Continuing North Coffs Harbour to Iluka

Coffs Harbour. We ended up spending 5 days at the The International Coffs Harbour Marina. We spent a great deal of that time waiting to have repairs done! Our fridge is small but vital for our provisioning. It had stopped working. Our consistent problems with the autopilot continued to be consistent. (yes its meant to read like that Jen!) Coursemaster Autopilots take note: I'm only halfway through my letter of complaints. (a list of them)

Sea Trek III @ Coffs Harbour Marina.

For those of you familiar with the jetty area in Coffs you will know that its a hive of activity. It has shops, yacht club and eateries. There was no shortage of things to do and places to visit. Jen really enjoyed the walk on the monumental old jetty. I enjoyed a couple of SUP surfs at Jetty Beach. I was able able to launch from the deck of ST3 and paddle out of the marina to the beach. SUPs are amazing for catching little waves that normally would be unridable. I did scare the hell out of the whale watching skipper on the commercial vessel docked next to us when I threw the SUP overboard. It made a the huge splash and had him thinking that one of his customers had fallen in.

It seemed like every sailor we met recommended "Attitude Hamburgers" to us. We were tired after our sail from Trial Bay on Monday and fancied someone else's cooking. We arrived at 6pm anticipating the culinary delights of these boutique burgers. Jen and I scanned the menu with our stomachs grumbling. Jen chose a "Tree Hugger": a vegetarian mushroom delight, while I chose their special "Attitude" Angus Beef. There were about 10 other customers enjoying drinks around the outdoor fire place. Can you imagine my surprise (I was flabbergasted ) when I came to order only to be told by the waitress "sorry, but we have run out of meat and there will be a 40 minute wait for everything else". So we ate elsewhere and it was rather ordinary.

Monumental Old Jetty at Jetty Beach Coffs Harbour.

It was great to catch up with Izzy Foreal while we were in Coffs. Izzy and I played in the "Trashed Out Cats" in the 90's. ( I think?) James and I had recently attended and played at Izzy's "When I'm 64" celebrations at Raleigh. We did that trip by road. Izzy called down to the boat for a cup of tea and a catch up on what we have both been up to since those heady 90's days. When you're in the area make sure you catch one of Izzy's shows. He's very entertaining.

Izzy Foreal on ST3

James and Glenn perform at Izzy Forreal's "When I'm 64" earlier in 2013. I'm blessed to be able to perform with my son on stage on occasions.

Whilst in Coffs we also caught up with fellow cruisers Ines and Steve from SV Bravado. We met them in Port Stephens and have now caught up with them in Camden Haven and Coffs too. They have raced ahead of us now and are in "Bums Bay" on the Gold Coast. Jen snapped a great pic of them coming in to escape the approaching storm front.

Bravado looking for safe anchorage.

The fridge is now fixed, and I know a lot more about 12volt refrigeration. The autopilot is still inconsistent and we are now safely anchored in Iluka Harbour. We left Coffs around 2am on Saturday morning and motor sailed the whole way: about 9.5 hours.(once again timing our arrival to cross the bar). We were greeted by "I'm the skipper" star: John King! John lives here on his beautiful catamaran "Dream Weaver". We have known John since we first started looking for a yacht to sail when we all lived in the Ulladulla area. We both then moored our older yachts at Batemans Bay. John also helped me bring ST3 back from Brisbane on her delivery trip.

Just who is the skipper? Convention at Iluka

We are staying at Iluka until Saturday and we are looking forward to exploring the mighty Clarence river by yacht. We will motor to Maclean this week. We thought that it was too good an opportunity to miss this famous voyage and I don't think we will be back this way for sometime to come.

Where we are:

http://skipr.net/where-is/boat-pages/?boatid=1122

 

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