We spent another 5 nights at Cammeray, walking miles and miles around Sydney as we tried to redo our gas system, get a new battery for my laptop and pick up another few bits and pieces that we were needing. We got to know the urban villages of Crow’s Nest and Cammeray really well and took trains and buses to large out of town retail parks. We decided that it is much easier to get things done in smaller centres, where you will find all the gas parts you need in the one shop, rather than being sent from one to another, to seek out what you need. However, we found a very helpful lady who replaced my laptop battery, providing us with ice cold water to drink when we went to collect it on a very hot day and we got our raw water pump fixed. The pump is Ok now, but really needs replaced, so we ordered a new one from NZ and also a part for a gas bottle from somewhere else in Australia. While waiting for the parts to arrive and waiting for the right weather to go south, we went back out to Sugarloaf Bay for a few days and then up to Bantry Bay again. Sugarloaf was very peaceful, with one other boat, until the weekend, when there were 42 other boats! By Monday, it was back to 3 and we had Bantry Bay to ourselves, after a group of schoolboys left their canoes on the jetty before going bush overnight.
The weather in Sydney varied a lot, but many days were over 30 degrees and one over 40, so, despite tails of ferocious sharks inhabiting the deep waters of Middle Harbour, we couldn’t help but jump in the sea every day…often more than once, but again, the cork technique was the method of choice! Our solar shower got so hot, it has little bubbles forming and we had to add cold water before we could shower.
We ate really well (as ever) as there are some great shops. One of our favourites is Harris Farmers Market, where you can buy just about anything, but they sell misshapen fruit and veg really cheaply as well as buckets of delicious small nectarines, or field mushrooms for a dollar. We also found a great wholefood shop and stocked up on rice, oats etc.
We spent a last couple of days in Cammeray, catching up with Michelle and Richard on Theleme and collecting our parts, which had been delivered there. A last trip to our favourite shops and we were ready to say farewell to Sydney, after 3 great weeks.
We sailed under the Spit Bridge on Friday 28th and headed out to sea, sailing down to Jibbon’s Beach in Port Hacking. We sailed past the famous Bondi Beach (looked very busy) and Botany Bay (convicts ll gone, but now extremely industrial) and were glad to pick up a mooring in a very peaceful spot, close to Jibbon’s Beach. The water was crystal clear and so we actually swam for the first time in a long time. There were a few others in the sea and on the beach and we pretty quickly realised that it is a clothing optional beach. Most of those embracing their nakedness, were older and rather large! We opted to keep our togs on!
From Port Hacking, we sailed southwards again, with an overnight passage down the coast to Eden. We had to motor the first bit, until the wind got up and then sailed most of the way, once again with the genoa poled out. Simon has rigged up a new block so we can keep the staysail up as well as pole out the genoa and this was very successful. Tuarangi felt happy to be back at sea and was romping along, probably happy to have lost some of the weed from her hull after I scrubbed for a day!
We lost the wind just off Eden, and so motor sailed into Twofold Bay. There is a large woodchip plant on the southern coast , but we were heading for Snug Cove, by the township of Eden. As we approached, large black clouds were billowing up in the hills in the background and thunder was rumbling around the bay. We dropped the anchor, did a quick tidy up and got dowm below just as the rain started, floodlit by seemingly continuous lightning and deafening thunder claps.
We slept well and awoke to a cloudless sky. We caught up with Ron on ‘Roseanne’, who we met in Iluka, Laurieton and Port Stephens, before heading ashore. Eden is a lovely, historic town, with all the amenities you could want, including a haircut for me! We had lunch ashore and were going to go for a long walk, when we saw the same kind of black clouds building as the day before, so headed back to the boat. We got our rain catcher up just in time for a repeat storm, managing to catch 40 litres of water in less than an hour.
Today, with the wind forecast to go more southerly, we crossed the bay to East Boyd Bay. There was a big surge coming into Twofold Bay and we were worried the anchorage might be very rolly, but it doesn’t seem too bad. We are in behind a large pier, built for visiting naval vessels. We took the dinghy ashore, getting a little damp in the process as a wave surge came in at an inappropriate time. We walked along the pier, a huge structure before heading to Boyd’s Tower, a tower/folly built by an empire building man called Ben Boyd, in 1846. It was used as a whale spotting tower, when Eden was a major whaling station, where the local’s were reputedly helped in their bloody pursuit, by a pod of killer whales. The skeleton of the most famous of these Orca, Old Tom, is housed in the Eden Killer Whale Museum, which we plan to visit later in the week.
It looks like we will be here for at least a week, as we want very settled weather before heading across the Bass Straight to Tasmania. As the winds shift from north to south, we will do the “Eden shuffle” crossing the Bay to find sheltered waters!