It is only a relatively short distance from Sydney Harbour to Broken Bay, less than 20 nautical miles, but it took us over six hours to sail there. There was a light southerly blowing from directly behind us and so we zigged and zagged trying to keep the wind at an optimum angle to the sails. Downwind sailing sure can be frustrating!
Just on dusk, as we made our way through Broken Bay to America Bay, a pair of Hercules transport planes flew past very low overhead. They were incredibly close to us and incredibly loud. Quite a spectacle!
We arrived in America Bay as the sun was setting and tied up to one of the courtesy moorings, marvelling at how flat and calm the water was. We could have been in a lake. There was such a feeling of tranquillity and peace.
The next morning we decided to make the most of the calm conditions and tackle some repairs to the spreader guards. This involved going up the mast in the bosun’s chair, like Matt did in Lakes Entrance, and sewing some leather patches onto the ends of the spreaders. However, since sewing was the key skill involved, this time it was my turn to head up the mast. We spent most of the day going up and down in the bosun’s chair; measuring, cutting, adjusting and sewing the new guards on. My legs ached from bracing against the mast. It was quite a workout. By the end of the afternoon, we were pretty pleased with our handiwork and thought the new leather guards looked nice and neat and kind of like big band-aids on the ends of the spreaders.
There were some absolutely huge jellyfish floating in the water all over Pittwater and Broken Bay. Matt took this photo in America Bay from above the surface.
We moved to Stingray Bay in Smiths Creek and explored right down to the end of the bay, with Matt dragging the tender over some shallow parts. We were the only boat in this area and the solitude and privacy was lovely. There was a really cool echo in this little waterway and we had a bit of fun testing it out.
At Houseboat Bay in Cowan Creek we took the tender across to the boat ramp in Appletree Bay and hiked from there to Mt Ku-Ring-Gai through the Mt Ku-Ring-Gai Chase National Park. A beautiful, steep walk, through quintessential Australian bush, with gorgeous wildflowers scattered about. At first the colour palette appears to be just greens and browns, but then you notice a brightly coloured flower and all of a sudden, you are seeing delicate pops of colour everywhere. Red, orange, yellow, white and lots of pink and purple.
Right up the end of Houseboat Bay was this pretty little waterfall. Matt climbed right up to the top of the rocks to take photos. We then motored through Cowan Creek as the sun was setting, aiming for Brooklyn, which is on the Hawkesbury River.
We didn’t quite make it all the way before dark, so we grabbed a mooring at Fisherman’s Beach in Cowan Creek. Then we were up nice and early and headed to Brooklyn as the sun rose. It was lovely to be awake to see the sun rise, but it was a little fresh! Arvi met us in Brooklyn for a coffee. A real coffee in a proper cup! Sitting at a table, not standing up! This was the first day that restrictions eased in NSW to allow patrons to dine in. It was lovely to feel somewhat normal again. We helped the owner of the Brooklyn Milk Bar to get the stools out of his van. He was pretty chuffed to be able to serve customers properly again too.
Brooklyn is a small town at the mouth of the Hawkesbury River and is as far up as we can go in Cool Change, due to the height of the bridge. It’s quite picturesque in an industrial, working harbour kind of way.
One of the highlights for me was finding hot showers near the Hawkesbury River Marina. We delighted in our first proper hot shower in six weeks. Yep, six weeks. I think that must be some sort of record, even for Matt! It was absolutely heavenly, and we both enjoyed a good clean and a proper hairwash (me!), even if the shower facilities were pretty rudimentary and we had to keep feeding the hot water meter with dollar coins. Now don’t worry, we aren’t total ferals (yet!) and we have been washing, but jumping off the back of the boat for a quick scrub and then a cold fresh water hose down isn’t exactly luxury. The boat does have a shower, but we only have hot water after we’ve used the engine, it only lasts for a short time, and I’m always conscious of water levels in the tanks, so we don’t use it all that much.
During our time in Pittwater/Broken Bay we had limited phone and internet reception, the first time this had occurred since way down south in the Kent Group islands. Figuring this would be a good time to test our SAT phone, we tried to call my sister, but to no avail. The unit would not work and no matter how many factory resets we tried, we couldn’t get it to function. Lucky it wasn’t an emergency! Thankfully, the guys from the SatPhone Shop are incredibly helpful and arranged for a new unit to be posted up to us via express courier. We nominated Coxy’s apartment in Bondi as the delivery address.
And so we found ourselves on a train from Brooklyn back to Sydney and out to Bondi, where Coxy met us with the replacement SAT phone. Of course we had to take him out for a beer to say thanks, but none of the pubs there were allowing customers to dine in yet, so we ended up at Grill’d. No complaints from me, I devoured a burger while the boys had a few beers.
On our last day we went into Pittwater proper, which is where we bought Cool Change from almost exactly a year ago. It took about a week to sail her down to Hastings last winter, and it’s taken four months to sail back up. From here on in we are entering into uncharted waters……. well, uncharted for us!
Here’s to moving onwards and upwards!
Life is either a daring adventure or nothing at all.
Helen Keller
Cool Change 