Ballina, 1/7/2016

Another beautiful and warm sunny day heading north to Ballina.

The day started late with a breakfast of smoked mackerel on toast, thank you Peter. We then departed the dock about 30 minutes early so as to be ahead of the tidal game. All went OK until we began cleaning the bottom of the keel with the sandy bottom. We were stuck in the middle of the channel. Fortunately the dredger operator jumped into his workboat and pulled us to deeper water. Mind you it was his dredger that made us go the wrong way!

After that it was all plain sailing, or should I say motoring. We pushed on a bit as we had a tidal deadline at the Ballina bar across the port entrance. As usual the channel in was facing into the west and the setting sun. As a result we all have try to identify the marks and buoys around the channel. All went well and we found a public floating wharf. We tied up to that pretty quick and then saw the 20 minutes time limit for staying there. Not to worry, it was 4.45 and it was unlikely any council people would be around.

 Then it was off to an Italian with a friend of Bernies who lives here.  A good night was had by all. In bed by 9.00 in preparation for the 6.15 start tomorrow, long day up to The Broadwater in Queensland, our 4th state so far on this trip. One more to go.