August 3rd Clarence to Yamba Tavern

We anchored last night off the picturesque little town of Maclean in the Clarence River. An absolutely calm and peaceful night; waking to cows bellowing as they grazed along the river bank, pelicans gliding in for impossible, inexorable, exponential, landings and large trucks noisily dumping vast amounts of cane into their containers for haulage to the factory, so much for bucolic bliss. All hands nimbly up to clean the detritus from the nights dramatic cane fires along the river from the superstructure. They call the soot, black snow up in these here parts.

A lazy morning start, as for once we had no real time constraints. Did nothing for most of the morning but read, play music and catch up on the blog which we all hope you’ll read or we will stop doing it, stamp our feet and take our bat and ball and go home. Actually we don’t have a bat and ball and we’re going home anyway but you get the idea.
Idling down the river with the significant current was ‘Huck Finn Sublime’ and so Zen dudes; so relaxing that we nearly slipped passed the Harwood Hotel but as fortune would have it keen senses located the pub lurking in the bushes. “There’s a pub behind those fucking trees!” shouted Sparrow, registering a 2.5 on the Pamometer, demonstrating once again his superhuman sense of smell. The Admiral happily accepted Sparrows judgement in all matters alcoholic and normal landing protocols were observed.
After a delightful lunch with lashings of orangeade strange bridge opening men I safety hats arrived from Ballina and kindly opened the bridge for us at the appointed hour, plus or minus 10%. We slid guiltily under the mast eating Harwood Bridge, once again severing the main vehicular artery twixt Sydney and Bris-Vegas for a full 20 minutes. My God we have some infrastructure black holes in this country!

Half an hour further up river sliding along towards the coast we had a phone call from legendary solo round the world sailor and all round champion lady, Kay Cottee, who just happened to see us slipping up the creek from the vantage point of her beautiful river-side home. Ever the sycophant, The Admiral waved enthusiastically with one arm while holding his mobile to his ear with the other, chatting to Kay and organising dinner the following night, all very well if someone else had been steering Twin Spirit at the time. The depth alarm brought him to his senses as the props began to stir large clouds of mud. A recreation of The Normandy Landing was averted. Another few miles of our inland progress and an arse-puckering entry to the Yamba channel through the legendary ‘Hole in the Wall’ saw us safely moored at the Yamba Tavern. We achieved another of our main goals; we finally tied up hard against licensed premises. You could pass beer from the balcony to the boat and we did, several times (see pics.) Alert the media another PB. We had also found our first ‘sail through bottle shop’ and immediately reprovisioned our cellar with comparative ease and considerable expense. An uneventful night at a surprisingly quiet venue before we cast off giving up our treasured spot at The Yamba Tavern wharf to our mates Ken and Susie on ‘Norman G’ before heading round the corner to the Yamba Marina to re-fuel, at vast expense to the management and replenish our water supplies for what would be the first leg of our return journey to Old Sydney Town. Well actually to The Pittwater; ‘Old Sydney Town’ being a defunct attempt at recreating an early colonial settlement with token whippings on the half hour and photo opportunities in the stocks for the kiddies.