Year 2 – 19 February 2025 -Trial Bay to Coffs Harbour

If anyone reading this and is free in June- mid July 2025 to come to Australia then do contact me as I am short of crew for that month fully at present.

We had a slight role in the night with the swell, otherwise it was calm and we woke to very little wind. We had a fruit breakfast which was good and chilled a bit. We had about 36 nm to go and there was no wind forecast really until about 12.00noon and then it was not going to get stronger until about 2.00pm. We therefore decided to leave at 12.00noon. The log had not been working so we decided to empty the locker in the corridor as you need to take up the base of the locker so that you can get to the log, which is a rod through the hull which has a wheel. The difficulty is the pressure of water as you take out the log and put in the blank so I got a bit soaked when we did so as there is so much pressure. As we took out the log a small crab fell out. Otherwise it was clean. It seemed odd that a crab would have stopped it. Anyhow once clean we put it back and hope it will now work.

Trial Bay was named after the ship Trial which was shipwrecked there in 1816. There used to be a goal there in 1886 where convicts were brought to build the breakwater. In WW1 it was also the used in intern those of German or Austrian descent. It is now a museum today and as we came round the headland we saw it on the hill.

We upped anchor at 12.00noon and were surprised as we headed out of the bay that there was some wind so we put up the sails immediately. We sailed most of the way close hauled and fast even though the wind was 10kts to start with and it went up toward the end as high as 14 kts. We covered the 36 nm in about 4.5 hours averaging about 7.9kts and it was a great sail. The wind kept coming up to NE even though it was supposed to be SE!! The sea had a slight roll but was calm and the sea was a lovely blue. We saw no dolphins or much wildlife other than a fee birds and a large jelly fish. However the log worked which made the soaking worthwhile.

As we neared Coffs Harbour we were being pushed toward the coast due to the wind angle and we were not going to make our waypoint off the entrance. We therefore tacked out for about 20 minutes and then tacked again and we made it to the entrance of the harbour. It had a large breakwater on the South side and an Island on the North with the entrance East/Northeast. We motored on in and it was a large halfmoon harbour with a beach at the end and a marina. The issue was the swell which was coming straight in. We found an anchor spot and settled in but we were a little effected by the swell. It did not look that attractive but we have not been ashore. The wind and waves are to decline overnight which should calm down the swell.

Coffs Harbour, locally nicknamed Coffs, is a coastal city on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales, Australia, 540 km (340 mi) north of Sydney, and 390 km (240 mi) south of Brisbane. It is one of the largest urban centres on the North Coast, with a population of 78,759 as per 2021 census. Coffs Harbour's economy was once based on timber and agriculture. Over recent decades, tourism has become an increasingly important industry for the city. The surrounding region is dominated by coastal resorts and apartments with hinterland hills and mountains covered by forests, banana and blueberry plantations, and other farms including macadamia nuts, cucumbers, and tomatoes. It is the only place in New South Wales where the Great Dividing Range meets the Pacific Ocean.

The picture of the day is of Stormbird sailing  about 8 kts.

Need/Opportunity Year Two

I am in need of more crew from late April to Mid-July so if of interest do email me at  hine.nick9@gmail.com  

In year two I will be going from New Zealand to Sydney and hen up the Eastern Australian Coast, Indonesia and then through Bali, Singapore and on to Thailand to end year two about the end of November 2025.

The blog will continue as we continue the journey. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog then do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com