The Forster Bar

The first coastal bar we ever crossed was at Lakes Entrance. We were nervous to say the least – we had read a lot about it and knew it could be treacherous and only went in because the weather was so calm, the sea flat, and nothing that was likely to cause significant trouble was happening. Even so it was scary! The water was like a washing machine – and with an engine of only 50 HP we felt woefully inadequate for the task! We did only around 2 knot going in, held our breath, but got there!
We didn’t face another bar until Batemans Bay, but the bar there was so benign – and of course we picked the weather carefully, looking again for flat seas and low wind. This was different though, being a sand bar rather than a tidal bar, the issue was more to do with crossing at high tide to ensure sufficient water beneath us.
On Wednesday we sailed from Port Stephens to Forster/ Tuncurry and faced what we had read in the cruising guide was a relatively easy bar. Not so!
We had left Port Stephens allowing a reasonable amount of time for our journey, such that we would be arriving to cross the bar at a time that approached high tide. We had anticipated that we would need sufficient depth. Along the way we made excellent time and were looking to be getting in earlier than anticipated. We made a routine call to marine rescue to advise them of our approaching and checked on the conditions of the bar. They told us the bar was good and that we would have no trouble crossing at our new estimated time of arrival. They ‘updated’ the time of low tide, though later we realised they had not factored in day-light savings time, putting it at an hour out anyway! Once there we were going to tie up at the fisherman’s co-op on the Tuncurry side, who had several vacant spots and were only too happy to accommodate us for a night or two, at $25 a day - we continued on quite happy, not anticipating any difficulties.
Again, not so!
I think if we had had a little more awareness of the conditions of this bar we would have been more cautious. Would have slowed ourselves down and stuck with our later arrival time. If we had known what it was like we would have hovered outside and waited. But knowing nothing of the boiling cauldron we were about to enter, we turned the corner of the breakwall on the port side, as directed by marine rescue, and were instantly confronted with a seething mess that put Lakes Entrance to shame.
Poor old Argos, She handles most things so well, but when it comes to needing just a little oomph she sadly falls a little short!
At one point I whispered to Peter, ‘Where are we going?’ It seemed we were suddenly heading the wrong way. Of course this was an unintentional course shift, as Argos was jerked forcibly by the power of the rushing waters.
We did make it through. It was a little heart stopping and the relief when we were past the messiness was quite palpable.
Getting to a mooring was easy, though the water continue to flow very quickly past us and we were mightily glad we were not going to be anchoring anywhere here!

We read a little more about bars and particularly the Forster bar in anticipation of leaving again! We were pretty keen, as you can imagine, to get the heck out of there!
Our reading helped us to grasp that there are different kinds of bars. The sand bar is the issue with some, where crossing at high tide is important, but with others it is the emptying out of a large volume of water in a short time that represents the hazard – like at Lakes Entrance and ad Forster which is the entrance for the Wallace Lakes system.
What we read indicated that the optimal time to cross a tidal bar was at 2 – 3 hours AFTER high or low tide, when there is, for many, an overflow of water. The tidal has turned, but the water continues to run out. This makes for a calming effect and the best time to negotiate the bar. We watched the evening tide peak arrive and the water continue to ‘boil’. An hour later it was still rushing past us. But after another hour it had calmed considerably and when we walked down and watched the bar it was quite apparent that this would have been the time to arrive!
Armed with this knowledge we prepared for an early departure to coincide with this tidal effect in the morning.
We got up, readied ourselves and Peter went to turn on the engine. Nothing! It wouldn’t even turn over. He checked it out and we sighed. Kaput! Nada! This was just going to be the next thing for us to deal with!
We discussed options. We would miss this opportunity to leave but never mind, we’d deal with that later. At that point what we needed was to find an auto electrician. We still had about half an hour to the time we would have wanted to be going, but there was no chance anyone could come in that time. So we ‘unprepared’ to leave as I made some calls and Peter continued to potter around in the engine room.
I found someone who could come within the hour. Everyone smiled. We could still think of heading out on the next tide!
And then Peter did something, made some adjustment, and the engine started! You’ve got to love a man who can fiddle and fix and make most things work! I quickly called the auto electrician back, we conferred and realised that we could still get out with this tide – that if fact, the delay had put us exactly at the tight time with no sense of, ‘Maybe we could go now, even though it’s not quite the right time’ - yes, Peter does suffer a little from hasty-itis!
We went back to preparing to leave, popped on our life jackets, untied ropes and were away! The tide allowed us to swing around with relative ease, and as we came up to where we could see the bar, it looked unremarkable. And that was of course quite remarkable! ‘Yay’, we all said with the sure knowledge that there would be no repeat of yesterday’s tension!
We were out within minutes. Wiser, better prepared and certainly better equipped for future bar crossings.