Time and tides, it is said, wait for no one. They are out of our control. We cannot affect them in any way.
We have been at Batemans Bay for five days now and the tide has certainly been a theme for us!

We came into the Bay on Thursday morning. It was a lovely, still, blue-sky day. After we crossed the infamous 'bar' - the shifting sandbank that builds at the edge of the channel that the river flows through, we were greeted by the fellows at the marine rescue base, all waving cheerily to us, and by a couple filming us on their ipad. (BTW - If you are reading this we would LOVE to see the footage!) We had come in with the last hour of the incoming tide so that we had the depth we needed to cross the bar and the flow of the tide to assist us as we motored up the river.
Then as we progressed along the river bank and into the town we were waved at by loads of friendly people - some locals no doubt and some on holidays. We caught a glimpse of the approaching jetty that we were to tie up at until Paul, the moorings manager, came by to show us which mooring he had prepared for us. We were motoring along quite nicely, happy to have arrived.

The jetty lay before us. Erina and I had ropes ready and Peter began manoeuvring us in to position. The jetty got almost close enough to throw a rope, but then we drifted diagonally away. Wham. The bow sprit hit the jetty as we swung around amidst echoes of San Remo and the tide race there. Suddenly we realised - this river has a tide that flows strongly - and we hadn't taken it into account at all.

There was a man standing on the jetty as we pulled in, later he introduced himself as Brian. He caught a rope for us as we made our first attempt at tying up, before the bow-sprit hit the jetty. He helped push it back off for us. It was thanks to him that we did no damage. Then Peter realised what was happening and that to come alongside successfully we would need to turn into the tide and let the tide push us on to the jetty instead of trying to motor against the tide.

We pulled out, motored a little further down, turned and came alongside nicely. Within moments the ropes were on and we were done.
Tides, we said - got to learn to handle these tides!

That was on Thursday. On Friday we were shown where our mooring would be. A little further back up the river, on the café strip. It would be very close to the shore, which was good as we have been having problems with our outboard motor since Emu Bay in South Australia and while we knew what was wrong - the problem was with the prop - we have yet to be anywhere long enough to get a new one sent to us. We spent some time chatting to people who came down to the jetty to look at the boat and then, after lunch, organised ourselves to go and pick up the mooring.

We discussed the little bit of wind that was blowing and that it shouldn't hamper our capacity to get close to, and then pick up, the mooring buoy and we set off. We pulled into the tide without much difficulty and headed over. We were soon approaching the buoy - Liam and I readying ourselves to reach down and hook it up with the boat hooks, Erina between Peter and us to relay any instructions to each other as we got close. Not realising that Peter had a moment when he could no longer see the buoy Liam and I watched as Peter turned just too far from the buoy for us to reach, too late for us to let him know we wouldn't be able to reach it. We would need to come in for a second attempt. This time at least we knew that Peter was going to be relying on us to let him know if he was close once the buoy went out of his field of vision. But alas, once again we were just too far off it to be able to pick it up on the boat hooks.

Needless to say we were feeling a little exasperated. Peter with us for not picking up the buoy, us with Peter for not getting us close enough! In reality we should all have been unhappy with the tide which we soon discovered was our real adversary!

We came in for our third attempt. We were all ready. Liam and I poised with the boat hooks, Erina ready to relay messages, Peter trying his hardest to get us as close as possible - when a tour boat started honking at us loudly to get out of the way. We were so focussed on the task at hand we'd barely even seen him in the distance - or noticed as he came towards us so quickly. To get out of his way Peter swung slightly more widely than he'd intended and then to our horror the momentum generated by our movement and the other boat's wake pushed us closer to the river bank and with the inevitable thud we felt, we realised we had hit the bottom!

Oh joy!

We tried reversing quickly. Nothing. We tried rocking the boat. Nothing. We were stuck fast in moments.
Right outside all the café's still full from lunch time. Jovially I announced that the Argos Show was on for the diners entertainment but we all felt very far from entertained ourselves.

We've been in this situation before - 2000 nautical miles ago. We weren't as scared as we might have been in the past. These days we know stuff happens. We don't have to feel embarrassed or ashamed. And we don't have to wait for a passer-by to offer assistance. We immediately called sea-rescue to see if they could assist with a tow. They were happy to do so, knowing that the longer we stayed on the mud the harder it would be to get off, and even waiting for the high tide might not free us as the mud can cause a suction. They advised us it would be about ten minutes till they could get the loat launched and on their way. We thanked them profusely and tried the engine again. Still no movement. Then Peter remembered the mooring manager, who had taken him to see the mooring in his powerful boat. Peter recalled him saying he spent most of his day in the boat doing this and that. We called him and he said he was already nearby and could be with us sooner. We let sea rescue know that we might be fine. They decided to be on standby in case we needed further assistance. Relief began to develop immediately!

Paul was soon alongside us and grabbing a hold of our tow rope. What a wonderful piece of equipment that has been for us - definitely something to not leave home without!
Paul very easily had us out of the mud within seconds and then helped us to pick up the mooring buoy and passed it to us. Within just a few minutes the whole thing was done. The sea rescue fellows had decided to come out anyway, so they would be on hand should we need them, which was lovely - what a wonderful thing they do - but they weren't needed and turned around, amidst cries of thanks, and headed back to their own mooring. Paul then also headed back and we sat down, relieved and thankful that help had been so quickly available. The whole thing had taken only about ten minutes.

It was, we realised as we discussed all that had gone wrong, the tide that was the cause of our problem. The tide was pushing us away from the mooring buoy every time we came close - it wasn't just that we were out of practice - the tide was making it harder.
'We've got to learn to take tide flow into account more,' we agreed as we finished up our de-brief.

Yesterday we had more practice with tides!
Liam, Erina and I had gone shopping in town. We rowed ourselves over in the dinghy and tied it up at the jetty that is nearest to our mooring. We did fine. No dramas at all! The shopping done we walked back to the dinghy which was still tied up just where we had left it, all good. We climbed in and pushed ourselves and the bread, milk and lamb chops off. Argos wasn't far away and while the tide flow was very visible and I'd told Erina that we could row against it quite ok - well I was wrong! Argos wasn't getting any closer despite our urgent rowing. In fact, before long both Argos and the jetty were getting further away from us. We hastily tried our hardest to get back to the jetty, pulling out all stops and with relief Liam was able to grab on as Erina and I kept rowing. We pulled ourselves back and with pounding hearts tied the dinghy back up. We climbed the stairs and slumped onto the bench placed at the end of the jetty for people to sit and watch the water and decided that we would just have to wait for the tide to diminish. The water was still flowing very fast and we marvelled at our capacity to get ourselves back.

Peter must have looked then and seen us at the jetty. Not realising that we had tried to row across and failed abysmally, he was perplexed as to why we were just sitting there! We could just hear him and he us, if we yelled, so we tried to explain. He seemed to understand something and decided to try throwing out a line, tied to a floating buoy, attached at its other end to Argos, which we could grab as it floated along with the tide, and then then pull ourselves back. It was a great idea, but even if we got back into the dinghy so we could get a little further out into the river (as far as the dinghy rope would go - I wasn't untying us!) we still could not reach it. The current seemed to swirl towards then quite well away from the jetty making the manoeuver impossible.
We sat back down. We would simply wait for the tide to ebb as it approached its end, and then as it slowed down we would be fine. I signalled to Peter that we would simply wait.

While waiting I decided to call the people who were trying to locate a new prop for our outboard motor - thinking all the time that it was only the outboard that was causing us to have a problem.
The man at the marine shop explained that he had been trying all day to contact a supplier for us to no avail. In our conversation I mentioned how much we were in need of the motor and how we were at that time stranded! He volunteered to come down and collect the broken prop so that he could better determine alternative suppliers.

Shortly after this Peter decided that the only way to get us back - thinking the tide wouldn't turn until 9 pm and it was about 3 pm by then - was for him to swim over with the rope and then tie it to the dinghy and then we could pull ourselves back. Oh what a sight we were!

In the midst of this of course the man from the marine shop appeared and remarked what a hard time we were having! Yes we were!

We did get back to the boat, got the prop for him, returned to the jetty where he was waiting AND back to Argos again - Peter had succeeded in managing it all and we learned yet again that the tide here has a bit of oomph!

The man from the marine shop told us that they had an outboard in the shop that belonged to the owner and maybe he'd loan it to us until ours was sorted. Well that was music to my ears! He returned to the shop, made arrangements and at the end of his working day, dropped it in to us. Oh what a welcome sight he was!

It was lesson time after that - learning how this different motor works - but the end result is that we now have the motor until ours is all good and there will be no more strandings!

We have, I hope, grown now in our understanding of tides and their capacity to exert themselves on us - it seems as if we needed to learn the lessons properly and I hope we now have - I have no doubt that this is just the beginning of our experience with tidal rivers and such - rather than berating ourselves in all this we have simply accepted that this was an area we had need to learn about!