Pittwater, Broken Bay & Cowan Creek (and a bad back)

[Kyle]Sometime in the previous few days, I had done something bad to my back. As usually happens when I do this, I remained completely asymptomatic through all sorts of activities that were only making it worse. I rowed the dinghy ashore, hoisted it up onto the beach through deep sand, climbed a hill, walked for miles and then rowed back. Then I slept and woke up a little stiff. No big deal. That happens every now and then. Undeterred, I got up and went through my normal morning routine.

I know I have a bad back, so I always start my day with two hundred pushups (that’s the real number), a hundred sit-ups and a whole bunch of other stretches and strengthening exercises. I make myself do all of this before coffee. That way, if I want coffee, which I always do, I have to do the exercises first to get it. I never skip the exercises. I think in the last year, I may have missed doing them maybe three times because some crisis was more pressing at the time and I couldn’t make it up later.

Everything was going fine. I was enjoying my above average fitness when I bent down to get a spoon out of the drawer with which to stir my coffee. It wasn’t an oversized salad spoon made out of solid plutonium (which is much heavier than gold). It was just a regular old teaspoon. My back then decided that was just one thing too many. I felt a terrible stabbing pain that shot down my leg, which crumpled and left me whimpering on the floor. It took me five minutes just to pull myself up from there into a seated position at the settee behind me. Damn! Now what are we going to do?

The hint is in the “we”. Maryanne decided she would take up all of the slack that I usually try to leave for her. She did EVERYTHING, including stuff that we both generally agree that only I can do, like unzip the aft end of the mainsail bag (because it’s too high), release the spinnaker halyard clutch (way too high) or dig the big spinnaker out of storage and carry through the boat to the deck (too heavy and cumbersome). All I had to do all day was sit in the most comfortable position I could manage and try to get some rest.

I was trying really hard to see myself as being pampered but instead, I mostly just felt useless when all I really wanted to do was take some of her load for her. By the end of the sail, I was even able to turn my head both directions without screaming, so it seemed like she was being a little over protective by not letting me even take the engine covers off and check the oil afterwards.

Sailing down to America Bay
smoke eventually gave way to clear skies & Dolphins

After a whole day of sailing that required repeated hoisting, dousing, bagging and unbagging each sail. Maryanne finally pulled us into Broken Bay. She doused the spinnaker one last time and then took us into America Bay, off of the Cowan Creek arm. There, she finally handed the helm over to me so she could go forward and do all of the usual bending and reaching to get us tied to one of the many mooring balls that fill the bay.

America bay greeted us with great views and Jellyfish!

America Bay lies within Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park, so the entire shoreline is undeveloped wilderness. I was on strict orders to rest, which Maryanne helped by making so much food for me that I didn’t even want to do anything except clutch my stomach and groan all day. I had to content myself with views of the gum trees and their eucalyptus smell and the songs of the birds. The park has a large population of kookaburras and they all seem to think everything is hilarious.

Things were much improved when I got up the next morning. I managed to get through an easy 80% set of exercises with no problem at all. We were planning on moving Begonia over to the next inlet at Pittwater for a much anticipated reunion with Phil from Muse. We decided to add in another stop at a different spot in the park at Jerusalem Creek along the way.

We found an empty public mooring ball for Begonia and then continued in the dinghy to a trailhead. There, we were able to get the blood flowing and a good dose of fresh air while climbing to the highest point around. Afterward, we even cooled off with a refreshing swim in water that is finally getting warm enough to not need wetsuits.

A 'drive by' of Refuge Bay, anchoring in Pinta Bay
and exploring Jerusalem Bay ashore

Then we unhooked from the mooring and headed into Pittwater to get into position to meet Phil the next day.

Things start to get busier as we enter Pittwater

Pittwater is much nicer than the name implies, but that niceness also means that it is completely jam-packed full of marinas and their associated mooring fields. On Phil’s advice, we headed for the only spot where it may be possible to find a place to anchor. We ended up squeezed into a tiny spot between moored boats and a drying sandbank. We could only stay in a very narrow range of wind direction, so we stayed aboard nervously watching all of the boats around us as they approached and retreated with every puff.

During the middle of the night, the wind strengthened and blew us away from all of our moored neighbors (whew!) in the direction of the sandbank (doh!). On the morning low tide, which was the higher of the two for the day, I went out with a boat hook and measured two centimeters between the bottom of our shallowest rudder and the sand. The tide was going back up again, so we were okay for a while, but the evening’s low was supposed to be three centimeters lower than the one in the morning, with the wind blowing us in the same direction. We needed to move.

In the meantime, I noticed that all of that bending and reaching with the boathook had been completely pain free. In fact, I had felt 100% since our hike the day before. Oh, it’s good to be back!

I decided to keep taking it easy and do one more reduced set of back exercises before declaring myself All Better. I kneeled down to start with some pushups.

Just as my palms were about to hit the floor, I felt two familiar stabs, which were bad enough to keep me from breaking my fall with my arms. Ow!

Well, so much for being cured. Maryanne was able to prop me in the helm seat long enough for us to complete the hunt for another spot for Begonia. We found one that would have room enough for us, but only until the wind shifted the next day. In the meantime, we had enough time to go ashore to meet everyone for a meal out.

The rest of the Muse family had gone ahead to visit relatives in the UK while he stayed behind to work. The same was true of Tom, from Bonaire, so Phil brought him, too. Bonaire is another of the boats we have been leapfrogging for months. To the rest of us, we added Guy and his girlfriend Kay. We had met Guy back in New Caledonia when he had come to spend a week on Muse and our two boats sailed together to Ua Island. This made the evening feel like quite the reunion.

What a great evening it was! The food was delicious. Our table had a great view of the harbor and everybody got along splendidly. Every time somebody spoke, I got to learn something fascinating. It really was a marvelous time. I can’t wait to see all of them again.

The next morning, we woke to a new world. The wind shift that was going to eventually drive us away from our spot had already begun. Clean onshore winds had stopped in a lull before gradually changing offshore. The clear blue skies of the last couple of days had been replaced by thick smoke and falling ash from the surrounding bush fires. Every breath was like being in the wrong side of a campfire and we could only see the shore nearest to us.

Added to that was that it was the hottest day Australia has seen since records have been kept. The day before, individual weather stations everywhere were toppling their old records, which was enough to bring the continental average of 700 stations above its previous all-time high of 40.3C (104.54F), set in 2013. The new record of 40.9C (105.62F) stood for just one day. Today, the new record would reach 41.9C (107.42F) The airport nearest us topped out at 42C (107.6F) for the day. Some stations further inland hit 49.9C (121.82F). So this is what it feels like to be meat in a smoker.

During my usual morning weather analysis, I went down a rabbit hole I found on the Bureau of Meteorology’s website. I ended up at the section summarizing Australia’s fresh water storage. The nation’s average is currently at 45% of capacity. Okay, that’s interesting. What is alarming is that last year, the number was 61%. Australia’s fresh water has depleted by 1/6th in only one year! That is bad, really bad. Most urban areas are holding in the 50-60% range. The Macquarie rural catchment area is down to 7%. That is super bad. I haven’t been able to tell how much of that is from firefighting efforts and how much is from the current drought, but neither are predicted to let up anytime soon. It isn’t even Summer yet.

We moved up Pittwater to a spot closer to the Broken Bay entrance. It was much cooler there. We only saw 32C (90F) on board in the anchorage, which was still a real killer in the still air.

Finally, in late afternoon, the new wind arrived. The heat was replaced by cool breezes, which dropped the temperature 10C in under an hour. Ahhh.

It also started blowing the smoke away, which would take several hours to complete. By sunset, though, we could already see the shores all around us, even on the very far side of the bay.

The gusty winds were great for us where we were, but bad for the firefighting effort further south on the edges of Sydney. Overnight, several fires previously classified as ‘under control’ were now considered ‘out of control’. Some townships had even been declared ‘too late to evacuate’. I don’t know what you’re supposed to do then, just climb into your kiddie pool and hope, I guess. It's been quite alarming, seeing the news a lot closer to first hand that we would normally expect to - and of course devastating for so many.

The visibility picked up again and by morning, we were back to clear blue skies. I decided my back wasn’t up for much, so Maryanne lowered the dinghy and did a lap without me.

The Basin, Coasters Retreat; Maryanne left Kyle aboard as she explored ashore

Newcastle

[Kyle]We only had two days of forecast tailwinds over the next week or so. That meant two days in a row of pushing southwards without the usual rest day in between that I at least strive for.

The sail to Newcastle - along the long sandy stretch of Stockton Beach

That’s okay, our next stop was going to be at Newcastle, which is generally billed as a “must miss”, or at the very least as an “only to the extent necessary”. The gist of all of the cruising info is that Newcastle is a big port full of heavy shipping and has nothing of interest to toy pleasure boats. All of the available waterfront is taken up by commercial wharves and the only possible places to anchor are just out of the channel under the continuous punishment of pounding wakes.

Well, they’re wrong. It is true that Newcastle has an almost continuous procession of big ships and that the port is really there for them, so to speak. However, the town itself looks very quaint and walkable. On both sides of the harbor, there are large sections of parkland with paths along the waterfront.

We anchored as the only boat in a luxuriously wide spot that was out of the channel on the inside of the turning basin for the ships. Our patch was big enough and shallow enough that no out of control ship could get anywhere near us without running aground and we couldn’t hit shore without dragging a long way.

That wake thing was also a myth. Big ships being maneuvered into our out of their berths by tugs do not throw wakes of any kind. The only wakes we saw were from powerboats full of fishermen in a hurry to relax. They all ignore the speed limit signs because they can’t read. The thing is, since Newcastle isn’t really a pleasure boat port, there’s fewer of them than in other, supposedly nicer areas.

We were really upset that we didn’t have enough time or energy left in the day to go ashore and have a look around. Had their been just eighteen more hours of tailwinds in the forecast, we would have happily delayed for a day to do so. As it was, we had to content ourselves with watching the bustling industry of the wharves and the afternoon Hobie Cat races of the sailing club right beside us.

Port Stephens

[Kyle]The wind was forecast to turn back onshore again, this time for several days. Before it did, we pulled up anchor and sailed to Port Stephens in light tailwinds that were just enough to keep our spinnaker aloft. We did seem to be sliding through the water much more easily than before, so I guess we had needed that bottom cleaning.

Port Stephens is big enough to be a cruising ground in itself. Since we were only staying a few days, we decided to stick near the entrance. Our first anchorage was in shallow sand over at Jimmy’s beach, where we planned to ride out the aforementioned winds for a couple of days.

Since the beach is so shallow, we ended up a long way from shore. The smoke was also draining all of the color and contrast out of the landscape. That gave us a good excuse to stay aboard and do some easy chores.

Or so I thought. Since replacing the port shifter cable in Pelican Bay, I hadn’t been able to help but notice that that lever was now much smoother than the starboard one. I had got it into my head that I would replace the other cable when I got a chance. Now I had the chance.

Then I decided that since I was replacing the shifter cable, I might as well replace the throttle cable as well. That led me to thinking that If we were going to dismantle the boat to do that anyway, I might as well also replace the port throttle cable and complete the whole set.

So, five hours, thousands of swear words and many bloody knuckles later, we have all new engine control cables. Let’s hope I don’t have to do that again for a while.

After the wind shifted, we moved to the other side of the bay at Shoal Bay. There, we were able to resume our usual routine of finding somewhere far and/or high to walk. This time, we opted for high. Tomaree Head loomed right over the boat. We could see the top of the trail from the deck, so we decided to see if we could see the deck from the top of the trail.

Around Port Stephens
(exercise with a view & lunch at the 'country club')

Indeed, we could. The smoke of the last few days had cleared a little and we were able to enjoy views both ways along the pretty coastline. From there, it was an easy, but hot trip down to the town, where we refreshed ourselves with lunch at the Shoal Bay Country Club at a table with of view of the bay. It is amazing how rapidly life can swing from trudging misery to blissful contentment.

Afterward, we were headed to the grocery store for a few items when we came across Little Italy.

Little Italy in Shoal Bay consists of three businesses, A ristorante, a pasticceria and a gelateria, all clearly owned by the same people. I could tell before we even got there that this was the real deal. At a table out front were a foursome of two Nonni and two Nonne, gesticulating wildly and speaking in the staccato rhythm of Sicilian Italian. I paused for the briefest second at the gelateria, thinking I might try one later. Then one of the old men stood up and asked if I wanted some with a big smile. Suddenly, I was back in Milazzo.

“Si, Si. Que fatto?”, I said. I had forgotten I knew some Italian.

”Quale voi piacerebbe?”

Uh oh. That one was taking me a little too long to look up in the ol’ foreign language filing system.

“Uh, lemon, please. Limone.” I’m an idiot.

He pretended not to notice and handed over my cone. The kindly old man spoke perfect English, at least the Aussie version of it.

”Mille Grazie!”

I'm still an idiot.

We took ten steps and suddenly we were back in Australia. My gelato melted so fast that I barely had time to lick it off of my hand before it evaporated altogether. Man, it’s hot!

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.

Forster & Tuncurry

[Kyle]From Laurieton we moved on to Forster. Actually, we picked up a mooring ball on the Tuncurry waterfront, which is across the river from Forster.

A quick search for “Things to do in Forster” brings few results. Many of them mention the big bridge between it and Tuncurry, along with photos of said bridge. It was right behind our cockpit, so I think we can tick that one off of the list.

Still, most of the other things on the list were across the river in Forster, so we would have to cross it on foot to get there. Double tick.

Okay, while there may not be a great number of things to do there, Forster is a pretty place with miles of beautiful beachfront. Walking the length of it is a pretty big one thing to do.

Tuncurry coastal walks

Australian Magpies sing a beautiful tune, but on this hike we found a group that kept repeating this odd behavior - we were not sure if they were being submissive, or taking a rest in the middle of a dust bath!

So that’s what we did. We strolled through quiet neighborhoods and across blinding white beaches which were separated from one another by high bluffs with views up and down the coast. Along the way, we particularly enjoyed a flock of pretty tame Mockingbirds, who seemed quite happy to stand before us and perform. Each bird sounds like four and they sing the most beautiful songs. We also spotted a new parrot; a Yellow-tailed Black Cockatoo. We were mesmerized by one we saw in an aviary in New Zealand. Now we got to watch a whole wild flock of them crashing through the trees as they played with each other.

On the far end of our walk, we came upon One Mile Beach. The intervening bluff we had climbed up only want halfway back down before disappearing under an enormous sand dune that spilled away to make the rest of the beach

We had done that thing again, where we set off for an easy day, but ended up getting serially distracted into a long one. We were creaky enough by the time we got home that neither of us was in danger of trying to push it the next day.

Exploring Tuncurry & enjoying the birds

For that, we decided to stick to the much closer offerings of the Tuncurry side. That consisted of the museum (worth a visit!), the grocery store and a cafe for an iced mocha, with a few steps on the beach to enjoy traipsing through some more squeaky sand.