Episode 71 Lake Macquarie

For our last post (Episode 70) we had berth Lorelei at Newcastle Cruising Yacht Club’s Marina for 1 month.

We had taken a train to Bundaberg in QLD to retrieve our car & camper and brought them back down to NSW.

We had a busy time in Newcastle, exploring the area, catching up with family and friends, refueling and re-provisioning Lorelei, car suspension upgrade, have the scuba compressor re-built and a bit of maintenance and last-minute additions.

Lisa also resigned from work and had given 4 weeks’ notice.

She had worked 2 weeks and had two to go.

We then sailed south to Lake Macquarie. 

Our route for this blog post

Lake Macquarie is Australia’s largest coastal lake and the largest tidal lake in the

Southern Hemisphere.

It covers an area of 110 square kilometers with a shoreline of 174 kilometers. Its water volume is estimated at around 9 billion litres and it is over twice the size of Sydney Harbour.

We are no strangers to Lake Macquarie as we grew up only 1 hour south of there.

When Paul was a teenager, he paddled right around Lake Macquarie with a small group of scout friends as part of their Queen Scout Award.

He also used to train on the lake when he was doing barefoot waterski competitions.

We also had Purranha (our first cruising yacht) moored at Marks Point on the lake for a few years until we went full-time cruising in our late 20’s.

We went through the opening bridge, transited the shallow channel into the lake, and had parked up at Wangi Wangi Headland.

We had a lovely and quiet few days at Wangi before deciding to move to a more secure bay as the weather deteriorated and the wind picked up.

We decided to go to Balcolyn and anchor up just inside of Fig Tree Point.

It would give us good protection from most wind directions, close proximity to friends Craig and Terese’s house (where our car was stored) and to some nice areas worth exploring around the lake.

From our anchorage we could see the new Eraring Power Station and the stacks from the old Wangi Power Station.

Looking towards Bonnells Bay was a lovely sand spit point with some large Pine Trees that made for excellent photos for over a week as the sun set just near them.

Over the first weekend there, we decided to launch the kayaks despite the rain and brave a paddle to Dora Creek.

It started to rain as soon as we reached the shoreline, but at least it was nice and flat with no wind.

As we paddled past the local parklands, there was a group of trailer-sailors from southern Sydney coming in to park up on the beach for the night.

Some of the boats were older timber designs and immaculate.

After heading around the pine tree point, the weather looked ok, so we decided to brave it and paddle across the lake and to the entrance of Dora Creek.

We were grateful to be inside the protection of the creek’s entrance as it was a bit bumpy on the crossing.

The 4 km paddle up the creek was lovely with lots of Pelican’s sitting on the wharfs of the local waterfront houses.

On the way up the creek, Paul found a Golf Cart in the water under some trees, so we stopped to pick it up and took it home.

When we were researching the paddle, we noticed a power station water outlet along the creek, and it flowed into another section of the lake.
We wondered whether we could carry the kayaks across the road and the spit of land on the return rather than the long paddle back out of the creek and that way we would get to explore another section.

So, we stopped off for a walk and explore to see if it was possible – and it was!

We continued up the creek to the train & car bridge and stopped at Dora Creek shops to get some well-earned lunch from the local fish and chip shop.

On the way back, we were able to carry the kayaks across, but we did have to walk about 200m to get past the closed-off power station security section.

Once back on the lake, we were able to paddle over to Bonnells Bay and then do a down wind sail back to Pine Tree Point. 

The last 1.5km paddle home was brutal!

After the sail, we had gotten cold from lack of paddling and it was getting late and the temperature was dropping rapidly.

We were freezing by the time we got home.

Paul quickly put the hot water heater on for a warm shower before pulling up the kayaks, washing down and coming inside – only to find Paul had switch the power point on but forgot to turn the invertor back on – so it wasn’t heating.

Damn! We had to wait a further 20 minutes in wetsuits before we were able to get into the shower to strip off and get warm.

Thank goodness for the new diesel heater which heated the inside of the boat up while we waited.

The final week of work for Lisa was super busy – and a little frustrating because the weather was perfect. No rain, no wind and perfect but cool winter days.

At least we had nice sunsets to enjoy.

The sunrises over Swansea where pretty nice too.

Paul got stuck into the list of jobs to complete.

He re-silicone sealed all around the windows and hatches, removed the dorade vents and put in new seals, finally ran the re-built scuba compressor and filled all 6 scuba tanks and did a general clean and tidy.

He was even able to put his new kiteboard together after buying it 2nd hand in Newcastle and braking it down for a service and clean.

The Friday evening came around very fast and Lisa shed a little tear as she closed down her workstation on Lorelei for one final time, before we headed upstairs for some drinks and nibbles at sunset.

Paul put a Facebook post up about her retirement and career and we were blown away from the response.

On the Saturday (after someone had a more than well-earned sleep-in….), we took the tinny around to Bonnells Bay and walked up to Craig and Terese’s house for Craig’s Birthday family BBQ.

As we pulled up in the Tinny, the local Pelican's thought we were returning from a fishing trip and came up to us to see what fish frames we had for them.

We had caught up with the whole family only weeks before for Craig’s son Alex’s 40^th birthday party, but it was nice to catch up again in a quieter setting.

It was lovely as we returned down to the lake at sunset.

When we got home, it was still glassy and colourful, so Paul flew the drone for our last night there.

The next day we decided to move from Balcolyn and motored south around the corner and into Morisset.

We had to motor in past Vales Point Power Station which was on the southern shoreline opposite Morisset.

The bay we wanted to anchor in was quite shallow, so we motored in very slowly watching the depth.

Despite being a Sunday, we were the only boat in the bay.

We had seen a small creek in the corner of the bay on Google Maps and decided to fly the drone over it to see if it was worth a paddle.

It looked like we could get in despite it appearing very shallow, so we launched the kayaks and paddled around the shoreline of the bay first.

There was a great little inlet at the top of the bay that was absolutely full of juvenile prawns with an old stone bridge at the end.

The mouth of the creek was very shallow, but super glassy.

At the bridge, Paul stopped to walk up onto it and fly the drone.

It’s the first time we’ve ever taken the drone on the kayak (it was in a dry bag).

There were lots of very large Kangaroos along the shoreline and we were able to get quite close to them.

Sadly we couldn't get the kayak under (or over) the bridge to go further up the creek due to the large pipes lying just below the surface.

Once we exited the creek, we paddled further south out of the bay past the old wharf and saw more Kangaroos along the water’s edge.

On the Monday, Lisa slept in!!! With no alarm to wake her up to start work, she enjoyed a well-deserved late start.

It was a busy day with Lisa cleaning up her Laptop for its return to work.

On Tuesday we had planned to go fishing - and hopefully some fly fishing if the wind stayed away.

But overnight it was very cold and Paul got out of bed at 6:45am to discover it was 3 degrees and dense fog all around Lorelei.

At least there was no wind....

Even at 8am we still couldn’t see the power station across from us.

Once the fog cleared (and it warmed up a bit) we were able to rig up some fishing gear and launch the tinny.

Now that Lisa was retired, there were two things she really wanted to get back into - and they were scuba diving and fly fishing.

It had been a long time since we used the flyfishing (and fly-tying gear) so we got it out, checked it all over, re-rigged the fly lines, repacked the appropriate flies and headed out for a session.

We were both pretty rusty with fly casting but it all came together after about an hour of practicing.

We didn’t get any fish, but had a lot of fun – and were very excited to have got back into it.

 

The next morning, we decided to sail to Gwandalan as it was very protected in the stronger westerly winds that were forecast, and it was very easy access to a post office so Lisa could return her work equipment back to WA.

It turned into a fun but lively 7nm sail as the wind gusts funnelled through the channels and bay in the lake.

We had to sail on about 6 different angles, but all were reaching or downwind, so it was great.

We passed lots of small pockets of residential areas that were in quaint secluded bays.

We ended up anchoring 2 bays north of Gwandalan just out from the Point Wolstoncroft Sport and Rec Camp.

The camp has been there for decades, and we both remember going there as kids.

The tinny ride around to Gwandalan was very flat with the offshore wind and the wharf and bay were both very quiet.

The Bowling Club is on the water's edge, and the shops were only across the road, so access was perfect.

We loved the little town and the staff at the local butchers, post office, supermarket and Chinese takeaway were all very friendly. 

We loved the area and so far it was our favourite on the lake.

We found a large seat on the water edge right next to the wharf and ate our Chinese takeaway lunch there. 

 On the way home, we stopped into the two other bays between Lorelei and Gwandalan.
They both had small public wharfs which made going ashore and exploring very easy.

It was the night of the full moon and it rose even before the sun had set.

The next morning was cold – crazy cold!!!
We even had to run the diesel heater in the morning.

It was so cold in bed, we decided to get out our new blankets we had purchased 6 weeks prior.
Lisa decided on a Dudu Bubu Northern Lights one (our ultimate destination) while Paul got a diving Nudibranch one. It has been named the "Nudi-Branc-et"

It did soon warm up and Paul was able to fly his drone as it was too windy the day before.

Point Wolstoncroft is a long thin spit of land and makes for an interesting aerial view.

We could also see all the way back down the lake to the residential areas of Gwandalan and right to the south shoreline of the lake.

Even the spit of land between the lake and the ocean is narrow in the southern part of the lake.

 When it finally warmed up, we were able to take the tinny north into the next bay and start the walk which went up to the ridge line and all the way to the tip of Point Wolstencroft.

Once up on the main track, there was a full canopy of trees going over it.

The Bellbirds were everywhere and so noisy. 

We also saw Flycatchers, Crows, Currawongs, Kookaburras and Lorikeets.

It was about 3km to get close to the tip and we could see water on both sides through the trees.

It was very green and leafy with Strangler Figs and Prickly Pear. 

There was a lot of Lantana and despite it being such an invasive plant, it was all in flower.

The tip had a lot of coarse shell grit on the shoreline and has great views in all directions.

Looking back southwest, we could see a fire in the forest area. It was weird how the plume of smoke rose vertically, then a southerly airstream hit which blew it horizontally towards us.

On the way home was saw a few Kangaroos and even more Swamp Wallabies.

Overnight the conditions got better as the little wind there was, backed off to almost nothing.

The full moon and sport & rec camp looked great with the reflections.

The 5:30am morning glow looked awesome with the cloud cover and no wind.

We decided to try flying fishing again along the drop off parallel to the shoreline in the bay.

Paul was pretty stoked to get a nice Dusky Flathead.

We were pretty surprised to find out it was 52cm long when we measured it properly on the brag mat back on Lorelei.  We thought it was mid 40’s when we landed it.

That afternoon, friend Kate sailed her yacht, Quest, down into the bay and moored up next to us.

Kate and Paul worked together at Adreno and like Paul, Kate was a dive instructor with a lot of industry experience. She did Lisa’s divemaster crossover from NAUI to PADI all those years ago.

We had not seen her in 16 years, so it was a great catch up.

She had her son Benji and Dutch friend Stewart with her as well.

Sadly, the next morning it was cold, overcast and drizzling rain (typical – it was a Saturday) and switching to northerly winds later in the day.

We decided to leave the anchorage and motor for 90 minutes around into Bardens Bay, which was very protected from the north – and closer to our car in Bonnells Bay.

We anchored right in the centre on the bay as it was very shallow around the edges.

We decided to have a nice Laksa style lunch and cook it in the cockpit on a butane burner stove.

Whilst lunch was simmering away, the drizzling rain stopped and the bay glassed out.

Paul flew his drone resulting in some great reflection shots around the bay.

He also took some reflection shots of the shoreline with the camera.

In the afternoon the Black Swans swam into the bay, and in flew a flock of pesky Corellas.

The next morning it was very cold again and done to just 3 degrees.

The lack of wind had fog hanging over the water.

Mid-morning we put the tinny in and headed ashore to go and retrieve our car.
It was about a 1.5km walk over the hill from Bardens Bay to Bonnells Bay. 

We drove to Budgewoi to meet Lisa’s family for a Sunday lunch at the local Soccer Club.

Monday was a bank holiday and Paul’s nephew Dan had the day off.

He only lived about 10km from where we were anchored, so he decided to come and spend the day with us.

That evening we had our first storm in ages.

We could see it coming on the radar and from lightning in the sky.

We packed down and put out the water catching equipment but all we got was a lot of wind as the rain passed just to the north of us. 

The next morning, we returned the car to Bonnells Bay and had a great 5nm downwind sail from Bardens Bay to Pulbah Island. 

The island is a popular spot for boats and has a few sets of mooring buoys around the island.

With the light westerly winds (and our dislike of public moorings), we decided to anchor on the NE side of the island, close to the tip.

Looking north we could see the long spit of Wangi.

It didn’t really matter where we anchored as the whole area glassed off and stayed that way into the evening.

The next morning was our coldest morning ever onboard Lorelei at 1 degree!!!

We had the diesel heater running from when we woke up until it was warm enough to get outside and enjoy the glassy morning.

When it warmed up, we went in for a fly fish in the glassy conditions.

After lunch we decided to do a bush walk along the ridge line of Pulbah Island.

We were barely able to make out the track as it was very overgrown.

We did manage to get to the summit, but we couldn’t see any track beyond that.

Lisa (who loves Orchids) managed to find a few small Ladies Fingers Orchids (in 2 colour variations) and some other smaller winter flowers as well.

We backtracked past our starting point and went out towards the northern tip.

We could see Lorelei through the gum trees.

Paul took his 600mm wildlife lens (after not taking it on the Pt Wolstencroft walk and regretting it) and was able to get some bird photos.

Despite the Pt Wolstencroft walk being only 2km away and in direct line of sight, the bird life was very different.

We saw no Bell Birds, Corellas or Crows but instead saw Grey Fantails and Yellow Faced Honeyeaters and raptors like Ospreys and White Bellied Sea Eagles.

On the way home in the tinny, we motored around the northern tip of the island to have a look at the sandy spit.

With the glassy conditions the next morning, we moved from Pulbah Island to the small town of Wangi.

It was glassy again and we had to motor the 1 hour to get there.

With the super glassy conditions, the kayak fisherman were out and about around Wangi Pt.

We motored in past a few nice tranquil bays.

We anchored right out the front of the Wangi township and the local RSL club which is right on the water.

The long spit of land that makes up the town of Wangi looked great from the drone.

Being so protected, it is obviously a very popular spot for boating.
The corner bays were packed with moored boats. 

On the other side on the bay, we could clearly see the old Wangi Power Station.

 
If we thought it wasn’t going to get any colder, we were wrong.

Friday morning it was officially 0.0 degrees!!

Despite the cold, it was a crisp, clear and glassy morning and Paul was up with the camera.

While photographing the glassy reflections, fish turned up in the bay and started to attack the fish around Lorelei.

There were fish bust-ups everywhere and Seagulls swooping in on the action.

When they came around to the other side of Lorelei, Paul was able to get some great reflection shots of the Seagulls just above the water surface.

The Gulls certainly didn't like it when a local Kookaburra turned up as well.

Mid-morning we headed into Wangi to have a look around, go to the local IGA for a fruit and veg top up, and head into the RSL club for lunch.

The local friendly Kookaburra was in the tree at the start of the wharf.

We had organised to meet family friends Don & Sylvia and Keith & Barb for lunch.

We are very close to Keith as he is our biggest fan...

He lives 5 doors down from Paul’s parents and was Paul’s scout leader when he was a kid.

He taught Paul how to sail, the finer points in boating skills, compass use and how to read a weather map amongst other things.

He even joined us for a 6-week stint onboard Lorelei back in 2011 when we took him and Paul’s dad George, from Carins in far north Queensland to Lizard Island and back via the Ribbon Reefs.

It was a very fun time!!!

We got to the club a little early, so we sat outside overlooking the water drinking Brookvale Union Ginger Beer (our favourite) which fortunately was this month’s special on tap.

Lunch was really nice and great to catch up with everyone.

After lunch Don, Silvia and Keith headed out to Lorelei for a look while Barb stayed at the club with Lisa.

That afternoon, just before sunset, we lifted the anchor and headed further north and around to the very protected Kilaben Bay for the evening.

The next morning, we woke to footsteps on the deck directly over our bed.

After a little investigation, we discovered two adult ducks (a drake and a hen) walking around the back of Lorelei.

When we disturbed them, all we got was sass!!!

Goodness knows how they got onboard.
The duckboard (haha - pardon the pun) was up and the back door was closed.
We can only assume they somehow landed on the deck after flying.

It turned into a lovely day, and Paul flew the drone over the bay.

Whilst flying, we noticed a bunch of small inlets and tributaries at the end of the bay.

So, we launched the kayaks and paddled in toward the shore to start with.

It was super glassy and very nice paddling.

Up in the shallows, we passed a Black Swan that didn’t care at all about us being so close.

The Seagulls did – they flew off.

The little bays were very shallow, but the main creek had just enough water depth at the mouth to get over it and into the deeper water.

We had to go under a set of pipes, but after that, it was very protected and glassy.

About halfway up we discover the gold course, which was on both side of the creek.

The greens and fairways were very close to the creek, and we could see lots of golf balls in the shallows.

So, we started picking them up.

Past the golf course, we started to encounter a lot of structure in the water, with many of the fallen trees and logs stretching right across the waterway, which made tough going.

Eventually we came to a point where the structure was too dense and too shallow, so we had to abort and turn around.

We actually made it a lot further up than we originally thought we would, so we were happy.

On the way home, we found a shallow section further downstream where the golf balls must accumulate when the creek floods and forces the balls downstream.

We spent 20 minutes picking balls up off the shallow bottom by simply reaching over the side of the kayak.

Paul attempted to get the deeper ones – that was until he rolled his kayak and fell in.

Fortunately, we got all the balls back after they all fell out. 

On the way home we decided to follow the shoreline of the other side of the bay to the one we went in on.

It had a lot of nice homes with wharves.

Upon returning, we put all the ball into a bucket of clean freshwater and cleaning solution.

We estimated we had well over 120 golf balls!! 

Sunday morning – bang, bang, bang on the deck again at 7am.

Bloody ducks!!
We went upstairs and no ducks on the deck.

Perplexed, we looked around and found both of them sitting on our cockpit roof top.

Not sure who got the biggest fright as we raised our heads only to find them centimeters away.

Needless to say, they flew off in a hurry.

While the male swam away, the hen turned around and swam back towards us and gave us the evil eye and a bit of lip.

We thought she might even have eggs onboard, but after a bit of searching, we couldn’t find any. 

Seeing as we were now out of bed, put the tinny in and headed around to the Rathmines foreshore to visit the Catalina Base memorial.

Rathmines is well known for its large Catalina Flying Boat base during WW2.

We parked at F-jetty and walked from the jetty around to the memorial and had a look and the old concrete ramp and parade ground on the way.

We also had a look at the old buildings that were part of the base.

The memorial was very nice and a great place for an Anzac memorial and Anzac Day ceremony.

There were quite a few Kookaburra's in the trees surrounding the memorial.

Sadly, we thought it was a bit basic considering the history of the place.

They could have a museum and an actual Catalina on display.
There is a little bit of memorabilia at the local bowling club but that doesn't open until lunch time.

After a bit of research, we discovered the association of volunteers actually has a Catalina they are restoring in a shed in Beresford, however it is not going to be displayed on site and instead will be a part of Newcastle’s RAAF display when it is finished. It’s a shame in our opinion however i guess it comes down to funding.

We returned to Lorelei and looked at the weather forecast to discover the next day’s strong wind warning had now turned into a gale warning (the next level higher), and we were due to get rain within a few hours’ time.

There was also a severe weather warning and a sheep graziers warning so we knew we needed to move to a less crowded location with room for us to put out a lot of chain.

We packed up quickly and motored from Kilaben Bay north towards Fennell Bay which was past Toronto and right up towards the top of the lake.

There were a lot of very large and expensive homes along the foreshore as we motored north.

We could also see Belmont and the well-known Belmont 16ft Skiff Club of the other side of the lake.

With 30 knot north winds overnight followed by 30+ knots of wind from the west over the subsequent days, we needed a very secure anchorage to handle both directions. 

After a bit of searching and looking at satellite photos, we settled on Kooroora Bay and anchored in the centre of the bay and quite close to the main road bridge of Fennell Bay.

It was a perfect spot.

Not many other boats around us, shoreline close by for Paul to kiteboard if the opportunity arose, lots of room to swing and even to drag in a worst-case scenario.
We put 45m of chain out in only 4m of water depth so if that wasn’t going to hold us, nothing would.

Looking north with the drone, we could see the very top of the lake system and the suburb of Booragul.

We packed Lorelei down, put on all the covers, packed the fishing gear away, secured the tinny and enclosed the cockpit.

While we waited for the rain, we decided to have a Sunday arvo lunch of Laksa in the cockpit and a few drinks while listening to Avril on the stereo. 

And as luck would have it, it glassed right off before the rain hit making for nice photo ops.

 
It wasn’t that windy overnight and there was only a little rain.

We woke to a nice day with virtually no cloud and only a bit of wind.

That changed very quickly when the wind intensified during the day.

By mid-morning it was 30 knots and around lunch time it was gusting into the mid 30’s.

For the afternoon it got really brutal, with consistent wind over 30 and gusts hitting 40 knots!

The wind was funneling down through the nearby creek and under the car bridge.
We were seeing regular mini twisters and wind spray being blown up off the water's surface and pushed past and though the bridge pylons.

There were reports online from Nobbys Headland in Newcastle and Norah Head on the Central Coast of winds hitting 50 knots.

We could see things blowing around on shore and one property in front of us lost something large off their house.

It had flashing on it so we could only assume it was roofing.

Fortunately, it went into the water and drifted away from us.

At 4pm we received a very nice email from a retired couple who had a waterfront house just near us and were wanting to make sure we were ok.

They had seen Lorelei’s name, searched the net, found our blog & email and contacted us that way.
Wow! The power of the internet.

It was a very nice gesture, and they even offered to take us shopping if we needed anything.

 Overall, it was just fine – although we did get pushed around a lot as the gusts pushed Lorelei sideways and it was a bit like being in a high-speed train on a sharp bend.

It’s the strongest winds we have seen since we launched in December.

Thank goodness we prepped the day before and put out a 10-1 scope of anchor chain just in case.

The new wind generator and anchor alarm apps also worked great.

The new anchor is awesome and we never moved during the whole blow.

 The next morning was a bit of a sleep in as we only had intermittent sleep overnight.

We woke once again to a clear day with sub 10 knots of wind.

We dropped the tinny in, motored under the bridge and explored the smaller creeks and tributaries in the area.

It was nice inside the creek systems and out of the wind.

There were a lot of birds in the mangroves on the shoreline. 

On the way back out, we turned down towards Toronto and followed the shoreline.

We found a boat on a mooring with a great logo mimicking the famous Arnotts Biscuits logo.

We crossed the lake and headed over to Bolton Point.

We couldn't believe how many moored boats were jam packed so closely together into the bay.

There was a little bit of carnage after the big blow.

The local wharf had a sign that said “No Berthing”. Pretty weird for a wharf we thought – that was until we saw dozens of fishing rod holders evenly spaced along the length of the wharf.

 

Back in Fennell Bay, we anchored the dingy and walked up to the local shops for lunch at the local Chinese Restaurant.

That was until we discovered it was closed on Monday and Tuesday.

Bummer! 

On the way back we stopped in at a little skatepark that was in an empty field and nobody there.

Paul had a fun skate while Lisa took some photos.

When the wind and storms back off (of so we thought….), we lifted anchored and moved only a mile south to the town of Toronto.

The town has a wonderful shoreline with lots of parklands, sailing clubs, wharves and a great swimming enclosure.

The central part of town and shopping precinct is very close to the waters edge making it really easy to reprovision – and there is a Coles, Woolies and Aldi.

After a stop of only a few hours, we decided to sail back down to the southern part of the lake to Gwandalan so we could have lunch with Lisa’s family as it was her brother-in-law Ken’s birthday.

The problem was when we decided to leave Toronto, the Wednesday arvo sailing races were on and the start line was only 150m from where Lorelei was anchored.

The boats were all milling around us and we decided it was prudent to stay until the race had begun and the sail past us to the first leg before we could safely move.

As the afternoon went on, the clouds started to build in the west and by the time we were only half way down the lake, they had come right over us.

We could see a lot of rain behind us and assumed it had gone around us but we were wrong.

It didn't rain, but we did get slammed with 25 knots of winds that came out of nowhere.

The full main and genoa were up and we had a major workout trying to get the main eased and the genoa furled back in.

We are surprised we didn’t break something or rip the sail as it whipped around in the gusty conditions. 

We pulled into Wangi headland’s protected anchorage and stayed overnight before travelling the rest of the way down the next morning.
 

By the time we arrived at Gwandalan,  it was a beautiful & glassy day and we had a birthday lunch in the club overlooking the wharf where the tinny was tied up and Lorelei anchored up just out from the wharf.

The glassy conditions stayed all night.

With the glassy conditions continuing for another 48 hours before a southerly blow was due, we decided to move back to Wangi to do some fly fishing.

It was a super glassy Friday and there were a lot of small tinnies and runabouts out fishing.

While we were fishing, there was a small sea plane that was doing practice landing and takeoffs on the flat calm water.

When we got home from fishing, there were lots of cheeky Welcome Swallows flying around Lorelei and sitting on the rails and ropes.

That evening we got a text saying our new custom-made scuba diving wetsuits and drysuits were ready to be picked up in Sydney, so on the Saturday we moved into Bonnells Bay to a secure anchorage and to be closer to our car.

It was very shallow and we had to motor into the bay very slowly so we didn’t run aground at speed. 

We managed to get reasonably close to shore but only had about 1.2m of depth under the keel.

That evening the clouds rolled in and it rained overnight.

On the Sunday morning we were up at 6am and due to leave at 7am, but it was cold and miserable. It was raining and we weren’t going out in the rain.

So, we waited an hour for a break in the weather and had enough time to get the tinny in, secure in on the shoreline, walk up to the car and get underway before the next squall hit.

The destination was the Seatec Wetsuit factory at Seven Hills in Sydney.

We were stoked to find out it was only a 75 minute drive from Lake Macquarie.

The last time we drove it (over a decade ago) it would have been a much longer trip.

It was pretty cool to go through the new tunnel that links the freeway to the inner west area and takes ages off the trip time. The downside is the number of tolls to use the faster routes.

When we were going through our dive gear on Lorelei some months prior, we realised we didn’t really have any decent thicker 5-7mm wetsuits for colder climates.

We had been diving in Tropical and Sub-Tropical conditions for years and only need
1-3mm lightweight suits.

We did have some unused semi-dry and tri-laminate dry-suits from when Paul worked in the diving industry, but for Lisa, hers were either too old or too small.

After a lot of searching the web and talking to fellow industry professionals, we decided to contact Seatec wetsuits as they had a great reputation and made both wetsuits and drysuits and in custom sizes and colours.

As it turned out, Brian Piper the owner of Seatec is an ex-water ski racer like Paul and also a dive industry professional who has been in the business a long time.

Both Brian’s parents and Paul’s grand-parents were pioneers of the Hawkesbury River Boat and Ski Racing Club post WW2.

It’s a small world….

After a bit of consulting, we decided on a custom made 2-piece wetsuit and a heavy-duty neoprene drysuit for both or us.

We chose the Hobart Professional Drysuit (oh the irony – that’s where we are heading to use them…) and Seatec’s JM/JL 2-piece wetsuits.

It took 8 weeks to have them made to our sizes and specific requests, but the results are awesome.

We had Brian fit them on us in the factory on the Sunday and explained how to take them on and off and how to care for them.

The say we are stoked is an understatement.
His service is excellent.

Lisa in her new drysuit. It is baggy as no water can get inside and she can wear thermals or warm clothing underneath.

After a bit of shopping on the way home, we were back by mid arvo with the suits onboard Lorelei and ready to go. 

The rest of the week turned into a busy one as we wound up our time in Lake Macquarie and prepared to move on the the next destination.

There was water collecting, boat washing and cleaning, clothes and linen washing, food provisioning and refuelling.

It was lucky we didn’t need too much fuel – it was damn expensive.

$2.50 a litre for diesel and $2.20 for unleaded 95 was a joke.

Thank goodness we had the car and were able to buy it at a service station in jerry cans rather than rely on a marina bowser.
That would’ve been even more expensive.

We are now feeling very chuffed that we brought over 1000 litres in Newcastle at $1.67 for both Diesel and ULP and had everything filled to capacity.

Lisa, now she was retired, was slowly getting back into the full-time cruising rhythm.

She was started to enjoy cooking again (after Paul had been doing most of it for the past 8 months) and even stated baking yummy treats! 

We did have some interesting sunsets and very still mornings.

The weather was still a bit up and down with annoying rain squalls, but overall it was much warmer than the past few weeks and the solar panels were starting to put in much more wattage during the peak times.

We found us using the generator so much less now Lisa didn’t have the invertor and star link running all day for work and regular boiling of the kettle for coffee breaks.

We were also using the diesel heater a lot less too. 

AND – naughty ducks on the boat again each morning!

I’m not sure what it is with the ducks in Lake Macquarie and their attraction to Lorelei.
We’ve never had ducks onboard ever before in the 20 years we have owned Lorelei.

So that’s it for this episode.

We are here until we get the right weather window to sail further south, because we are not motoring with the current exorbitant fuel prices. 

We also have to take our car back into long term storage and won’t be needing it again until we get to Tasmania.

Stay tuned for more action as Lisa gets well and truly back into the cruising lifestyle and we can start doing some more activities and some scuba diving with our new gear.

Our Blog has gone viral!!!!!

We have smashed our previous monthly views over both the last 2 months.

And it is still going…… 

Thanks to all who follow us.

 

Paul and Lisa

Yacht Lorelei