May 2006 – Eden to Port Hacking

We have left Eden after two lovely weeks.  We met some fellow yachties and their friends who live in Eden and were treated to home cooked meals and washing machines (hard to imagine how you can get excited over a washing machine).  Eden is a lovely town and we took many opportunities of walking whenever we could.  Lee is, in fact, extremely adept at catching fish and every day we were able to share a bountiful catch. He is also an accomplished musician and had brought his guitar with him which went down well on a few of the beach lunches we had (that lasted well after dark).

Eden beach lunch, afternoon tea, dinner..

After a rainy night - wish we had caught it in the tanks and not the dinghy!

Dinghy bail out

Leaving Eden we headed UP with no specific destination in mind and a good thing too because later in the afternoon the wind died so we turned into Bateman’s Bay.  Bateman’s Bay has a bar (for those of you who are not familiar with a bar - it is a sand bar that can only be crossed at high tide).  The tide was right so in we went without any problems.  Our next few days were spent walking and talking with locals and basically enjoying the fact that we had discovered this friendly town.  But the time came for us to leave and again the Captain judged the bar crossing perfectly, however, the swell had other ideas and yes as the swell dipped so did we and you guessed it, we touched bottom.  Just a bit and not enough to stop us but for those few seconds our hearts were in our mouths.   

Now we are in Jervis Bay.  Jervis is a Marine and National Park (and Naval Base) and has pristine waters, soft white sandy beaches and wonderful park walks.  (Haven't walked so much in my life!).  We have walked miles here – one we did out to the old lighthouse took us nearly two hours but on the way back we found the short-cut!   Oh well, the thighs will be thankful.

Below is a photo of the mooring we are on, taken from the deck of Bluestone (note the flathead hanging around about half way down).

Jervis Bay is quite a popular destination and quite a few boats have come and gone over the time we have been here.

I’m told cruising is boat maintenance in exotic locations".  In this case it's "boat maintenance in tight places".

Anchor repairs in 'tight' spaces

Next stop Sydney - hopefully.

Our sail to Sydney, or should I say Port Hacking, which is the bay BEFORE Port Jackson, Sydney, was lets say – exciting.  We had a following sea (waves breaking behind us), thunder, lightning and a skipper saying “wow, she’s never gone that fast before”.  Gulp…. “OK, I’ve had enough (12hours) and I want to go in NOW”.  The good skipper took pity on me and we anchored safely in Port Hacking for the night before continuing our journey into Sydney harbour.  We didn’t notice anchoring at night that the beach we anchored in front of was a nudist beach!  Discovered that at first light.