Report Number 4

Well! Things went as planned for our departure from the Lake. We left the lake itself on Thursday, booking ourselves a 5pm opening for the bridge. It turned out that we were the only boat at that time, so ALL the traffic on the Pacific Highway stopped at 5pm Thursday JUST FOR US!!!!! We tied up to a public mooring just on the ocean side of the bridge and stayed until Friday morning when we shot out of bed at 6.40 and were on our way at 6.55. Bar was calm with no waves and little swell, but the ocean had a bit of a swell to the NW, about 1.5 to 2 metres. As we went along, the swell got a bit bigger, and shifted to the North. This would have been great if NSW had a straight coast line, but unfortunately we had to move a lot to the East as well as North, with the result that we had the swell coming at us from 45 or 90 degrees for the trip. This made it fun, but a little uncomfortable as we rolled and pitched our way along. Not too bad, though, the most we rolled was around 15 degrees - not enough to spill the Chardonnay,but only because it was too early to drink! Arrived at Port Stephens around 1.30, and moored at the public moorings outside the breakwater at Nelson Bay at 2.15. Tired, so just rested for a while before Warwick started work on the fourth report and the genset which has started giving us problems.

Weather ecame unpleasant overnight, with heavy continuous rain. Genset now OK. We took dinghy in to shore, looked around, did a little shopping. Spent rest of day reading, learning to splice and watching the activity on the water. Sunday the inclement weather continued, so we goofed off all morning and may leave the lovely Port Stephens in the next day or so and explore it thoroughly on our way back.

Love

Warwick and Karen