Beautiful Port Stephens

Port Stephens is one of our favourite weekend getaways so being able to cruise around the bay looking for dolphins with no specific agenda was a treat. We had one surprise on our first day here. Though we planned our route through the channels carefully we ran aground when passing to the south of a south cardinal marker! Luckily it was just sand and our engine reversed us out after a few tense minutes. Phew!, another lucky escape, and a good lesson that sand banks can move and in this area it pays to give channel markers a bit of leeway.

Overall this has been a cruisie stop. The weather has been very hot for a couple of days then changed to drizzly today giving a nice relief to the temperature. We have also been able to pick up the tennis which is starting to get addictive. This week has been the run-up tournaments to the Australia Open which starts next week - a luxury having the time to watch.

The pictures show use leaving Port Stephens, not a very nice day. The other shows a rescue we witnessed at Broughton Island as we were travelling up the coast: looked like their engine wasn't working so were getting towed in.