SAILING The BIG LAP, around Australia... from Southport to Eden...Ep38

We summarise our sailing for the last year and outline our plans for 2021. We will sail around Australia, 7500nm (15,000km) from Southport to Southport via the Great Australian Bight, the Western Australian coast including the magnificent Kimberley Coast, Darwin, Torres Strait and back to Southport. For various reasons including cyclones and broken windows on our Leopard, we left later than the planned January. We set out on 12th February from Southport, getting into Coffs Harbour after a pleasant 160nm with good sailing conditions. We had to wait about 10 days for good enough weather to continue to Sydney because there was a lot of southerly wind and unsettled conditions. Being in the perfectly situated Coffs Harbour Marina, we were able to pop over to the clean surf beach on the other side of the rock wall and enjoy fabulous surfing. Once in Sydney we spent just a day walking around Rose Bay where we were anchored with@SailingZatara and @TheCruisingKiwis , soaking up the spectacular harbour views. Then a day later we set out for Eden and had good conditions again, enabling us to ditch our back up plans of stopping at Jervis Bay, although it would have been a lovely anchorage. Once in Eden we waited another week for good weather. We loved Eden and enjoyed its many delights and spectacular harbour. We caught squid, surfed and walked on the beach and on the lovely walking trail around the headlands of Eden. The Whale Museum was very interesting even though we don’t like the idea of whaling. We really enjoyed reading the story of Old Tom, the whale that interacted in amazing way with the whalers. He even circuled around the spot where a whaler was underwater after falling from his whaling boat. So he was loved and revered by all the whalers at Twofold Bay and so his skeleton is displayed in the museum.