Yesterday we motor sailed from Manly, approx 4 hours north, into Pittwater, to where our friends Lucie and Paul live at Coasters retreat.

It was a little bumpy with disturbed lumpy seas. Under Paul’s guidance and vast sailing experience we managed to try out different sail configurations making the best of the conditions.

Lucie and Paul have an Amel Sharki ketch and so are familiar with our sailing configuration. They were a great help with trying different setups to take advantage of what we have.

We picked up a mooring at Coasters, went ashore to their beautiful house and enjoyed drinks, nibbles and a delicious lentil lasagne prepared by Lucie on their front deck watching and listening to the local wildlife. It was a perfect end to a great day.

This morning we took LaGecko out to explore Cowan creek and try out some more sailing in calmer conditions.

We started the day celebrating Lucie’s birthday with a chocolate brownie cake with cream blueberries and a nice cuppa.

We then motored out of Coasters, set all the sails in light conditions under 10 kts, then headed around the top of the Peninsula south west down towards Cowan creek.

After sailing for a couple of hours we picked up a mooring at Cottage rock, took the dinghy ashore onto a small sandy beach and cooled off in the water surrounded by natures artworks of sandstone moulded by the weather.

The girls tried a little rock climbing above the waterfall searching for a spa pool.

Fresh cool water streamed off the bank making a natural powerful shower below.

A pipe has been installed on one of the streams for ease of filling up water bottles, we may collect some next week for our tanks.

After lunch we sailed back towards Coasters and found more lively winds 15-20 kts to play with. This allowed us to cruise along at about 8 kts boat speed in the wrong direction requiring us to tack our way north east until we could turn back towards Coasters.

The wind dropped and we coasted along with the sails still out at 4 kts down to pickup our mooring. One day we may be able to pick up a mooring under sail but for today the engine kicked in for the final approach.

We had an awesome dinner on board “ chicken freekeh”cooked by Paul. The flavours were amazing with ingredients of cardamom, orange peel, saffron, cinnamon to name a few. It’s a keeper now we have the secret recipe😉

I would say it was a perfect day with beautiful friends.

Cheers Lucie and Happy Birthday 🥳