Sunday 29^th January

We did indeed leave Sanctuary Cove at midday on yesterday.  We headed happily for an anchorage very close to the seaway leading out from the Broadwater to the ocean.  It looked like a lovely little anchorage, with big signs saying 7 days maximum.  Seven days??  We didn’t want to stay there seven minutes!  Poor 2XS whirled on its lovely shiny new anchor chain like a kite; it was like being anchored in a whirlpool, with angry swirling brown water tugging us hither and yon.  We showed the whites of our eyes and scarpered for Bum’s Bay, where it was all peaceful and easy, with gentle water instead of terrifying eddies.

And this morning we set my iPhone alarm for 4.30 am.  It duly went off, singing a bright little Marimba tune, but really neither of us had really slept much at all.  Pete woke me at one stage to ask if I thought it might be nearly 4.30 and I looked to see…ummm…no it is only 10.30.  We have been in bed for half an hour!

Eventually it really was time to get up and go.  We negotiated the seaway with no difficulties in the dawn light and had a very good trip down to Ballina, at times getting up to 10.9 knots – this is FAST for us.  For once, the wind and the sea were going in the correct direction, not bashing against us. 

When we got to the barway in Ballina, the Richmond River was surging out into the sea like a stream of chocolate.  The sea was grey – it is still overcast and raining on and off – but the brown river was just thick with mud, and debris.  We tied up to a small visitors wharf and had lunch at a nearby café, then walked along in the thick drizzle to look at the RSL Club.  Whatever will they do when all the old gamblerchicks die off??  The pokie machine room was vast and mainly polluted by dazed-looking old ladies.  I thought there was an equal number of men, but on the way back out Pete did a swift headcount (he is very good at this; it comes from his many years of counting sheep,) and he convinced me there was about a third more ladies than gentlemen.  So to speak.

We are now anchored in a bay in the river, Mobb’s Bay, with a sheltering stone wall just visible above the tide.  We are poised, more or less, ready to leave for Coff’s Harbour tomorrow.  This will take at least 12 hours (96 nautical miles) so we have to time our exit from the barway just right to get there before dark.

(By the way, wasn’t the tennis a fizzer last night??  Sharapova looked very pretty in her bright green and white but she lost very convincingly…)