Rain, rain and more Rain
Finally landing on a beach after 5 days stuck onboard
Thursday 31st of March 2022 Nauti Time 025
Sailing is exhausting. After having a full night sleep, we are still feeling physically and mentally exhausted from our sail. Good thing we haven’t got a lot on. As expected the weather started to get nasty, the news coming through from Marine Rescue Eden, were of rising seas, huge swells and poor weather, and the recommendation to “stay in bed, it’s not a good day on the water”.. We spent most of Thursday recovery, getting some food and drinks and more napping. I managed to catch us some fish which were prepared to have tomorrow. Our anchorage was perfect, well protected with only a slight swell curling around the corner. With the wind in the south west the chop was minimal, we just were drifting around a bit. It was nice to be able to spend the day inside the boat, recovering.
Friday, 1 April 2022 Nauti Time 026
The weather is getting worse. Volunteer Rescue is talking about 9 m seas and across the bay we are able to see huge swells crashing into the rocks on the North side of the bay. We have been joined by couple of other boats, and really no issue apart from being confined quarters. Not a bad thing really, starting to feel human again, and with this comes a desire to explore. This is such a pretty area, and we are keen to get a closer look at the surrounding bay. Fishing is improving with a good catch of Taylor and lots of slimies for bait. But lots of rain and then it starts raining again. Saturday 2nd April. Happy birthday Sis. Can't believe you're catching up to me. The weather has looked like it turned, with a slight decrease in the waves crashing on the North Head of Twofold Bay. We dropped the tender in and headed towards the closest beach, only to find that the surf was deceptive and after copping a wave over the front (and over Captain Nola) we headed back to the safety of Nauti Kitty and decided that we could wait one more day before making land. The water is now quite dirty the outflow from the rivers in the area although it looks like just a surface inversion layer because we can see the green water below the brown, under the boat. It’s still raining, but it looks like a nice day in a few days time. I cooked up a batch of “Blackbeard Soup” and we ate it with too many hot breadrolls and too much butter. We needed store up energy for the next leg of the adventure.
Rick’s new invention “Black Beard”soup. Yum!
Clouds still threatening but had to have some land time
Sunday 3rd of April. Nauti Time 027
Is that sunshine we can see!!!! Only a brief moment but enough to take the opportunity to drop the tender and head towards the beach, choosing an area where there was minimal swell closer to the old whaling station end. It was nice to get off the boat, but both of us had the sways. We can now understand Kevin’s statement in Waterworld “it just doesn't move right”.
It was a small beach surrounded by rocky outcrops on both sides, and after some clamouring we got to the main beach and have a lovely walk back towards the old homestead. Apart from very large logs there was very little debris but lots of foam. We did come across a whale vertebrae that had washed up, fascinating and at the same time disturbing to think what went on here only 40 years ago.
Whale vertebrae!
Behind the main beach was a large lagoon and lots of oysters on the rocks, although with all the water that's been coming down we were reluctant to try the local shellfish, but today’s fishing was even more successful with another couple of Taylor and Traveli and a good-sized flatty. Fish and chips for dinner!
Lagoon of oysters
This is such a pretty area, lots of greenery, and large leaf vines in the undergrowth, suggesting that the climate is warmer here than further south, and a hint of where we are heading. After about an hour of walking beaches and clambering over rocks we headed back to our floating home and started looking towards getting a trip to Eden township for supplies and planning the next trip to the North.
