We have been landlocked for the past 5 ½ weeks, exploring around the Melbourne area.
Two weeks were spent in Williamstown at the Royal Yacht Club of Victoria, where we caught up with our friend Beres who was over from Perth visiting his son Michael and his wife Christie whom we first met in Hobart.
Peta caught up with Colleen with whom she previously worked at Wood & Grieve Engineers, also long time friends John and Radka who live in Melbourne and Tom and his wife Michelle and their two children. So the first week at Williamstown was generally socialising with old friends.
Arrangements were made to have flyscreens fitted on Finesse by Lorraine and Tony whom we met whilst on a mooring at Woodbridge (Peppermint Bay) bay in Tasmania. So whilst we were away at Docklands for 2 weeks these were made and were fitted when we revisited Williamstown on our way to Geelong. We also caught up with their friends Sue and Gary and also Frank who they were travelling with in convoy in Tasmania for dinner at the Royal Motor Yacht Club in Williamstown. Frank delivers vessels up and down the coast and was most helpful with advices of ports and safe anchorages on the way to Sydney. (The importance of local knowledge)
Then we moved further up the Yarra River to Docklands for 2 weeks. Docklands is right in the centre of Melbourne and we stayed at the Waterfront City Marina run by the City of Melbourne which is very reasonable at $210.00 per week, this includes use of their shore facilities including a visitor lounge with TV, internet, BBQ, kitchen, showers plus towels and laundry all included in the price.
Ron and I celebrated our 4th wedding anniversary, mother’s day plus Peta’s birthday whilst at Docklands.
Ben, Tarryn and our grandson Jordan arrived from Perth to join us for 10 days at Docklands. Peta got her “Nanna fix” whilst we had Jordan on board and it was good to see Ben and Tarryn go off exploring Melbourne whilst Ron and I babysat Jordan.
We explored many things in Melbourne with them including the zoo and the aquarium which were just great. As the local free city circle tram left from the Waterfront City stop it was easy to get on and off as you pleased thus making exploring Melbourne with a baby so much easier.. Whilst we were planning to sail to Geelong, we all took the country train to Geelong so that Ben and Tarryn could go to a Sydney Swans football match one Saturday. Nana & Granddad brought Jordan home on the train that afternoon.
We also explored St Kilda catching the tram out there on Peta’s birthday, had lunch at a local pub and bought cakes from the famous Acland Street cake shops. Unfortunately for Ben and Tarryn Luna Park at St Kilda wasn’t open that day.
All too quickly the 10 days passed and it was time to see them off at the local city “Airport Shuttle” bus depot at Southern Cross Station (formally Spencer Street Station). It was quite sad to see them go, however we do have many photos of them to look back on.
Whilst at docklands we met a previous owner of Finesse who sold her 14 years ago but had owned her for 4 years. It was good to hear some stories about her and where she had been. We stayed a further 3 days before departing and heading back to Williamstown to have the flyscreens fitted. We refuelled Finesse at a 24 hr fuelling station in the Yarra in preparation for our onward journey to Sydney.
The motor from Williamstown to Geelong took us about 5 hours, it was a calm sunny day and we arrived at the Royal Geelong Yacht Club about 3pm. The club made us very welcome and Ron has been given some good sailing advice about getting out of “the rip”.
Whilst in Geelong we explored the town, walked along many walk trails and even caught up on a couple of movies. We took the local bus to Queenscliff and then the local ferry across the bay to Sorrento. We wanted to check out Queenscliff and the entrance known as “the cut” in preparation for entering the channel which can have a 6-7 knot tidal flow if you do not pick slack water.
We departed Geelong on Saturday 29th May and headed out and past the many spit posts that mark the entrance up the channel to Geelong before going out the Western Channel and around to Queenscliff. Our entry into the cut left us with an adrenalin rush as the water flow into the channel we estimated to be running at 5 knots. This meant we had to go a little faster to have steerage. At the end of the channel near the yacht club wharf it shallowed up very quickly which meant we had to do a hard starboard turn to avoid running aground. Given we were doing around 8 knots , Finesse obeyed the helm instantly causing us to do close to a 180 degree turn, turning in her own boat length. This left us facing back towards rocks near where we had just come in. Full reverse throttle saved the day. A couple of locals awaiting our arrival to assist in our berthing were very impressed?
We stayed at the Cruising Yacht Club of Queenscliff for 3 nights before departing early on Tuesday 1st June to go out through the “Rip” (Port Phillip Bay Heads). The “Rip” is a notoriously dangerous channel of water and today was reasonably smooth. We had studied the weather and the web cams especially placed to view the sea conditions before departing. Once through we started our journey towards San Remo, located at the eastern end of Phillip Island where after a 7 hour sail we picked up a courtesy mooring just off the beach. Early next morning at 1:30 am we set off for a 12 hour sail around Wilson’s Promontory to Refuge Cove where we stayed a couple of days in this delightful bush setting where access is limited to walkers or boats. There were two campsites on shore , one for bushwalkers and one for boaties. The boaties campsite contained a wooden wall displaying the names of visiting vessels and the date(s) visited. Around 5:00pm on the second day we sailed out for our trip up to Lakes Entrance arriving around 8.00 am next day on a calm sea entering the bar around 9:00am again after studying live web cam views and the height and rates of water flow on a Gippsland Lakes sand management website.
We were close to the end of an ebb tide but still could have waited another hour or so as we still found ourselves partially surfing into the narrow channel of still outward flowing water. This took quite a deal of helming before we were safely into protected waters.
Now that we better understand the enormity of the lakes system here (using the benefit of an exploration trip on a local ferry) we have decided to stay for about a week to explore the beauty and wildlife of this area before waiting for the “right” weather to head finally across the remainder of “the paddock” (Bass Strait) around Gabo Island and up to Eden in NSW.
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