Twice Bashed by Southerly Busters

Wednesday, January 18th – The ping, PING, PING of the alarm clock jars us out of sleep at 0530.  A final check of the wind advisories shows that today is as good as any to start our 2-day trip south to Sydney.  The weather has been decidedly unstable for the last week with hourly changes in wind direction and velocity, but right now, it looks like we are going to have a gentle ride for the first day with nice northerlies pushing us along.  Captain’s log:  “There are southerlies heading up the coast, but the forecast shows them dying before we reach them.  Then we should have strong northerlies for the last part of the trip”  That all sounds manageable to The First Mate.

By 0620, cappuccinos made and drunk, we are on deck with motor running and anchor raising.  Leaving our small channel, we re-enter the main channel to continue on to the Seaway where we will cross the bar and head out into the ocean.

The tall buildings of the Gold Coast loom into focus as we near the turn into the opening out to sea.  An old fishing boat floats along in stark contrast to the modern buildings rising up behind it.

Turning east into the cut leading out to sea, the morning sun temporarily blinds The First Mate at the helm, but as we motor the distance out, the sun rises to the point where she can shade herself under the bimini.  The signal light at the end of the point is visible in the distance.

We pass the Southport VMR tower.  The wonderful people of the Volunteer Marine Rescue service man the radios all along the coast of Australia from early morning until evening. They broadcast weather advisories and monitor radio traffic along the waterways.  This morning, seas are calm and crossing the bar will not be a concern, but if we had any question about its condition out there, we could radio the Southport VMR for its current state.

Nearing the end of the channel, in the distance, a curious apparition can hazily be seen ahead of us. It appears to be a small motor boat with a strange contraption on its roof.  It looks like spikes. Fishing pole holders?  No, with the aid of binoculars and a long-distance photo, we can see it is a clever invention to hold surf boards.  With binoculars, the surfers in the water to whom the boat is heading are visible far ahead.  The beaches along this windward coast are known for their great surf.

We cross the bar knowing only that we have done so by monitoring the shallowing and then rising depth gage.  Clearing the point, we turn east to head out to sea.  Our objective is to get far enough off shore to catch the EAC, the Eastern Australia Current, which when running south with it, gives a boat a good 2-knot boost.  Looking back down the coast, the full impact of the high-rise construction boom on the Gold Coast is impressive.  How that sandy shore isn’t slowly sinking into the sea is a mystery?

The mainsail is up with a cautionary second reef, but after breakfast, we shake out the reef to sail along nicely with 12 – 14 knots of wind from the NW. It’s a beautiful sunny day.  This is what The First Mate loves: sailing along comfortably, no need to brace oneself, no black and blues, nothing much needing attention and just the waves to watch passing by.  Wonderful!

1200 – Captain’s log: “Wind up to 15 – 20 knots from NNW.  Sailing nicely along the coast at over 8 knots.”

By 1630, we are averaging 9 knots.  The winds have increased a bit, but not enough to create this increase in speed.  “It’s the EAC, Dude!”  With the help of this southbound current, we are getting about a 2-knot increase.

There are no other recreational boats out here.  It’s just us and an occasional large fishing boat or the cargo ships we pass about once an hour.  With the help of our AIS, we can “see” them in the distance, know their course heading and alter ours as necessary to stay at least a nautical mile away from them.

1800 – We turn on the engine, turn into the wind and re-install the second reef in preparation for the night.  Unless conditions are absolutely, totally benign, we always put in a reef or 2 when sailing at night.

1830 – Spaghetti Carbonara, a passage favorite because it is easy to eat and sits well on a queazy stomach, is served for dinner. Conditions are so calm that The First Mate comments that she could have served a more labor intensive meal. What a wonder to be able to say that!  On a passage? Where is the sea sickness? Has she finally found the agent to combat it?  Maybe so. It’s called Stugeron. A Tasmanian cruising friend gave her 12 of these little pills several years ago, but she had been scared to try them even though they were touted as the one and only sea sickness drug out there. They are not approved for use in the States and cannot be bought in many countries like Canada, Australia and New Zealand. That fact tempered her enthusiasm so she tucked them away in her medicine stash. Her bouts of sea sickness have been getting worse in the last year. There has to be something out there. She is not the only sufferer. Stugeron, A-ha! She recalls those little pills. Digging them out, holding them in the palm of her hand, she considers them and then dives into an internet fact-finding search. According to NetDoctor.com (if it can be trusted), “Stugeron tablets contain 15mg cinnarizine as the active ingredient. Cinnarizine is an antihistamine medicine that works in the brain. It prevents an area of the brain called the vomiting centre from receiving nerve messages sent from the vestibular apparatus in the inner ear.” That sounds okay. It’s also used for certain kinds of mental illnesses. Well, maybe okay, but there’s nothing life threatening mentioned. Further research brings up sites that say the reason none of these countries have approved the drug is that there are alternatives that work just as well, and as a result, pharmaceutical companies have not been keen to invest in testing and approval. That makes sense. She decides to give Stugeron a try. Worse case might be that she’ll get sleepy. For that, she has No Doz and coffee. If the pills do work, she’ll ask her doctor back in the States what the approved alternatives to Stugeron are. Thus, when upon awakening at 0530 this morning, she had popped a pill, gulped some water and swallowed quickly with fingers crossed and a quick glance skyward just in case.

12 hours we have been at sea.  Granted, conditions have been smooth and easy.  Still (dare she think it? Say it?), there have been no queazy twinges, no blah feeling, no headache.  Not even a burp!  What a wonder!  Maybe she’ll make a sailor yet!

Note:  From here on out, there are no photos.  Conditions were not such to encourage the activity of photo composition.  Not even point and shoot.  You’ll see why.

Dinner done, The Captain takes the watch while The First Mate heads to bed hopefully to sleep until her first watch at 2200. That time rolled around much too quickly, for she tossed and turned for an hour or so before she finally nodded off to dreamland. The Captain woke her with a wind report. Winds were dying, though with the sail up and with the help of the EAC, we were moving along at a slow 4 knots. She is told that if the speed drops to 3 knots to wake The Captain so we could take down the sail and turn on the motor. Before heading to bed, however, he notes continued wind decreases and decides to take down the sail. He heads to bed with the wind fluctuating between 0 – 5 knots. Suddenly, out of the night stillness, a blast of air slam down onto us. Not from the north as it had been doing, but blowing up from the south, it quickly rises from 25 to 30 knots. A Southerly Buster has hit us. VMR had been sending out High Wind Alerts on and off all day. We knew a Southerly Buster was on the way, but according to the various wind forecasts that we can access on board, we were fortunately still too far north for it to affect us. It looks once again like all those forecasts are wrong, and we are not so fortunate. Well, we’ve been in Southerly Busters before. They rage for a while and then die out.

The Captain, who barely had his head on his pillow, gets up to inspect as that wind increased. Sail is down and secure, motor is running smoothly, and other than this heavy wind we are moving against, everything is fine. Speed isn’t all that bad either thanks to the EAC pulling us along with it. He goes back to bed. Seconds later, The First Mate urgently calls him to get up here quickly. “Something has happened to the sail!” “What do you mean?” he questions irritated. “It’s fallen down. It’s on the deck.” That got his attention. In the dark of a starless, moonless night, it is impossible to see exactly what has happened. It looks like one of the lazy jack lines that hold the sail bag up and into which the sail folds had sheered. No longer contained, the sail is flapping wildly on the starboard side of the boat. With the wind blowing now at 40 knots, The Captain attaches himself to the lifeline to cat-crawl out of the cockpit up onto deck to tie down the sail as best he can. The First Mate is at the helm with the engine revved up trying to keep the boat pointed into the wind as best she can. Thankfully, we still had the second reef in which corralled a good section of the sail, but it was still a lot of sail whipping around for The Captain to contain. The amount of drag caused by the flapping sail made steering into those 40-knot winds difficult. Straining at the wheel and trying to see into the darkness, The First Mate breathes a thankful sigh of relief when the loose end of the sail is tied down and The Captain is finally back in the relative security of the cockpit. Autopilot is turned on. It holds briefly and then faults. Try again. Fault again. In the winds, which are now blowing steadily between 40 – 45 knots and with the drag caused by the sail, the autopilot hasn’t a chance at holding. The Captain takes the helm. Wth those 40 – 45-knot winds blasting him, he is at the helm fighting to keep the boat into the wind in the increasingly wild seas.  Why don’t we just turn and run with the wind? We did not want to turn sideways to the wind for fear of what might happen to or with the sail. How much of a wind foil would it be? How much would it come loose to flap wildly? 45 knots is a frightful wind. Plus, our destination is south, not north. This wind can’t last that long, can it? The First Mate moves between watching things on deck and going below to check both AIS and radar for any ships. We don’t have much in the way of turning radius at the moment. We had passed several freighters already and are just hoping no freighter out there is going to cause us to have to take an evasive maneuver. She wants to spell The Captain, but he knows she does not have the strength to hold the wheel against the force of the wind.

2400 – Captain’s Log: (written much later) “Daily Report: Trip log is approximately 165 nm, but we are too busy to make log entries. Wind is still howling at 30 – 35 knots and seas have built up. We are taking waves and spray across the boat.”

Thursday, January 19th – 0200 – After 3 hours of strenuous hand steering, winds have finally dropped to 30 knots, and The Captain is finally able to get the autopilot to engage.

0445 – Winds have finally lessened to 25 – 30 knots, but with the seas at over 2 meters, we are banging into them.  Even with the EAC and the motor, we aren’t going anywhere fast.  We have had enough. Sydney is too far away physically and mentally for us right now, and though Brisbane isn’t any closer, there we know we can get fixed whatever needs to be done with the sail and sail bag.  We turn around and run with the wind and seas, heading back north to Brisbane.  That done and with The First Mate at the helm keeping an eye on the autopilot, The Captain heads below to crash on the sofa in the salon. He is one exhausted man!

0730 – Somewhat refreshed, with full daylight and with somewhat lighter winds, it’s time to see what happened to that sail.  We turn south back into the wind and crashing waves, and The Captain goes forward to inspect.  It is not a snapped lazy jack line as we first thought.  Under the load of the first initial wind blasts, the jam cleats that holds the system of lines up had released, but in the dark of night, the heavy winds and the wildly flapping sail, it was impossible to see or even get to the problem.  Now facing into lighter winds, we raise the sail, pull up the lazy jack lines and lower the sail back into the sail bag.  Sail secure, we about-face and motor with the wind, for that short time of motoring into the wind and heavy seas convinced us that even though south is the direction we want to head, now is not the time to do it.  It is a relief, however, to know that nothing serious had broken and that the sail is intact after the beating it took.

The use of the term “lighter” wind mentioned above is relative, for they are still blowing hard in the high 20’s.  That really isn’t that bad, but with seas now all churned up, we are rolling and cascading down the sides of waves.  It’s a wild ride, and in this direction heading north, we are battling that cursed (no longer wonderful) EAC.  Running against the current, we are now making less than 4 knots.  Brisbane, at this rate, is 100 hours away!  The only good news?  She’s not seasick!

1145 – Decision time! The Gold Coast Seaway, from which we left 29 hours ago, is 110 nm away. Brisbane is 250 nm over the horizon.  Against the EAC, our SOG (speed over ground) is a discouraging 4 knots and not about to get any better.  The wind forecasts (if one can trust them) say that winds will shift back to northerly tomorrow which means we’ll be fighting both wind and current.  The First Mate considers that with both those against us and even with the motor pushing us, we would probably be lucky to hold ourselves in place.  Yuck!  Broken Bay, the nearest point of refuge if we were to turn around and head south, is over 250 nm away.  That’s not encouraging either, but if we were to head there, we would be traveling at twice our current speed with that now wonderful EAC helping us.  The Captain downloads the latest weather.  Though it fails to show us where this latest bout of bad weather came from, it does claim that the winds should decrease to about 15 knots and slowly back to the NE. Tomorrow in the late afternoon and evening, we should be getting strong northerlies as we near the Sydney area, but pushing us along as they will be, they are no problem.  Besides, south is where we want to go.  Now that we know we don’t have sail fixes to attend to, why return to the Gold Coast to wait a better weather window?  That might never happen anyway!  Let’s at least test the waves by turning south.  We do so, and though far from pleasant, they are much better than earlier in the morning. Avante forges on, but this time south.

Not very encouragingly, our chart plotter shows our path of the last 12 hours. North Solitary Island and Northwest Solitary Island lie just off the coast. We passed the two of them on our way south, then re-passed them on our safety return north and once again on our final venture south. Follow the red line heading south and then turning north up to the boat. That’s Avante in real time now heading south past those islands. Sure glad no one was out there watching us!

1400 – The day is overcast and gloomy with a light mist falling.  We put up the storm shelter to give us protection from the elements.  At least we are now making good progress.  8 knots SOG is not bad.  We may just get where we’re going one of these days!

1600 – Winds are down to 10 – 12 knots from the East, and seas are calming.

2000 – With all the motoring we have done, we have switched to the starboard tank so that the port tank doesn’t run dry.  Conditions remain moderate with winds slowly shifting north as predicted.  Now they are 8 – 14 from the ENE.

2300 – With the wind now at 8 – 14 knots from the N, things are looking up for us to arrive in Broken Bay by this time tomorrow evening. 24 mores hours! Need it be said that we will be more than ready?

Friday, January 20th – 0115 – Jib is raised.  Engine is finally turned off.  We are back to sailing with only the jib in the northerly 14 – 18 knot wind but under a dismal, overcast, dark sky.

0400 – We pass a well-lit cargo ship whose AIS message reads “Not under command.” A mutiny? No, these big guys just put the engine in neutral and drift around out there if they are running ahead of schedule. It’s a bit disconcerting at first to realize what they are doing, but, hey, it’s a big ocean. It’s not like they are going to run into anything.

Throughout the early morning hours, winds have been increasing from the north as our forecasts had predicted.  When they hover in the 28 – 30 knot range, The Captain decides to furl the jib a little.  We sail on past Sugarloaf Point where sheltered from the northerly wind, we let out the jib reef. We are moving closer to the shoreline, and as a result, losing the boost from the EAC.

1245 – Well, so much for the forecast of strong northerly winds all day. Phooey!  Captain’s Log:  “Wind is below 10 knots.  The sky is a dense grey overcast, and it is raining as we go past Port Stephens.  We furl the jib and turn on the engine.”  Lunch is served in the comfort of our storm shelter.

1600 – We motor past the busy port of Newcastle where a number of ships are moving in or out of the harbour and quite a few are anchored in a line to the south of the port.

1630 – With the wind returning to 15 knots, we let out the jib but keep the engine on to keep up our speed.  Our ETA for Pittwater is 2300.  The latest forecast now shows another southerly coming through after midnight so it behooves us to keep on trucking as fast as we can.

We continue on into the late afternoon, but to our dismay, winds again have become flukey.  Up and down they go.  We keep the engine churning away.

1930 – Another faulty wind forecast!  25 knots from the south hit us along with rain. Ominous dark clouds can be seen further in the distance. What now we wonder? Another Southerly Buster? With relief, it all passes in 20 minutes. The winds shift to the W as in the most recent forecast, and we keep on trucking.

2110 – 15 nm north of Pittwater! Almost there. We are on time for our ETA of 2300. The First Mate feels almost cocky with anticipation. Suddenly, that all too familiar dying of the wind with flukey fluctuations puts us on alert. Not again! 30 knots of wind blasts us from the south. That Southerly Buster broadcast to arrive after midnight is a tad bit early. 3 hours to be exact! Unfortunately, this blast does not quit in 20 minutes like the last one. For 1 1/2 hours, we battle into 35 – 45-knot winds.

Saturday, January 21st – 2400 – Captain’s Log:  “We should have been in Pittwater an hour ago, but we are still out here with about 5 nm to go. We have only gone 9nm in the last three hours fighting these southerly winds”

When do we finally drop anchor?  0230!  It is not until 0135 that we finally motor past Barrenjoey Head into the bay where sheltered from the wind, the world around us becomes calmer.  We anchor in 60 feet in Careel Bay as soon as we can safely do so.  We are off the main channel with boats on mooring balls faint images in the darkness.  Bed never felt so good!

Captain’s Log: “Total passage from the Gold Coast was 450 nm and took us 68 hours.  It was our toughest short passage!  The weather was lovely for the first day, but then became miserable.  It changed rapidly, and the forecasts could not keep up with it.  We got caught in gale force winds twice.”

The next morning, The Captain could not resist this artistic interpretation of the feelings of this poor papaya who rode out the trip in the galley sink draining rack and has the scars to prove it.  In all honesty, it was a good 24 hours before either of us felt much better than this guy looks. And, so, we travel on …….