Unemployed and buying yachts, can’t think of a better way to spend my redundancy payment.
Having sold our Catalina 387 it was time for a new toy, something a little smaller with a setup Jen and I could handle together. Everyone says the best days of boat ownership are the day you purchase and the day you sell :-) certainly exciting to be doing the buying.
With the help of Peter and the team at Yoti we were soon the new owners of Penzance a 2011 Hanse 355. Penzance was moored just off Scotland Island and once the cash changed hands we moved her to the Quays marina. Jen and I packed our worldly boat possessions into the car and headed on a road trip down the coast road to Sydney to get Penzance setup for the trip home to Tin Can Bay. The plan also involved a short holiday floating around Cowan Creek.
It was May and the summer crowds had thinned, we headed out of the marina eager to get to know our new yacht. Our plan was to head up Cowan creek for the popular Refuse Bay and the controversial rock shower which national parks had just capped off, much to the boating communities disgust.
The waters around Pittwater are very deep so limited options to anchor, NSW waterways have installed mooring buoys in many of the bays so easy options if it’s not too crowded.
The area is surrounded by Ku-ring-gai Chase national park so an incredibly beautiful part of Aussie and hard to imagine you are just over an hour from the Sydney CBD. The area like much of Sydney is dominated by sandstone rock formations. During WWll the crew of Krait the commando vessel which raided Singapore after the Japanese invasion trained in secrecy up here in Cowan creek before their daring raid on Singapore Harbour in September 1943.
We spent our second night anchored in Lords Bay, the Berowara walking track followed the fringe of this secluded bay so Jen and I decided to go bush walking. We took the new tender ashore and walked part of this track, great to stretch our legs and take in some of this rugged countryside.
With our gas bottle ran out we decided to motor up the the end of Cowan Creek which is called Bobbin Head, there is a marina there so we hoped they could fill the gas. We were pleasantly surprised and rewarded with a nice coffee at the marina cafe along with a replenished gas bottle.
Heading back down Cowan Creek we decided to explore Smith Creek one off the tributaries, we discovered the very beautiful Castle Bay, with just four mooring buoys it was a stunning secluded bay surrounded by lush bush much like an amphitheater. I hadn’t dropped the anchor yet so this seemed like a perfect spot, “note to self .. never drop the anchor near mooring buoys”. On the retrieval the pick caught the scope of one of the large mooring lines and the fluke jammed in a lose strand. She was stuck hard and no amount of up and down would budge things. After some effort I managed to get the anchor within a few meters of the surface and could see the issue. Armed with a sailing knife I decided to follow the chain down and cut the anchor free. I hadn’t anticipated the tension on the mooring line and when the strand was cut I was very lucky to not get pulled down with it.
Last stop on our Cowan Creek adventure was Jerusalem Bay, once at anchor we decided to do a spot more bush walking. With Jen at the helm and the sweet smell of a 2 stroke at full throttle off we went in the tender, like her driving she only had one speed. At the head of Jerusalem Bay there was access to the Great North walk, Jerusalem Bay gets very shallow so a little wading required to walk the tinny shore. We were rewarded with a spectacular walk with views across Kur-ing-gy
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