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Tuesday 3 April 2012

Sydney Harbour: Chinaman's Bay anchorage

Looking South to the anchorage
We've been anchoring around the Sydney harbour area for some months now and there are some great anchorages to enjoy.  The harbour is so varied and each anchorage is slightly different, from middle of the city to peaceful and silent waterways surrounded by forests.
  
We most recently spent some time relaxing in Chinamans bay which is in the north harbour area on the south side of the channel just less than a mile before spit harbour bridge and marina.  

It is a popular beach for anchoring and swimming at the weekends and safety markers keep boats from close to shore.  There are four small fixed moorings and anchoring around them in several meters or to the south and the area we anchored was 7 meters or so.  Holding is good on sand and there is some limited weed to be aware of that a good anchor will have no problem with.   We use a 60lb Manson Plough anchor http://manson-marine.co.nz/SitePages/galvplough.htm  and it has not let us down in some heavy and varied conditions. 
from the north of the beach area. The harbour entrance in the distance

The beach is sheltered well in the south based winds and gets uncomfortable if the ocean swell comes in from the east and makes it to the middle harbour area.  There are plenty of other good places if that is the case – over to the east by Castle Rock Beach anchorage is well sheltered, popular and very shallow inshore. 

Onshore and just behind the beach front is Rosherville reserve which a pleasant park area to get some time in the trees and green and there are numerous recycling bins for talking rubbish ashore and well maintained toilets and beach showers.  The walk up to the main shopping areas from here is not one for the faint-hearted, we tried it, and we prefer to take the easy option and jump on the bus from Spit Bridge up to the Warringah Mall.

We were happy to have a great sunny autumn day on anchor doing some deck work, yet again, and watching the Sunday afternoon optimist racing around us.  Amazingly they all managed to miss us even though many were clearly just learning and seven or eight years old.
We anchored on the blue spot on the google image.  Just to the north of this anchorage are three pink public moorings that we also use on occasion and they are for 24 hour stays and rated up to 20 tons.  Whatever that rating means they are well maintained and an alternative to the local anchorages
We are moving up to Pittwater in the next day or two for several weeks to enjoy some more of the NSW coast and anchorages.  

 

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