11/9/2017

My medical appointments seemed to go on an on an on. After my physio appointment pain was still very much present in my neck, so I had an MRI, which showed disc protrusion C5/6. So then I required several visits with the chiropractor, who was successful in realigning my body, resulting in resolving my neck pain. Yay. So with this resolved we started making plans to continue cursing south.
Before leaving South Stradbroke we had a lovely visit from my cousin Jo, who I hadn't seen for years. Was so great to see her, not to mention cranking the bubbles open at 11 am and having a lovely lunch, kindly cooked by Gerd, Thai pork & rice followed by cheese cake.
After 6 weeks anchored in Gold Coast waters we lifted anchor on 5th sept. Our exit out of the Gold Coast seaway was uneventful. We had an OK passage to Byron Bay, spotting several pods of whales along the way. Waters were calm, but we had swells 1-1.5m. I had prepared my body 2 days prior to lifting anchor by taking stugeron in prep for motion sickness. I was so pleased I had as the swells weren't nice, however stugeron made them bearable and I wasn't sick. Yay.
The anchorage at Byron Bay is ocean anchorage, hence it was a horrible one. We had done our homework on this anchorage and knew we could be in for a shitty night, the only other option was to do an overnighter, which we opted not too. Come 5am we were pleased to be under passage once again, arriving at Clarence Heads at the right time for the Yamba bar crossing, forth hour of the rising tide. Once again the bar crossing was uneventful, yay. We then motored into Iluka bay. We spent 1 night here, after the previous shitty night we were in bed by 7pm doing catch up. On waking the following morning well rested we were ready to explore the Clarence River.