.76 E
Hello all,
How things changed after we sent off the last blog entry! First we had to round the notorious Point Kongoro. Lots of counter current and what with the wind on the nose! It's not often that you see Miss Molly do barely 4 knots! It was painfully slow, the painful bit being the sawing through the short, steep waves. We read on the charts that this counter current could be up to 4 knots - gulp! There was a smaller sailboat just ahead of us and it took us hours to overtake it. The lightning kept coming closer but stayed well outside the borders of crossing our comfort zone. It was actually quite spectacular. It was mostly whole cloud chains or parts of it lighting up with only the odd branch coming down to water level.
And then, on passing Kangoro Point, the wind changed to the Southwest and we could sail! That improved both boat speed and morale. Coff's Harbour was getting near around 4 a.m. Difficult to make a decision on whether to stop or carry on to Surfers Paradise/Gold Coast, or as we call it: the Coast of Bling. Too many gin palaces and jet skis there! We do not want to be in a marina there, way too "blingy" for us. The only option there would be a small anchorage, which during this holiday weekend might be overcrowded. And that's how we decided to pull into Coff's Harbour anchorage in the middle of the night and went to bed for a few hours until morning came and we could pull into the better protection of the marina. We have stopped here on our way South and that was when a seagull managed to fly into our rigging. It took him hours to recover from that!. So now we are looking everywhere for a seagull with a limp in its right wing. It is a lovely day out here so we are not going to spend it sleeping the day away. Miss Molly has already had her hose down and we had a shower too. Time to stock up on some freshies now in our last port of call in New South Wales!
Cheers from your crew,
Geoff & Merel