Saturday was one of those "over the top" summer's days. A hot gusty westerly wind which fries your eyeballs. A forecast Southerly buster was due to hit in the late afternoon. We picked up a buoy at Towlers Bay on Friday evening and made an early start for Maitland Bay, lunch time destination for an Australia Day weekend cruise with "Alfreds".
Leaving Towlers' at 0830 hrs, there was already a nice breeze and we had a very enjoyable sail all the way. While Maitland Bay has a couple of reefs at its entrance, with common sense and a chart it's no problem. We anchored without incident a little after 1000 hrs. We have no temperature gauge on Te Moana, but soon the temperature was surely up 40 deg C.
So into the water we went, However, Jake prefers dry land (or boat), so he survived with a wetsuit (a damp tea towel).
Well sheltered from West and North, Maitland Bay is a glorious place to be on days like that. But it's advisable to get out before the Southerly hits. When we left, around 1430 hrs, the Westerly was strong but good for a fast return to Broken Bay (and on to Halletts).
Along the way, I checked the Bureau's weather observation page (reproduced above). It showed the wind turning South, even though it was only forecast for 3 hours later. It soon became clear that this was not the southerly jumping ahead of itself (more southerly stations were still reporting Westerlies). Just the wind "getting some south in it". Is that common? The seabreeze counteracting the westerly ? Or perhaps just a side effect of having too much information on board?
Anyway.... Maitland Bay is a great lunch time destination on a hot day. You can't beat nature's air conditioning.
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