First Voyage

To get out of Tweed Harbour, not only did we need a more-or-less complete boat, we needed to cross the Tweed bar, the shallow place where the Tweed River flows into the sea. Since the surf had been flat for three weeks, this whole bar crossing business had yet to cross my mind, however, as soon as the boat got close to being sea-worthy, the surf came up and the bar was suddenly a big deal.

As you can see in the picture at right (taken from Point Danger), the bar looks pretty ugly in a big swell. Assuming we make 8 knots, it takes us about 2:25 to run the bar. So the trick is picking 2:25 when there aren't any waves breaking. The most reliable way to do this is simply to wait for a day when the surf is smaller.

The surf (and a few more last minute tasks) kept us in Tweed for another few days so it wasn't until Friday 2 Aug. at 2:50 that we could put out to sea. Since the tide was due to finish flooding at 3:00 and we had received dire (and remarkably profane) warnings from the local fisherman not to cross bars on an outgoing tide, it was pretty close to the last possible minute. Also, we had a two-hour sail ahead and I didn't really want to get into Southport in the dark.

So when Steve finished fixing the sink and Trevor (the electrician!) had cleared the starboard head (too much toilet paper) we set off down the Tweed river.

Karin piloted us across the bar. No breaking waves, but there were some good sized ones that were starting to loom up in an alarming way.

Mount Warning and a new view of Coolangatta: from the sea. The town of Coolangatta is named for the sailing ship Coolangatta which washed up on the beach in a big storm.

Once out in the ocean, we sailed around for a bit but there was barely any wind (4 kts) so after a few symbolic tacks, we dropped the jib and motor sailed up the coast. True to my worst fears, we got to the Southport seaway just as the sun was setting. The surf was still up and we caught a good sized wave across the bar and surfed down it. Set a new boat speed record of 21 kts. The guide to the Southport Harbour noted dryly that the navigation lights could be difficult to pick out against the backdrop of city lights. They were.

Fortunately, Trevor and Steve knew how to find the Marina from the water and I was able to accomplish my first docking under cover of darkness with only a moderate level of panic.

Here we are, safely tied up to the dock in the Southport Yacht Club Marina. It was actually warm enough to make us want to rig the bimini.

Christening

We had a little christening ceremony the next day.

First Sail

On Sunday (4 Aug.) we went for the first real sail with Ian Farrier.

Skating

There are a number of skateparks around, and Tristan has managed to rake together the cash acquire a skateboard through a complex series of derivative transactions involving future swabbings of the deck along with a bridge loan from Nicoline.

Next...

As I write this (Monday, 11 Aug.) we're still in Southport. The plan was to head north for Mooloolaba today but a passing cold front brought NE winds so we are staying put for a day waiting for the winds to come around to the usual SE direction so that we will have a downwind run up the coast.

We've been out daysailing several times and the boat looks to be even better than I had hoped. Downwind, we can beat the wind speed and upwind (45 degrees) we're making about 10 kts out of a 12 kt breeze.