Sailing Port Stephens

The following morning, we picked up a mooring in Nelson Bay. A beautiful sunny day! After looking around the town and marina, we found a mechanic to come out to the boat to look at our generator. We spent the afternoon waiting for him. The weather was beautiful, so after lazing about on the cabin top reading, I went for a swim. Water was not much colder than air temp – both around 19c.

We walked from Nelson Bay to Zenith Beach for a look. Then back around the marina and saw a little penguin chasing fish around the breakwater rocks.

We dropped our computer off to be fixed and could not pick it up until Monday morning. The following three nights were spent in several different anchorages. Firstly moored in Fame Cove, we went for a late afternoon putter up the creek in the dinghy.

Fame Cove

The creek is a marine sanctuary, so we couldn’t drop our crab pot there, so we put it out near where we were moored. The next day we discovered we had no luck catching crabs but had acquired an octopus… I went back to the boat to pickle octopus. Check out our Gourmet from the Galley blog for the recipe.

We spent a night in the adjacent bay called North Arm Cove. The wind had picked up, but this spot was nicely sheltered from the strong westerly. No luck fishing …again! The last night we went back to Shoal Bay, walked to Nelson to check out the Sunday markets, enjoyed a drink at the pub, and then prepared the boat for the morning’s departure. We sailed out to Broughton Island to try some fishing. Dwayne caught and cooked fish for dinner.

The next day we started our overnight sail to Coffs Harbour. We had a close encounter with three whales. They got so close to our boat, and at least one went right under us. And we caught a giant Marlin!

Next up – The Marlin