Day 3 - Departing Port Stephens

After a rather listless sleep we cast off the mooring at 0800 and hoisted the sail. The conditions were 'fresh' with a decent southerly breeze and swell. Suffice to say the autopilot struggles a bit with the conditions which lead to some interesting surfing at times. The record was 14.6 kts and we averaged 8 kts for the first 4 hours. The breeze soon started to die out so we headed inshore hoping to catch a bit of northerly current. We found a bit but a motor is now droning away in an attempt to keep the averages above 6 its. We have had three other yachts near us for the day and suspect that they are planning a similar 'straight through' as us. We will decide what we are doing once we are off Coffs. We ran into Raki at Shoal Bay and they too are pushing through with about 15 hours head start on us.
Oh yes, did I mention the large pod of dolphins that kept us company for ages?