I guess most of you yachties on the east coast have negotiated many bar crossings.
I have only gone across about half a dozen, so I'm pretty new to it.
Yesterday we crossed the bar at Port MacQuarie and we were even sideways for a bit!

Not having been to any of these places along the east coast, I called Marine Rescue Port Mac for an update on the bar and was told that there's not much swell and it's all good, just follow the sector light in.
We had just sailed up from Camden Haven that afternoon and I knew there was plenty of swell up to at least 3m. I mentioned to the guy that I could see waves breaking and he said you need to be further north, follow the lights in and (this bit made me laugh) good luck.

Anyhow, knowing what little I do about bar crossings and our lifejackets dutifully fastened, we gunned the big Perkins up to 7 knots or so. As I had read, once you commit to crossing, don't second guess, don't pull out, leave the auto pilot on as it will react better than yourself.
It was at this point we saw a large wave breaking further out and we expected it to die off as it hit what we thought was deeper water, yeah, nah.
The wave - well it was more like a large swell that had broken than something out of "Big Wednesday" struck us just forward of the port quarter and proceeded to cause us to broach.
I managed to get back on course, (but by this stage the sector light was red) and motor into the channel much to the amusement of several onlookers standing on the southern breakwater.
We had some water over and into the cockpit, nothing too major but it did make me think what I could've done better.

1) First and foremost, I wouldn't have been in that predicament if I had waited until that set of waves had gone through and gone in between sets.

2) I would've seen the wave coming down on us and timed a turn to starboard to try and counter the broaching effect. Ray (my auto pilot) does a great job, but I don't know about the advice I read which stated to leave the auto pilot on instead of steering yourself.

3) The low tide was 1400hrs. The bible of cruising the east coast states the best time to enter is the third or fourth hour of a rising tide. Going into a place for the first time into a setting sun at 1700hrs concerned me a little so we went in a little early at 1630hrs. once we got into the channel, there appeared to be minimal overflow causing the swell to stand up. So I don't know if that contributed to our problem too much.

Anyway, lessons learnt without any damage or injury, a few beers later calmed the nerves.