You little ripper!
29 October 2012 | Coffs Harbour
Hugh
8:30am (Eastern Standard Time) in the midst of a chilly southerly Whippersnapper docked safely in Coffs Harbour International Marina. We've since cleared quarantine, customs, immigration, had a big brekkie at the local yacht club and are generally feeling pretty chuffed to be on home soil. We're back in the land of flat whites (Mike's happy), fresh milk (Hugh's happy) and tonight we're having Coff's famed fish and chips. Sydney is now just a short hop south so it feels like we've the hardest part done!
Mike wrote in his last blog of the challenges with weather on this last passage, being the highest latitudes we've sailed in since the Canary Islands. To be honest it feels like we dodged a bullet, there was only a small gap in the weather and we were the only yacht brave, or foolish enough amongst our friends to leave when we did. It was a wet and wild ride but we didn't get anything above 30 knots, nothing broke and we all enjoyed ourselves. I lie about nothing breaking actually, both shower screens took falling bodies but they'll be easily renewed in Sydney. The famed EAC (east Australian current) never really appeared until we were less than 70 miles from Coffs and we experienced counter currents before then but with all the wind we still had a relatively quick passage.
I think we'll depart here tomorrow morning for a brief stopover in Clareville to see my (Hugh's) family and then we're onto the CYC in Rushcutters Bay for our homecoming drinks on Sat at 3pm… everyone's welcome, hope to see you there!
A quick note to our cruising fraternity, we found the formalities here very quick and easy, though we're to finalise the importation with a broker later on.