The Chaos Begins
This has been a long time coming. We have been sailing, or cruising as it's known in our new world, on our 40ft catamaran 'Toc' for a couple of months now. Of course, it didn't start here. I spent the better part of 2018 managing/overseeing/doing the refit of the boat out of the water in Port Stephens (which I'll post about later). I officially finished up (paid) work in December 2018 to focus on the (unpaid/sweaty/itchy/bleeding) work of finishing the refit. After a couple of hectic months the boat was back in the water in April 2019.
During that same time Vanja was spending much of her spare time selling, or giving away our books, pots, pans, furniture, beds, nic nacs, paraphernalia, junk and eventually our cars, and oh yeah, our house, all while still working remotely in Sydney. Oh, did I mention the kids still needed their lunch made and had to get to school and all their other social activities during this time? Well they did. Needless to say, it was a chaotic couple of months.
Anyway, we needed to sail the boat from Port Stephens back to somewhere close to the kids' school. Vanja at this point was still working remotely from her Sydney office, so it made sense to get a berth at a marina where she could shower and generally keep herself looking normal. The Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club was the obvious choice, satisfying both requirements. Yes it was overpriced, but the train station was 100m away, and there was a bloody good fish and chips shop just up the road. We sailed the boat down, got a berth and I moved aboard on the 28th of April all the time finishing up the million other things that needed doing before the kids moved on a couple of days later. Then Vanja a couple days after that. Apart from Jake falling in the water on Vanja's second night aboard, in the dark, fully clothed, in very cold water, it went pretty well. Yes, there were plenty of times where we thought 'WTF are we doing?!', but we just got on with it hoping it would all make sense at some point.
We spent the next 6 weeks getting used to "living the dream" out of a floating shack. Vanja finished her (paid) work in the middle of May, which in theory meant we were ready to leave. Yay! Oh wait, we still need a dinghy, an outboard engine, and our main sail needs to be repaired and our mast needs something, and the rig needs something, and the water tanks are leaking, and our inverter blew up, and… and… and… and. Boats are bloody hard work! To make a long story short, we rectified most of the things over the next week or so and started telling people that we were almost ready to go. Once you tell people you're ready to go then that's it. No going back. In the end we basically never said we were ready, we just left. When I say it like that it makes us sound almost romantic, throwing caution to the wind and sailing into the sunset. That is far from the truth! We waited for the perfect weather window and organised my parents to drive the kids for the first week or so up the coast while Vanja and I sailed. I am pretty sure the reason we never said we were ready was because we weren't. But who is on an adventure such as this?
We sailed from Newcastle straight to Coffs Harbour. An epic first sail for us really, for whom most would consider totally inexperienced sailors. But we did it, and quite nicely too. We stayed in Coffs for the day before pulling up the anchor in the evening and sailing straight to Iluka/Yamba where we met my parents and the kids.
The sailing was ok, but it wasn't without issues. My new outhaul line chafed through on the 2nd night which meant we could only run the main sail to the 1st reef slowing us down a little in the light winds. Also the lazy jacks were being seriously unhelpful forcing me to wrestle the sail like a crocodile every time I brought it down. Everything else seemed to be working ok which was nice considering how much we changed on the boat.
Iluka/Yamba was a nice break before heading North again to the Gold Coast. After very careful consideration and scrutiny of the weather we decided to do this trip with the kids. Again it was an overnighter, but all the stars were aligned for a good sail. We left in the afternoon and with light winds, a little motoring and no sleep we arrived at Bum's Bay, Gold Coast the next day a couple of hours before sunset. We dodged the insanely fast jet skis and fishing boats, pushed our way into the anchorage and found a space slightly bigger than our boat and dropped the anchor. We made it to Qld!
The Gold Coast was a real surprise. I came into the place thinking we would hate it and wouldn't be able to leave soon enough. Man was I wrong. Especially around the water. The waterways around us were surrounded by parks, trees and walkways with intermittent playgrounds and jetties. It really is well setup for people who enjoy water. Of course you can't go to the Gold Coast and not go to the theme parks. We decided to give all our money to Dreamworld, buying a 3 day pass. That was plenty, in fact we didn't even utilise the 3rd day. Don't get me wrong, it was great fun, but even the kids were getting bored of the same rides by the end of the second day. We hung out with my Mum and Dad for the rest of our time at the Gold Coast and after about a week there we pushed on up the Seaway.
The Gold Coast Seaway is an inland waterway perfect for boaties cruising up the coast without the fear and hassle of sailing off shore. Of course, statistically you are way more likely to sink your boat in the Seaway than out at sea, but let's not get bogged down in those discrepancies. We motored for the most part up the Seaway stopping for the night at some island along the way. Our nice easy ride up the Seaway was disturbed the following morning when our anchor winch (the machine that pulls up the 100 or so kilos of chain + anchor) died when we were departing in the morning. The depth was about 10m, so that meant there was at least 10m metres of chain that I would have to pull up off the floor of the river. That equates to about 20kg, not to mention the extra 25kg for the anchor. My arms have used nothing but a keyboard for the last 15 years, so I'm sure it won't surprise you that I couldn't manage it. Not to worry. The boat is packed full of mechanical advantage, albeit manual. I rigged a spare rope to pull up the chain using the winches we use for making the sails do their thing. 20 minutes later we were on our way. Now I just have to figure out whats going on with the anchor winch.
Our next intended destination was Manly, just south of Brisbane, which is a sort of boating mecca with several marinas to choose from and thousands of boats to look at parked in said marinas. We wanted to spend Lara's birthday in Brisbane and have easy access to all the stuff to make it nice for her. Because of this, and the broken anchor winch, we decided to book a berth for a few nights. It turned out that a 1 week berth cost the same as 3 days, do I need to say more?