My wife Lyn and I are directors of the Island Cruising Association, a New Zealand-based body that organises and runs cruising yacht rallies around the SW Pacific and the Indonesian Archipelago.
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In late 2012 we visited Eden on our yacht Windflower while leading the ICA's 2012 rally from NZ to the Solomons, Lousiades and down the east Australian coast to Hobart before returning to NZ.
We were recently in Australia running a series of seminars on cruising and visited Perth and Melbourne prior to stopping in Eden for a day on our way to Sydney for the next seminar.
After Sydney, seminars were held in Newcastle, Brisbane, Airlie Beach, Townsville and Cairns.
While we were in Eden friends living locally gave us a tour of some of the local sites around Twofold Bay and informed us of various development plans for Snug Cove.
We were very interested in these as we feel that Eden is an ideal location for rallies to muster in and depart from on their way to NZ. Before each major leg of a rally, the participants 'muster' to prepare. Any rally that was heading for NZ from Australia could not leave from a better location as it is a straight run to Nelson on the South Island of NZ with generally favourable winds.
On these occasions it would not be unusual for 25 yachts to be in Twofold Bay for up to two weeks for provisioning and maintenance, possibly including slipping the boat for cleaning and antifouling as well as any repairs required.
When we had Windflower here in 2012 we learnt of the 'Twofold Shuffle' to get shelter from the strong south to south-westerly winds that come with a front and we are 100 per cent behind the idea of building a wave attenuator to protect Snug Cove from these.
In addition, the development of a marina in Snug Cove would, in our opinion, make Eden a mecca for boating in SE Australia serving as the best provisioning and servicing point for routes north to Sydney, south to Melbourne and Adelaide, south to Tasmania and east to NZ.
Cruising sailors are a very social lot and they love to party in port, especially in places where they can walk on and off their boats to access the local restaurants and attractions.
We think Eden is just perfect for this and can envision it becoming known as one of the premier destinations in the SW Pacific.
We will follow developments closely and look forward to including Eden, with Newcastle, as potential official stops on future ICA rallies.
John and Lyn Martin
Island Cruising Association
www.islandcrusing.co.nz
