First voyage for 2016

9th January 2016.
Lea with Key Largo and me with Little Dragon decided to get together again [see previous post] for a weekend of day sailing out of Harwood. We invited others to join us but it ended up just the two of us and our respective crew. Lea's husband Richard and Gary McKenzie crewed on Key Largo and Nicky crewed on Little Dragon. Lea and I arrived on Friday and rigged our boats ready to launch on Saturday morning.

Pam and Nicky

We launched as planned on Saturday and we're underway at 10 ish. The destination was Iluka Pub for lunch. The tides were just right - and ebb down to Iluka and a flood back again. We set off ahead of the morning sea breeze so we almost drifted downstream for the first hour. Then a slight breeze came up and it gradually strengthened. For the stretch between the Goodwood mark and Iluka it was a tad bumpy - wind against tide and we had to keep tacking.

Although it was peak holiday season we were yet again amazed at how few boats were underway and we both found good berths alongside the pub pontoon. Remarkable. Why isn't there more sailing on the Clarence River? We lunched at the pub and then caught the flood back to Harwood with the first stretch a long run. Very pleasant. It feels more like a real mini-voyage when there is a destination.

The plan was to sail again on the Sunday possibly to Yamba but Lea hurt her back and decided to head home and Nicky and I were pretty weary after a long but enjoyable sail the day before and also decided to pack up and head for home on Sunday morning.