Year 2 –1 February 2025 -Broken Bay – Pittwater/Cowan Creek
We woke to another grey day and there had been some rain in the night. We had a good breakfast of bacon and eggs on sourdough toast. We were waiting for the electrician to let us know when he was coming. He said he would ring at 9.00am bit did not. I messaged at 9.40am and said he could come at about 10.45am.
I went to pick him up from the marina nearby and he then set about diagnosing the AIS issue. He got it working and then when we turned off and switched on again it did not work. In short he spent two hours trying to sort out the problem including talking to Raymarine but no joy. This led to the conclusion that it was the AIS unit which was faulty. He would have to try and get another and hopefully be able to fit a new one on Wednesday. This is rather frustrating but I need this to work so we will just have to be patient.
I took the man ashore and will hear from him early next week. We will therefore just enjoy the area. We therefore upped anchor and headed off round Scotland Island and then North down Pittwater. We put up the genoa and enjoyed just sailing along about 4-5 kts whilst we soaked up the creeks and coves and watched the mass of sailing boats coming out to enjoy the weekend.
The weather cheered up and we sailed in the warm and the sun and crept over the shallow area at the North end of Pittwater and then bared away down Broken Bay toward Cowan Creek and the entrance to the Hawksbury River. There were lots of sail boats out enjoying the calm conditions. We began to see a number of nice sandy beaches which certain boats were anchored off. There is so much choice here of places to go. We planned to go to Refuge Bay or America Bay in Cowan Creek.
Cowan Creek is more than 7 nm long and runs in a Southwest direction up to a Bobbin Head and runs through the Chase National Park. There are trees in this area called which appear to grow out of rocks. In fact, they are rooted in soil but have spread out across the rocks before growing vertically.
We gybed and headed down Cowan Creek taking our time and only doing about 3 kts but we had plenty of time and we were towing the dinghy. Eventually we had to take the sail in and motored round to Refuge and America Bay at low water. We edged in with the depth being about 3.1-3.4 meters (we draw 2.5m) and slowly came into America Bay. There were lots of mooring buoys on both sides and I identified a patch of about 4 meters in the middle and headed toward it. We then anchored in about 3.8 meters of water with the tide due to rise about 1.5 meters. This is about as shallow as I would anchor but the wind was not due to be strong and I thought we should be fine for the night.
We settled ourselves and got the deck chairs out and had the first sundowner of the Australian trip on the rear deck overlooking a rocky and tree laden bay with a cicada orchestra making a lot of noise. It was lovely to sit and have a bit of warmth and to chill. The picture of the day is of us having a sundowner.
Mark cooked a ratatouille with rice and salmon which was very nice and we enjoyed it sitting in the cockpit –one of the few times we have been able to sit outside.
We look forward to exploring more tomorrow.
Need/Opportunity Year Two
I am in need of more crew from April to September 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