First bar crossing

Blog 12 March 2022 part 2 Nauti Time 006

We arrived nearly an hour early outside lakes Entrance as we were awaiting slack tide before our first bar crossing. So while we were bobbing around just waiting we had the company of Andiamo with Craig and Sylvie on board. They had followed us most of the night having left from Western Port the previous day. Also ahead of them were their friends on Truant who are locals from the Lakes so we were taking their lead on the entrance.

There are 2 live web cams of the entrance so we watched a couple of speed boats go in and with their obvious power they had no trouble although still had quite a rocky ride of it.

Web cam at entrance showing all 3 of the catamarans lining up to enter

Truant was lining up about 1NM out when the Lonsdale (we later learned this was a tourist boat showing people the entrance and the resident seal population who loved swimming around the break water) radioed to say it would be at the entrance for next 10-15 minutes so all approaches were put on hold.

Once the Lonsdale was all clear Truant again approached. It was good to see the line they took as it was a lot further East than we thought. We watched them on the webcam with baited breath as they seemed to be heading straight for the break water wall then just at the last minute turned west into the entrance. It sent my heart pounding as I knew it was my turn straight after Andiamo headed in.

We lined up the leads behind Andiamo so we could watch from behind then the trajectory they took. Again they appeared to get very close to the easterly wall before heading in to the entrance but they also made it safely in.

Now with my heart pounding and a bit of the leg shakes it was my turn!!! Blue light at end of east wall aligned with the base of the blue triangle we headed in keeping a steady pace the waves rolled in and picked us up. I tried to stay on the waves but not enough power. Next wave I increased the power to follow it but as we got close to the wall it dumped us in what was like a hole with waves swirling in every direction as I started our turn into the entrance and the next wave accelerated us through then quite a bumpy ride in but the worst was over and we can tick off our first rather scary bar crossing!! In the middle of it all I said to Rick “Oh look there’s a seal playing at the end of the wall” He said don’t worry about the bloody seal!! I think his legs had been pretty shaky too!!!

We made our way up Cunningham arm to the boat jetty where the lovely Mel had reserved us an easy berth on the public dock. At least it should have been easy until the guys in the boat in front started yelling directions and to gun the boat before I hit them which was never going to happen. Anyway aborted first attempt went around and took a different approach so they didn’t feel threatened and brought in our girl alongside. They did actually get off their butts and grab our ropes the second time at least which was a great help. Thank you!

Once tied up and packed away we headed to the pub for a well earned drink and an awesome dinner. Thank goodness the pub was just at the end of the jetty as we were very wobbly on our feet once we hit land.

What a fantastic day!

Beautiful Lakes Entrance

Magical dolphin show