Wednesday 18th
With no suitable weather window to get further south, we settled in for Christmas at Yamba.
However, the first full day there was 20+knts all day with rain: we didn’t leave the boat at all that day.
I did a bit of work (good timing for a Production issue to happen) and we all just did more recovery from the trip down.
Thursday 19th
I did a bit more work, then we went to the beach for a swim after an early lunch.
We walked out along the rock wall on the way to the beach.
Friday 20th
I finally got around to transferring the diesel from the jerry cans to the main tank: we used about 30L on the trip down from Southport.
With that done we jumped in the tender to head over to Iluka for the day.
We did the rainforest walk from Iluka upto the Bluff (approx 2.5km) and had a swim there.
We walked back down along the beach, which ended up being about 5km from the Bluff back to the tender.
The girls had fun running and splashing, and we saw a (sea?) snake around the high tide mark that looked dead until I flicked some sand on it!
We’d heard good things about the fishing co-ops in this area.
The fish was tasty as, but the lady serving us seemed to object to us wanting to get lunch; and despite working in the fish co-op actually knew nothing about the fish she had on display in the counter.
We jumped back in the tender and went down to the swimming beach where the camp ground is. We (my family) used to come down to Iluka every year with another family when we were growing up.
The girls just had a play in the playground then we headed back to Lazuli.
Saturday 21st
Saturday is “Parkrun Day” on Lazuli :)
Yamba has a lovely track that starts at “Ford Park”, and runs along the path along the water. We woke the girls up and got in the tender to motor around to the public pontoon.
We had to walk the boat across one of the sections as it was low tide. We got there in time for the briefing: Kristina and I were going to run with Kristie walking (her 1st) with Emma.
Kristina and I did a good time (~32:34). They were handing out much-needed ice blocks at the finish!
After the run/walk we went to the “Caperberry Cafe” for breakfast/coffee. Good/tasty food.
Given we were going to be in Yamba for a bit, we bought some boogie boards for the girls to use at the Surf beach (that we’d be going to everyday).
Back to the boat for a rest, lunch, then back to the Surf beach to try out the boogie boards!
Sunday 22nd
I tried my hand at fishing when I woke up - only a few small fish and two stingrays :(
Yamba has their River Markets on the last Sunday of every month (also at Ford Park).
We were in there just after 9am. We got a tasty box of Cherries, some fishing gear, a few books, and some donuts.
I wanted to scout the marina options for fuel/water so I walked down there while the girls walked around and found a playground.
Back to the boat for lunch, followed by an afternoon swim.
Monday 23rd
The marina has a depth of 1.8m at the fuel dock.. given we need 2.3m we had to time our activities around the high tide (~2:30pm).
We went for another swim in the morning and back on Lazuli for lunch.
We motored over to the Marina (we couldn’t have got there at low tide) and filled up about 500L of water and $120 worth of diesel/unleaded.
Kristie bought some prawns from the Prawn Shack.. $52/kg :( (the guy at the marina who caught our lines helpfully informed us there were $16/kg two weeks ago :(
We had thoughts of keeping the prawns for Christmas, but we smashed them that afternoon. I was peeling for two (turns out Emma likes prawns a lot), eating for one.
Tuesday 24th - Christmas Eve
We had dolphins swimming past us every day while we were moored at Whiting Beach.
Another morning, another trip to the beach for a swim and boogie board.
We are easily getting our daily quota of step and stairs in - there’s a nice big hill between where we pull up in the tender and the beach on the otherside.
On the way back to the tender (we’d parked on the beach, not the pontoon) we met another sailing couple (Guy and Cassie) and their young daughter (Rona) who were just pulling into the beach on their tender.
Turns out they had dropped anchor on their yacht Ambrosia next to us. We had a quick chat with them, then back to the boat for lunch and to get ready to head back in to Yamba for some shopping.
Santa was also paying a visit on the SES boat, so we needed to time shopping to be done before that.
We hit the Spar, another local groceries shop, and the butcher for our supplies and just got back to where Santa was handing out lollies.
We took our groceries back to Lazuli, then got back in togs for a swim on Whiting Beach just in from the boat. Our new boat friends joined us for a swim and play on the beach.
Kristie’s mum had FaceTimed us so we could be part of their Trevallyan Dr Christmas carol singing tradition. The 3 girls joined in a for a few songs.
It turns out one of our boat neighbours also has a (rum assisted) carol singing tradition. We could clearly hear him belting through a lot of carols all night.
Wednesday 25th - Christmas Day
Santa had no troubles finding us on Lazuli - maybe the AIS helps? We did pressies then pancakes for breakfast.
We’d bought the girls a fishing rod each, so we geared up and headed into Whiting Beach to see if they worked.
It wasn’t long before the girls were catching little Whiting and Bream:
- Emma - 2 x Whiting, 1 x Bream
- Kristina - 2 x Whiting
- Jeremy - 1 tiny Bream
I’m putting my poor results down to the fact I spent all my time baiting their hooks and removing the undersized fish (we didn’t keep any).
Guy, Cassie, and Rona then joined us on the beach for a play/swim.
We had our ham and salad lunch, and a lazy afternoon on the boat.
We went back to Whiting Beach for sip’s and dip’s. Previously when out on Lazuli we have timed them for sunset, but with an 8pm sunset it doesn’t quite work out.
Guy, Cassie and Rona also joined us on the beach.
We met Lee (our singing boat friend) who was trying to fish and had a good chat with him. He’s a local to the area, and drives the buses around here.
I got a bunch of tips off Lee for when we come back up and motor down the Clarence River (aiming to get to Grafton).
‘Small world facts’ we learnt that afternoon:
- Lee was the bus driver who picked up Justin and took him to Grafton
- Cassie works at the same place one of my sisters does.
We didn’t leave the beach until 7:30pm.
Thursday 26th - Boxing Day
Lazy morning on the boat. The girls wanted a swim, and I wanted to be back to watch the start of the Sydney to Hobart (we missed being there in person, so had to watch it live).
We went back up over the hill and to the surf beach, and made it back to Lazuli and online broadcast with 1 minute to spare!
After an hour or so of watching the sailing, it was time to do some boat jobs (there’s always boat jobs!) in preparation for the sail to Coffs Harbour tomorrow.
Guy and Cassie swung past us on the way into town and invited us to the beach later to make ice cream.
We met them and the girls enjoyed helping and eating/drinking the ice cream.
Not a long stay at the beach, both Lazuli and Ambrosia were sailing to Coffs tomorrow and needed to have an earlier night and get the boat ready.
Dinner and more cleaning, then an early night.
Tomorrow we were aiming to leave at by 6:30am at the latest (due to tide times).