Eden and sailing to Jervis Bay
04 March 2024 | Jervis Bay
Jeanette Hay | Beautiful, warm and sunny
After 23 hours (2 flights and two taxis), I finally made it to Eden to join Neil on the boat. We spent the next few days exploring Eden and we also met a nice couple (Marcus and Diana) from Montana, USA. They crossed the Pacific in 2017 and have been cruising since that time. They had sailed from Sydney to Eden and are on their way to Tasmania. They were keen to hear about cruising Tasmania and so we shared tips on places we had been to. We mentioned how we were going out to the newly renovated hotel in Eden for dinner that night and they asked if they could join us. We were happy for them to do that and we picked them up in our dinghy that evening. The historic Australian hotel was beautiful and the effort into renovating it to look authentic was amazing. We enjoyed a lovely dinner eating outside in the courtyard, as it was a lovely night. Weather in Eden has been perfect, warm with blue skies.
The next day, Marcus and Diana invited us over to their boat for coffee and to sample some really nice Italian donuts Diana had made. They were such as interesting couple and both so artistic. I found out that Marcus used to make TV commercials and was a published author of two books and Diana who made a huge, beautiful shell mosaic picture hanging in their boat used to be a pilot. It was a pity we were heading in the opposite directions, but we are hoping we might cross paths again in Queensland, as after Tasmania they are thinking of heading back north later this year up to the Solomon Islands and then to the Philippines. Often Americans (and many others) don’t get Neil’s sense of humour, but Marcus did and so they got on well.
Exploring Eden was great as we went to the lookout to see out over the bay, we did a few walking trails, walked around the townsite, saw a huge monitor lizard, walked to the beach and saw some nice caves and rock walls. Lots of lovely bays for swimming and boating. One thing about Tassie and NSW is how hilly the places are, compared to Perth and a lot of WA. I will be definitely improving my fitness walking up and down all these hills. Each time we went to the shops and town, we had to go up and down a huge hill. I got used to it after a couple of times, even with lugging bags of groceries.
I really like Eden, as it is a pretty place and we had a well-protected anchorage with no roll. However, it was time to head north as soon as we could get a weather window with southerly winds. We tossed around so many ideas of where to head to next. I had about 6 places to stop at before reaching Sydney, but in reality, we had about 3 weeks to get to Sydney to get our flights back to Perth that had been booked. Unfortunately, we have commitments, and we both need to be back in Perth the last week of March. Sticking to timeframes is not easy and was really starting to frustrate us in determining where we would stop before reaching Sydney. Based on seeing that we had one day that we could head north and then the next 7 days the winds would be northerly, and we would have to wait, we had to make a decision to limit our stops. In the end we decided that we would do an overnight passage from Eden to Jervis Bay, missing out on going to Bermagui and Bateman Bay. The day to leave Eden was going to be Saturday and based on Predict Wind the best time to leave was at 5am and we would arrive at Jervis Bay around 5am the next day.
It has been a while since I have done an overnight passage, but I wasn’t too worried, as it was only going to be one night. We woke up at 4:30am and it was time for me to guide the boat between the couple of other boats and the break wall (which was not on the chart plotter) while Neil brought up the anchor and tied it off. It was the first time for me leaving in the dark so close to other boats and trying to see where the gap in the break wall was for us to go through was a little challenging for me. I managed to judge it well and Neil took over just before we went through the gap in the wall, much to my relief.
We headed out the large bay and turned to head north. The first two hours was awesome, as the seas were only 1-1.5m and we had the wind (15-20knots) and a current going with us. We were cruising well going 7-8knots. Then things turned against us and we got into the counter current and the seas quickly turned choppy and they were 2-3m. We had wind against tide situation. It is the East Australian current which goes south to bring warm water down the coast. It can run at 1-3 knots. You try to avoid it as best as you can. We were reasonably close to shore, a few miles out, as the current strength was supposed to be less, closer to shore. The further we went north the sea state got worse. The boat bounced and rolled from side to side, and I ended up feeling really seasick. The wind and sea state were making it hard sailing as Neil had to keep changing the sailing direction and we constantly were trimming the sails. The sea waves on Predict Wind said they were supposed to be only 1-1.5m and the current, was supposed to be less that a knot, but it turned out to be different. Normally when we are doing a passage, we do a 2 hour on and off shift at night and Neil sets the sails and gives me instructions of what to do during my 2 hours, but in this situation the sailing conditions were constantly changing and one time within 20 mins we had a 180-degree wind shift. This meant that neither Neil nor I could have time off to sleep 2 hours. I set a timer for 20 minutes and basically all night every 20 minutes I woke Neil to check the helm and we both did the sail changes together, as every 20 minutes changes needed to be made. I was still feeling so seasick, and I had barely eaten or drank anything. The last 5 hours of the passage the wind died, but the sea state was still 2-3m seas and that made the boat roll worse, since the sails were not doing anything to balance the boat. We had to put the motor on to create some movement. The boat pitched and rolled, but on a positive note Neil had worked on a new way of tying the dinghy so it wouldn’t move in rolling seas and his method was working as the dinghy was still. It was around 5am when we reached the entrance of Jervis Bay. It is a huge bay and we knew there was an anchorage right at the other end of the bay, so we headed there still in the dark, as the sun was not up and there was full cloud cover. It was a pity that the whole night the cloud cover was thick, as it was supposed to be almost a full moon and we didn’t get any light from it. Sailing when you can see the moon and stars is always a treat. Once we anchored, Neil had a shower and went straight to bed. I was still feeling sick, but also was feeling hungry and I thought maybe something warm in my stomach would help before I crashed on the bed. I heated up some left-over pasta and then went to bed. We both slept for a couple of hours. Once up, we then had to work out where was the best place to be in this bay, as there is a gale warning for tonight with strong southerly winds overnight. We ended up deciding that The Hole in The Wall anchorage at the south end of the bay looked the best place to be in southerly winds and so we set sail the 8 miles south across the bay and anchored in a beautiful spot, where there are 6 other cruising boats obviously thinking this will be the best place for tonight’s big blow. What a glorious day the weather is today, a bit like the calm before the storm. We had lunch quickly, put on our bathers and then jumped in the dinghy to go to shore. We walked up one of the trails through the forest and then went for a walk along the beach. I even (after a few squeals of it’s cold) went in the water for a dip and Neil went up to his knees. It is certainly much warmer than Tassie and probably about 22-24 degrees, so it wasn’t that cold once you got in. What a pleasant start to our time here, as we will be here for at least a week waiting for the next weather window to head north. We were even greeted today with a pod of dolphins swimming with us on our bow as we sailed across the bay and more dolphins swimming around our boat at sunset. Lots of wildlife, national park trails through forests, beautiful beaches and a number of small towns scattered around this bay to explore. There is also supposedly the beach with the world’s whitest sand here, so I am looking forward to checking that out.