...And we're off..........

...and we're off!  Left on Saturday morning at about 11.20 hours and did a short hop up to Hillaries yacht club, so that we could leave Freo, but also so that we could call for any supplies to be dropped off that we had inadvertently left behind!

As we left Freo and had our friends on Anki heading towards us to say good bye...we suddenly lost the steering.  We had notice that the steering was very stiff under load before we bought the boat, but we thought the problem had been sorted.  It was now locked in position and I could not move it.  I shouted to mike that the steering had seized.  He then tried to move the wheel and couldn't. He then was frantically pulling everything out if the back locker to see if something had caught on the steering cables when he heard a familiar ziiiiiip, ziiiip zip ziiiiiiiip sound.....red faced he looked up...."the auto helm is on!"  What a pair of plonkers...someone must have inadvertently pushed the button as they moved passed!, emergency averted, we called up our cruising buddies and admitted our faux pas!  The cluster f**k (CF) award goes to us today me thinks!!

I forgot to tell the pen mistress at Hillaries how wide the 2 Catalina's were and unfortunately we were both too wide for the allocated pens and consequently spent the night on the collector jetty, praying that no one wanted to get out of their pen in the night!  Fortunately they didn't and we slept well.  We were up at 0530 hours to leave at first light, which was about 0630  hours. We motor sailed for the first part of the day until the wind came up and then turned the engine off and sailed through the night until the wind dropped again at 0530 hours, when we put the motor on again until it picked up again at 0800 hours.  During the night we had a close call with a container ship.  Mike had radio'd Divided Sky to get a position, telling them that we had snuck into the lead. Nick had thought we were still behind them. I went downstairs to get my head down for a few hours before my watch and then Mike called down to say that they were in fact still in front, as he could see their stern lights......next thing he knew was that the stern light has got very close and were situated aboard a rather large vessel which loomed out of the gloom straight at us! Obviously not taking any notice of the radar, which we did have together with a radar reflector!  Anyway a severe case of 'they were much bigger than us' and within 200m which is too damn close, so Mike took evasive action to get out of their way.  Otherwise great night sail in good conditions.  AV sailed well with no major issues.  We were in over a KM of water travelling about 25km off shore.

The following morning brought more light winds however the motor went off at 0800 hours and stayed off until midday.  at about 11a.m we were joined by a pod of about 50 Common dolphins surfing the bow wave and playing chicken by shooting across in front of the bow.  Not like the ones off Freo who play for about 2 minutes if you are lucky...these guys stayed with the yacht and played for about 45 minutes, which was wonderful!  :)

Divided Sky had, meanwhile snuck passed us and were scooting along.  I was sitting in the cockpit thinking to myself that Aqua Vitae did not like it up the arse, (God.... that sounds rude!! :/),   she preferred it hard on (that's worse!!!!:/ :/)  I was of course referring to the position of the wind.  Moonshadow seems to like it from behind and DS wasn't doing badly either.  AV was like a slug.  We tried in vain to make her go faster, but in the end we had to admit defeat and resorted to the "sail trim" book to see what we were doing wrong.  Made all the adjustments...and still didn't go any faster.  We then resorted to the iron sail (engine) to keep the speed up between the swells, otherwise we were not going to make it before dark and going into port after dark is not a good idea.

DS was doing well; they managed (with their boom break) to gull wing, we put the heady away in the end and just had the main out, easier to control in rolly conditions.  We were making good speed 6.5-7.5 knots with the motor ticking over.

When it came time to turn in toward the leads for Port Dennison,  DS radio'd back that there were hoards of cray pots at the point where we needed to turn!  NICE...NOT!!  We didn't know if they were all tied together somehow or not, so after deliberating and cogitating for some time, made a dash across the line of pots and didn't snag anything.

AV then took off, hitting 9.8 knots at one point, averaging between 7.5 and 8.5 knots...we were at Dennison in no time at all....and then it happened .....the engine wouldn't start!!

Bugger~!!!  and a few more expletives too rude to write here.

I steered the yacht under mainsail only whilst Mike tried flushing the fuel lines and changing the filters, (the engine hatch hit him in the head, so he dropped one of them in the bilge) but in the end it still wouldn't start, so we had to call sea rescue for a tow into Dennison, as sailing into Port in the dark, into the wind would have been impossible and downright dangerous.  We pottered around for 10-15 mins or so outside Dennison in the dark waiting for Sea Rescue, we managed to get the main 3/4 furled away and dropped the rest into the  lazy jacks and then put a small amount of heady out so that we had some steerage, which we put away when sea rescue arrived.  They came out and towed us in with no problems at all and pushed us into the jetty, where some of the locals helped us to tie up.  People in these smaller communities are always so helpful and we really liked Port Dennison the last time we were here, but this wasn't quite the dignified entry that we were hoping for!!!

Doug from Grey Douglas, had arrived the day before and scooted over in his dinghy to give us a hand  with the engine and putting the rest of the mainsail away. (thanks Doug, that was much appreciated!! :).  Seems like their was a load of crap in the fuel (judging from what came off the filter), it must have got stirred up when we were rolling around out there with the engine going and then blocked the lines when we healed over to make our final approach without the engine on.  Anyway, still wouldn't start, so we had a couple of stiff drinks, showered and crashed.  both got a good nights sleep and Mike sorted the problem out first thing this morning and we moved the boat onto a mooring, before going for brekkie at the local cafe.   Then trotted down to the chandlery to get some more spares and then back to the boat.

Need to do some laundry, quick arvo snooze and then it will be time for the sundowner and Barbie.

Heading off to Geraldton (Gero) day after tomorrow and then probably out to the abrolhos islands.