Seal Rocks (Sugarloaf Bay)

[Kyle]From Forster, we made the relatively short hop down to Sugarloaf Bay, beneath the town of Seal Rocks.

Leaving Forster and sailing south
A lovely calm day with more dolphins!

We had a medium-ish spinnaker run the whole way, which was perfect as we had plenty of speed to entertain even more dolphins along the way than we had seen on the last leg. We spotted a couple of whales as well. They kept their distance like the last lot, but we got to see a few tail and fin slaps.

Begonia was the only boat in Sugarloaf. We were supposed to experience a few hours of onshore winds before switching offshore in the middle of the night. The prospect of those first few rough hours might have scared anybody else off and certainly scared us into deploying the works when we set anchor.

We had been going fast for the dolphins earlier, but not as fast as we should have been. I suspected we needed another bottom scrub and so decided to spend the rest of the afternoon on that. Sugarloaf Bay was likely to be the only chance we would have for a while not to be in strong river flow. It was horrible. We really needed it. The next leg should be faster.

From Seal Rocks hamlet and around the coastline
to Sugarloaf Point lighthouse

After rowing ashore in the morning, we hiked all of the walking trails between Seal Rocks and the next promontory at Treachery Head. There was lots of good scenery all around, but by far our favorite part of the day was watching the dolphins play at Treachery Beach.

From the headland, we could see a few large pods of them waiting in the surf. Just like their human counterparts (probably better), they would wait for just the right wave to approach. Then they would line up and take off with it, surfing down the face. When the pipe collapsed over them, they would plunge through the wave and pop out of the back face for a little jump into the next one.

From Treachery Head we sat for ages watching a pod of dolphins leaping about in the surf
Great therapy!

We watched them do this for an hour or so until they left. They would ignore the waves and fish for a while. Then they would ignore the fish and surf for a while. They were clearly doing it just for the fun of it. We couldn’t help but feel filled with our own joy just watching them.

The beach on the other side at Sugarloaf Bay was starting to get a little swelly. It was a little tricky launching the dinghy through the surf. I thought we had timed it right when I managed to get in and get the oars pulling without getting swamped. I was a bit premature, though. Maryanne never made it into the dinghy. The next wave didn’t break, but lifted her off of the sand as she held onto the dinghy’s stern. More were on the way, so she told me to keep rowing and not to try to go back into shallow water so she could board. Instead, she told me to just tow her back to Begonia. Sometimes we really can be good entertainment for the locals.