Thursday 2 May 2013

Gotta see a man about a dingy

Another trip of beating upwind, but we made it to the Yamba-Illuka bar late on Wednesday, with the setting sun making visibility less than great. Competing with the fishing trawlers who were making their way east for their nights work, we made it through the bar without to much difficulty. We navigated our way through the Yamba Channel with a few scares due to the depth sounder alarm becoming more persistant as we had depths of 1.3m below the keel of the boat. As we draw almost 2m (amount of boat below the waterline), we were keenly watching the charts and the depth sounder to avoid beaching ourselves in the middle of the commercial channel!

The Krissy II
Yamba became our destination because our new mate Ken had a dingy for us. After our nerve-wracking entry, we were hesitant to go and meet Ken at low tide on Thursday, so he could show us the dingy before heading off to work at 7am. Thankfully Ken was more than happy to bring the dingy to us. The ultimate test drive! If the dingy don't go, Kev can't go to work. But it started like a dream and Hugh took it for a burn. After a coffee and a chat, we dropped Ken back at the wharf, complete with some beef stew for dinner (as our freezer is on the fritz). So at 7:30am, we had our new second hand dingy. The 'Krissy II' was launched at 9am for our self guided tour of Yamba.

Gathering strength from the wind on the Yamba break wall
The 30kt offshore wind and big swell kept us penned into Yamba, so we were able to enjoy the spoils of the town, including a beer at the Pacific Hotel while reviewing the riveting and detailed history of the break walls at the bar entry.







2/5/2013

2 comments:

  1. Beautiful dingy... but does it have a cover?
    S

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  2. Hey hugh and kate
    first look at your blog (I'm a bit slow that way )- another world truly
    hope queensland is delivering good sailing weather -

    catriona

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