Two Sundays ago we’d planned to sail south from Newcastle to Lake Macquarie only a couple of hours sail away. As boat life tends to go, those plans didn’t quite stick and we had to postpone. Later on that week we woke late on what turned out to be a stunning Thursday morning and decided we’d quickly make those plans happen and set sail with some help from Tom’s Dad.
We set sail sometime around midday so that we’d have plenty of time to reach the Swansea Bridge in time for our bridge opening booking at 5pm. The sail there was great with enough wind to average a speed of 4.7 knots. I hadn’t been out on the boat in a while so had forgotten about that whole thing called ‘swell’. I swear to you the waves were 20 foot high, towering over the boat and coming crashing down on us!
To get into Lake Macquarie there is a bar that needs to be crossed. We’d never crossed a bar before so it was a tad daunting for us but it turned out to be piece of cake. With a draw of 1.6 metres (ie, how deep the boat goes under the water line) there is risk of hitting bottom, but Tom was a stellar captain and did the whole thing with ease. He’s a pretty good captain, so I might keep him around.
Inside the bar we waited for our bridge opening at 5pm. Sorry landlubbers, I’m sure that was just what you wanted right on peak hour traffic….. suckers! Oh well, just one more thing to show me how good I have it living on the boat. Once we were through the bridge, the sun started to set. Now being winter, this probably sounds like a horrible thing. Sure it was a bit chilly, but we were rugged up and it was totally worth it as we were greeted by a magnificent red sky sunset. It’s these moments that really make us appreciate the awesomeness of cruising.
