southerly arrives at Laurieton

A southerly was forecast for today (it's actually Wed!) so a few boats made plans to head north (SW 15-20kts with slight seas). So we were up at 0530 this morning to wave Derek and silver cloud off. He has been planning to head north for a few weeks, so we went to the North Haven side of the bar with the girls (Idgi stayed in bed).

silver cloud heading toward bar-note weather on mountain!

just off Pilot Beach

motoring through the very calm bar

Just the otherside of the bar, some dolphins appeared and swam under the boat. A few NM away some whales were breaching. Silver cloud then turned south, after a few "what the's"(it was early!) we realised he had turned into wind to get his main sail up without getting tangled in the lazyjack.

the main going up

first stop Yamba!

We started to make our way back until we saw two more boats coming up the river. We think they are from the coastal cruising club-salty lady & ??.

dolphins surfed the bow wave of the first boat-note the weather on mountain now

they too headed north-possibly Grafton for the sail-a-way

The dolphins then started surfing the breakers of North Haven beach, getting about 10m off the beach. The weather continued to surge east, bringing a blanket of rain, so we returned to Manatee dreaming of the day we too can head north.