It’s an overnight trip from Queenscliff so we sailed there from Brighton to Queenscliff on 15th to catch the early tide.
Unfortunately it was a head wind all the way and with the infamous Port Phillip Bay Chop, the 24nm trip took a bumpy, splashy 10 hours and 44nm.
The morning brought with it a few problems, the new mattress topper we made the day before had a terrible smell to it which made us feel sick and the forecast northerly for the 17th had increased to over 30kts.
As we did not want to be trying to steer a Top Hat downwind in those conditions, in the dark and in Bass Strait of all places, we elected to head west for Apollo Bay instead.
Feeling tired and not a little sick it was still good to be out of the Bay and on the ocean again – for a while anyway.
The 20 knot northerly didn’t last long and with light (and disappearing) wind from the north against the constant south westerly swell it wasn’t long before Alison became very quiet, sitting on the cabin top for most of the 11 1/2hr trip.
The last 2 hrs, past Cape Patterson the wind dropped out so we motored on a fairly flat sea and her health improved markedly.
Apollo Bay is reasonably quiet as holiday destinations go being a few hour drive from Melbourne but it is a great place to have a rest.
We really got into relaxing mode after we worked out the mooring line procedure with some tides approaching 2 metres.
Met some of the locals, John with a Duncanson 29 on the slip antifouling, Fred with a Phantom 32 who served on a destroyer in the 2nd war and another bloke with a nicely restored cream MG TC.
John gave us details of the two islands at the top of King Island, Christmas and New Year islands and warned us off the west coast.
Fred gave us a recipe for 'something to sip' if you are feeling a little queasy. One third rum with the rest rum liquer. As rum liquer is difficult to obtain he recomended muscat (no one dosen't like muscat!) so we bought a bottle for the return trip.
A 40’cat (Scarlett) came in late on Wed (18th) and tied up behind us. Craig and Kerry Margetts with their young sons Stephen and Lachlan are circumnavigating Oz from Brisbane and due to give a talk at the Melbourne Boat Show 4th Feb.
It is a beautifully built boat (Lightwave) and appears to be at the exact opposite end of the cruising boat spectrum to our Top Hat.
They have a website, http://web.me.com/craigandkerry/SCARLETT/Home.html
We get a photo and a mention in their blog (Frankly my dear.... linked to the website) on Day 258, 259 & 260.
Friday (20th) found us motoring in no wind for a few hours heading back to Queenscliff before the southerly came in to take us up to the Rip right on time for slack water. Scarlett overtook us about half way from Apollo Bay so we took photos of each other’s boats and agreed to eat together at Queenscliff that night.
Had a nice restaurant meal on shore at Queenscliff with the crew from Scarlett who ferried us in their inflatable dinghy from the Queenscliff Cruising Yacht Club moorings to the marina where they were staying.
QCYC is situated on an island and life there is very relaxed. We stayed until 25th when we set off across the Bay with the incoming tide and had a nice sail up to Mornington Yacht Club where we moored for the night.
My brother lives close to the harbour in Mornington so we dined with him and his girlfriend that night. He is a great cook so we gladly accepted his invitation to breakfast the next morning.
Australia Day promised to be very busy in Mornington with fireworks on the water that night so we used the following southerly breeze to head off home to Brighton, making the 24nm trip in 4hrs.
A little disappointing not to get to King Island but met some really great people, put our feet up in some really nice costal places and had a wonderful sail in a Top little boat!
- Moulded ply Top Hat at QCYC
- Moulded ply TH at QCYC.jpg (27.12 KiB) Viewed 4730 times