At daybreak we were abeam of South Solitary Island,  9 nm NE of Coffs Harbour. There was a yacht just to seaward of us but it wasn’t showing on AIS. We later met them at Yamba.

Several people have commented that we are setting a cracking pace. We have been trying to beat weather windows, for example reaching Sydney before the wind turns Northerly and similarly now we are trying to reach the Gold Coast before the Northerlies set in for four days on Sunday. Also we are quite familiar with the East coast so we don’t need to do a thorough exploratory cruise. So we are treating it a bit like a delivery. The whales kept us entertained again today.

The yacht we had been seeing since Smoky Cape also entered the Clarence River with us at 3pm. We invited Bruce and Naomi onboard Baly for arrival drinks. They had left Pittwater on Wednesday too and had previously sailed their yacht Scrimshaw around Australia. Later at the marina we met Dave and Lorna from the Seawind 1000xl Next Phase which was previously owned by our friends Warren and Deb Kerswill and moored across the canal from us in Raby Bay.