It was a relatively easy, uneventful journey to Coffs Harbour and we arrived just before sunset. We snagged the last available pen and just squeezed in next to a big powerboat. After a welcome hot shower, we went to the Coffs Harbour Yacht Club for a quick meal, and then an early night.
With ever changing weather forecasts, we saw another short window the following day (Friday) to get further South - before several days of Southerly weather would set in and delay us potentially for a week. It was important to us where we could tough out the bad weather - Camden Haven is one of those gem places we heard about but missed on the way up because of weather conditions - so we were keen to get here if we could. The forecast for Friday was fairly gentle northerlies with afternoon 15 -20 knot southerly - if we went early we could be most of the way of the 13 hour or so journey in OK conditions - however to get to Camden Haven on a rising tide and daylight conditions for the bar, it meant a 5am start!
The alarm went at 4.30am and we dragged ourselves out of bed by 4.40pm - kettle on, throw on the clothes, check of weather updates, throw off the ropes, and get going. It was calm, dark and we headed south into a very gentle Southerly breeze - if all went well we would make Camden Haven by 5pm.
Yippee - the current kicked in and I could see us getting in early - about 3pm though I didn't want to raise expectations - we had a fair way to go. Damn - the southerly wind started to pick up (in the early morning!) - now we had a strong northerly current pushing against an increasing southerly breeze - a recipe for short, steep slamming waves that were all over the shop! As we neared Hat Head it was tough going - the breeze was 22- 25 knots from the South - add the boat speed of nearly 7 knots and that's 32 knots into short steep seas - the wine and beer was no longer safe! We still had 5 hours to Camden Haven so decision time - we thought best to go to plan B - just get to Port Macquarie (though the Marina here was full so we would have to anchor in the river for 4 or 5 days) Another possibility was simply turn around and travel the 7 hours back to Coffs Harbour - an easier run though the strong current would slow us a lot. Our original plan to get to 'Camden Haven' now looked remote.
We checked bar and general conditions with Marine Rescue Port Macquarie and they said 'all pretty good' - so it seemed if we kept punching through this sea for a few more hours it would eventually get better and we have still made progress. The trouble was while the Marine Rescue guy was asking me all these good questions ('GPS coordinates, speed, ETA, etc) my 'Tilley' hat blew off my head into the ocean. Now that hat was a 50th birthday gift from my mates and it has an emergency $20 note in the lid so no question - we had to do a search, find and recover ('man overboard') procedure. We tore off downwind until there it was - floating lonely in the foaming ocean - Leanne swept it up back into the boat with an extended boathook - thank you, owner and hat reunited - it will make my 60th (though no hurry for that). Leanne tended to her bruises obtained in the process, swore at me a lot and then we decided to keep pushing south. Lesson - let Leanne do the radio tasks as she has always done - she knew he would ask for the info and was well prepared!.
The winds and seas started to ease a little as we neared Port Macquarie - so what's another 2 hours in a long day - we decided to push on to Camden Haven, our original plan. As we headed towards Camden Haven we had the company of a few dolphins to cheer us up, then an amazing sight of the bottle green water in the sun, against the all shades of grey thunderstorm clouds that looked like the were coming off the top of Mt Vesuvius - yep a nice storm brewing and coming our way. It hit us half way across the bay - we had little visibility, some rain but fortunately no hail or lightning. As we neared Camden Haven the storm and skies cleared a little and we had an easy entry across the bar, pushing up the river to our overnight anchorage, finally anchoring around 7 pm. A long hard day....
We have since moved to the Laurieton United Services Club Jetty - its free, offers a 'very basic' toilet and shower, and is very close to shops, pubs, etc. And I don't have to blow up the dinghy again which is clean and nicely packed away for the southern journey. The only dilemma is water depth - at low tide we will be literally sitting on the bottom which is sand...its rained all day so we spent it reading, doing general stuff -and watching and measuring tides and times to make sure it is only just on the bottom and no risk of being lower (otherwise we would have to move) - It all seems OK.
The southerly weather has well and truly set in, we have jumpers on (!!) and we will probably be here until at least Wednesday.