Australia - Pacific Crossing Notes: A Sailor's Guide to the Coconut Milk Run - page 422

Our first instinct was to head for the center of action, and we spent two nights anchored
directly across from the Opera House in Athol Bay, practically choking on the views. The
immediate shoreline, part of Sydney Harbour National Park, proved perfect for extended
walks in the shade. It's also the home of the Sydney Zoo, with close-up views of koalas,
platypus, and echidnas, and an easy place to hop a ferry downtown. While it takes luck to
snag one of the few public moorings in Athol Bay, we were happy to drop the hook
amidst a fleet of pleasure craft, large and small.
However, the downsides of Sydney are twofold: the density of water traffic means that the
water is always churning, and almost every bay is packed with moorings. Although Athol
Bay is clear of the latter, it's plagued by wakes, and the constant roll had us thumbing
through our cruising guide for some escape. We quickly discovered a number of bays with
enough space - plenty of space, in fact - to anchor in reasonable depths (thirty feet, give
or take), both in the inner harbor and in the side branches. Who needs a $250 / night mar-
ina when you've got sturdy ground tackle? Over our entire month's stay in the greater
Sydney area, we anchored for free. When the wind chased us around the harbor, we could
always duck into another corner of the maze.
And the wind did shift - constantly - during the month of December that we lingered in
and around Sydney. Tired of the constant roll and expecting an imminent southerly change
(the abrupt wind shift that comes with a passing of a Tasman Sea low), we moved to Rose