Year 2 – 20 February 2025 -Coffs Harbour
If anyone reading this and is free in June- mid July 2025 to come to Australia then do contact me as I am short of crew for that month fully at present.
We had a bit of a roll in the night. It was a slightly grey morning when we woke and the skies looked threatening. We had breakfast and discussed plans. We felt it best to go from Coffs Harbour directly to Brisbane as we would like to spend a few days there before Malcolm and Mark leave. We decided we would contact a coupe of marinas which were in the Brisbane marina to see if they could take us. We had breakfast and then got the dinghy down off the davits.
When we were ready we headed ashore and moored the dinghy off the back of the pontoon near the fishing coop store. This was a fresh fish shop which had a restaurant attached. You could buy the fish to take home or buy it and have it cooked there. It seemed quite a good system. We found a chandlery and of course had a look. We then walked on along the large Northern breakwater which came to the base of Muttonbird Island which was now joined to the mainland by the breakwater. This is the only seabird nestling rookery accessible from mainland NSW.
This island supports about 10,000 pairs of wedge-tailed shearwaters during the breading season. This species is one of the most numerous birds on Earth. Their global population is estimated at over 5 million. I have seen many shearwaters on my circumnavigation all brown and flying in between and through the waves. They belong to a group of sea faring birds that include petrels, prions and albatrosses. They are made for roaming the vast oceans and only set their feet on land during the nesting season. They have a nasal passage at the base of their bill which can sniff out patches of fish and squid. These same nasal passages expel salt extracted from their bloodstream enabling them to get all the water they need from drinking saltwater. I guess a built-in desalination plant!!
Although they spend most of their life at sea they must first be born underground. Parents return to places like Muttonbird island and seek out a partner or their former partner and clear out or make a burrow up to a meter in length. They raise their young between January and February leaving them in the burrow while they fish out at sea. They leave including the raised young by about April/May. When fishing they can dive to depths of 60m and it is estimated they cover about 64,000 km a year when flying the oceans – about 1.5 x round the earth.
We walked on to Muttonbird Island and began to see many burrows with holes near the path which we had to stick to. We saw a number of other different birds and some type of Kite squeaking away. Our walk took us up to the top and I took the picture of the day looking down on the marina. We were anchored in the harbour to the left. We walked to the end of the island where the waves were crashing on the shore. You can see whales from here when they are migrating and green turtles and dolphins are common. We could not see any from here today.
We retraced our steps and walked back along the breakwater and past the marina, fish coop and into the part of town behind. We met some locals who told us not to bother with the main town so we wandered around the area and had a coffee. We then went to the beach and there is a very long jetty sticking out into the harbour. In 1835 John Korffs left Lowestoft for a life in Australia to set up a shipbuilding company. In 1847 he took shelter in a storm behind Muttonbird Island and called it Korffs Harbour. However, in 1861 it was spelt wrongly in a government gazette as Coffs Harbour and it has become known as that ever since.
The 95-meter jetty (finished in 1892 -originally it was once 500 meters) was built to take ships who took timber away but declined when the railway to Sydney was built. It had its own railway on it. The breakwaters were constructed in about 1914. The jetty is only used now as a walkway for visitors and we walked to the end and back. We could see Stormbird at anchor. Kids were jumping off and using it as a diving platform. As we were walking back we saw at least 3 green turtles come to the surface and swim on. We also saw lots of cormorants.
We decided to have a good lunch at the Yacht Club which we all enjoyed over a few hours. We then returned to Stormbird and read and relaxed. We plan to leave early tomorrow to go to Brisbane and the entrance to Moreton Bay is some 200nm North and may take us up to 36 hours. In the meantime, it is a nice evening and we are enjoying the evening sun.
Need/Opportunity Year Two
I am in need of more crew from late April to Mid-July so if of interest do email me at hine.nick9@gmail.com
In year two I will be going from New Zealand to Sydney and hen up the Eastern Australian Coast, Indonesia and then through Bali, Singapore and on to Thailand to end year two about the end of November 2025.
The blog will continue as we continue the journey. If you have any comments or suggestions about the blog then do email me on hine.nick9@gmail.com