Quoin Bluff to Geraldton

Geraldton Again…..

From Quoin Bluff to Gero

Did I say light conditions?  Beat me senseless with a silk ribbon and wash my mouth out with champagne   ( I have a low pain threshold!! J) ………Well it started as light winds and beautiful sunny conditions.  We motored the 5 hours through Shark Bay down to Steep Point.  Coming out through Steep Point we nearly came a cropper as we hadn’t noticed the breakers coming on from the swell off to the port side as the sea came across a shallow area.  We did a sharp turn to starboard and thankfully missed the opportunity to do a Hawaii 5-0 style stunt up the  front of the incoming breaker.

Phew!!  Emergency averted!

Back out on the Indian ocean the swell wasn’t too bad at about 2 metres and the wind about 15 knots, more or less on the nose …usual reciprocal wind situation, so we tacked out to sea to avoid the fall out from the surf hitting the Zuytdorp cliffs.

Motor sailing some of the way and sailing where possible, we bagan the long journey back to Gero.

The first night was motor-sailing and just motoring some of the way in light winds with minimal (2m) swell.  The sky was clear and the milky way looked amazing.  Mike said he saw several shooting stars during his watches.  I had taken seasickness tablets, so for the first time ever, I was able to read whilst we were going along and made the most of my new ability!

The second day wasn’t too bad either, light winds again.  The wind started picking up late arvo and we were trucking along at 6.5-7 knots with full sail on 15-18 knots of breeze.  We discussed reefing the main, but decided to wait until after I had had my arvo nap prior to my 6pm watch.  At about 5pm I got flung across the aft bed and then heard Mike shouting for me go get upstairs.  I shot up the companionway to see him fighting with the wheel trying to stop the boat rounding up and yelling at me to get the genny away.  Hair flying everywhere, I started to wind in the genny, being very careful not to get my hair caught in the winch. When the genny was away I chucked it up into its usual bun and then took the wheel to head up and get the main away.  I am not fond of the in boom furling system.  It takes too bloody long to put the main away. You can just drop it into the lazy jacks, but then you end up with a mess that you still have to put away…and that would not be easy in storm conditions.  As usual the weather forecast (on 3 websites) had predicted 15 knot winds and some light rain….a little different from the 35 knot winds we were experiencing.  Mental note to self, when you think about reefing, don’t just think about it DO IT!!  If you’re thinking about it then it is likely that you will need to do it…if you get my drift!

We had chucked the engine on in order to keep the boat head to wind whilst we were pulling the main down, we turned back on course and let out a small scrap of heady to balance the boat a little and carried on our way.  Overnight the cloud came in and we ended up donning full wet weather gear.  A couple of greenies over the side kept us awake.  At about 0600 hours the skies really opened and visibility was very reduced just as we were in sight of Gero and trying to negotiate our way around some of the big ships at anchor.  Luckily most of these were lit up like Christmas trees due to the poor viz, so that wasn’t too much of a problem.  Winds hit 35 knots again and together with the driving rain made conditions rather horrid!  However the boat handled them well.

We got to the entrance to the marina in Geraldton at about 0830 hours.  It was not easy to see in the conditions and Mike was convinced the entrance was further to port, until we got up closer (too close before you could really mae it out!).  We hung around outside for a while until the winds subsided to around 25 knots and then took our chance and surfed into the harbour….what a relief to get out of that boiling sea.

We made a beeline for the first T head that we spied and tied up on there…I didn’t realise that I was kneeling in Guano, until I stood up and looked at my wet weather trousers…not nice!

We helped Nick and Robyn to Tie up when they finally found their way into the marina.  Turned out they had a problem with possibly a gear box…something wasn’t making a very nice noise anyway.  They’d had a few other equipment problems also en route.

We had booked into Gero marina via email to the DPI, who were very helpful, before we got there, but didn’t want to risk trying to go into the pens in high winds, so we had bacon sangers , showered and hit the sack.  I had been in bed around 10 mins when there was a knock on the hull and the DPI chap had come down with the paperwork and the key, so that was good.  There are showers and a laundry facility within the marina.  Nice to get some R and R after 44 ½ hours at sea.  Hats off to our friends Jill and Paul, who have just completed an ocean crossing totalling 24 days….don’t know how they do it!  We are knackered after 2!!!

Met up with Mike from Zen Again who is bringing his yacht back down to FSC from Indonesia.  He was unfortunate to come into Gero at 10pm last night and ran into an unlit and uncharted fish farm just outside the marina.  Scratched up his hull and had to get Sea Rescue to pull him off.  Stupid place to put a fish farm!  Mind you having to negotiate round all the bloody cray pots that are littered around the lead lines and shipping channels around here was also dangerous, especially if we had hooked one in the conditions we came in under.  Shouldn’t be allowed!

Went for lunch at Skeeters and then had the sundowner on Zen again with Mike.  Beans on toast for tea…couldn’t be arsed to cook – didn’t need it anyway after lunch and the sundowner.  Sometimes just a simple meal is call for and today was one of those times……

Monkey Mia again :) to Quoin Bluff

Friday 16^th May

Left the G spot (Guichenault Point) early at 0800 hours and travelled back south to Monkey Mia again, as Jermey and Margie on Moonshadow had order some new sheets (rope to all you landlubbersJ) for their heady, to replace their old and fraying ones.

It was wonderful to be back at MM after the unrestful nights worrying about dragging anchor at the G spot.    We had a lovely couple fo days their walking miles along the beach and seeing the shovel nosed rays in the shallows.  The second day there, we had taken the dinghies across to the mangroves and had watched the fish jumping out of the  water and seen a stone fish…lucky no one stepped on that one!

We had a wonderful weekend at MM again, enjoying the café (and the coffee) and doing a run over the Denham in TInika and Bills car to reprovision…which was good…I was down to my last 6 bottles of Champers!  J

Wednesday 21^st May

Midday..

Just leaving Quoin Bluff after the most amazing 2 days.  Arrived at Quoin Bluff on Monday early afternoon after a wonderful and fast sail from Monkey Mia, with the wind on the beam most of the way and anything from 8 knots to 18 knots. 

Leaving Monkey Mia at 0400 hours and also leaving Moonshadow and our good friends Margie and Jeremy who are to continue on their journey north to Darwin.  We wish them all the best.  Margies sister Tinika and her hubby Bill have been fantastic, doing a couple of BBQs for us and loaning us their car twice during our stay so that we could get more provisions.  They are on hols at MM for another month before they head home to Perth, so at least Margie and Jeremy still have company whilst they stay at MM

Setting off was problematic when our friends  on DS radio’d to say that their engine wouldn’t start again, but then radio’d back 10 mins later and admitted that they had the CF award for that day…had been pressing the kill switch instead of the engine start button in the dark!  …happens to everyone!  J

Quoin Bluff has very little written about it in the cruising guide, but it is a truly beautiful place and we had some wonderful experiences with the local watery fauna.

Arriving just after 2pm, we had a dolphin escort into the bay and could see some large rays, either mantas (not sure if they come down this far) or eagle ray pectoral fins were sticking out the water and then disappearing.

Anchoring at Quoin Bluff is easy in 2.5-3 metres of water with good sandy bottom over mud.  Excellent holding.  We were about 0.3 NM from shore and landing on the sandy beach was easy, as we kept away from the landed sea grass to the southern end of the beach.

We went for a short walk ashore on Monday after arriving and settling in.  We found the remnants of a building and bumped into a couple off a small power boat who pointed out the remains of the stone Guano jetty which is right in the south corner of the bay…starting to get munched by sand flies, we retreated to the boat for a sundowner and to plan what we were going to do during the next few days.

Wonderful restful night in perfect anchoring conditions with very little light winds from the south and no swell.  The following day we had morning coffee on ours and then headed to shore where we began a long trek along the beach and then up the bluff.  From here we could see the beautiful  but shallow waters of the bay which houses Egg island.  Stunning views across both bays from the top of the Bluff.

We reached the edge, taking care not to treat on any overhangs that might give way.  As we stared down into the crystal clear waters from the top of the bluff, Mike made the comment…”well this is supposed to be Shark Bay and we haven’t seen any sharks!’  A few minutes later as if on cue and much to our delight.…one came swimming along the shore line.  Nick got some excellent photos of it and several other sharks, one of which looked like a tiger and the others may have been grey reef (pointier noses!), but difficult to tell in the shadows of the ripples in the water.  From our vantage point on the Bluff, we also saw several large sting rays (appearances in keeping with eagle rays) and several turtles, one of which looked like a large leatherback.  A huge sea eagle soared overhead and we spotted 2 massive nests on the cliff face.

Our walk took about 4 hours and we returned to the boats hungry and headed over to DS for some pancakes…as they had loads of pancake mixes left, which had to be eaten.

Planned to take off at lunch time.  Back to our boat for a well earned rest and watched a video before crashing for the night.  We had another wonderful night in perfect conditions with a tiny easterly breeze and no swell.  Following morning after brekkie, we motored across to the end of the bluff in the dinghy and drifted back towards the shore from there.  Hoping to see some more sea life close up (especially the sharks).  We were rewarded with huge numbers of sting rays, both eagle rays and blue spotted rays, turtles….and one tiny shark about 75cm long..  The sea eagle circled overhead.  still cant complain.

Left Quoin Bluff at midday on our way to Geraldton.  I have to say it has been one of Mikes and my favourite places.  Restful nights and lots of interaction with the sea life   Mike even saw the tail of what he thought was a Dugong on the way out of Quoin bluff.  It is so calm today that I am able to write this as I am going along.  This is a first for me…I normally get very seasick even looking at a book.  So I am quite chuffed at this achievement!  J

We now have a 40 hour sail to Gero in light winds with minimal swell, so shouldn’t hopefully be too bad, even if it is 2 overnighters.  We will be keeping in close company with DS and have arranged pens for when we get there with the DPI (who have been very good BTW)…so can rest up then before our onward journey south to Dennison and the cold weather.  BRRRRRRR!  (not looking forward to that)

Guichenault Point

We are currently anchored at Guichenault Point (affectionately know as the G spot), because no one can spell the name...or even pronounce it for that matter.  It is on the northern point of Francois Peron National park at the top of Shark Bay.

Arrived here at this very remote place, the day before yesterday after a very pleasant 4 hour sail with the wind from behind for most of the passage.  Anchoring was interesting.  We are over a Nautical mile offshore because it is too shallow further in.  there was a stiff 15 knot breeze when we were anchoring and the topography of the bottom is mostly seagrass....hence anchoring is somewhat difficult.  We managed to find a sandy patch on the 4th go, so we were set, but Divided sky had to resort to the fisherman's anchor before they stayed put in one place.  Consequently the sundowner had to be moved from Moonshadow to Divided Sky, until Nick and Robyn were happy that the boat wasn't going to move again.  We had had a very wet ride over to Moonshadow, who actually looked nearer than she was...and then moved across to Divided Sky.

There is some fetch here, but no swell (be thankful for small mercies!:)  We headed to shore yesterday, the yachts look very tiny from the shore...its a bloody long way!  We walked a couple of KMs along the beach amongst the mangroves.  There are all sorts of footprints in the sand.  Looks like Roo, emu, goat and some very big prints that could even be camel.  In the shallows we saw lots of shovel nosed Rays... many people call them shovel nosed sharks, but they actually belong to the ray family.   Someone had abandoned a 4WD bogun sled along the beach track...and it even had a "police aware" sign on it!  :)

Back to Aqua Vitae for a BBQ lunch and coffee...nice to give the old liver a rest for 24 hours!  :)

Margie tried several times to get hold of the fishing boat harbour and left 5 messages.  When they finally answered the phone, a very rude young lass told her that she hadn't bothered to ring back because they didn't have any availabilities, so there was no point her phoning Margie back...and no she couldn't say if anything was coming up later in the week and no she didn't have the yacht clubs number.  Public servant my arse!  Obviously needs a lesson in communication skills.

Margie finally got hold of the Yacht club and they reckon we can get up the fascine to the Yacht club. to the public moorings.  They say it is regularly dredged, so we will give it a go later in the week, so that we can get some supplies before we head back South again....

Very lazy arvo watching films and then bed..
Supposed to be going for another walk on the left side of the bay today, but the wind is up and it looks very choppy at the moment.....maybe later..... zzzzzzzz

Monkey Mia

Well, we have been here for several days now...I can't remember exactly how long because I don't know what day we arrived and have no idea what day it actually is today either... :)  Easy how time goes by when you are not having to adhere to a particular schedule or time frame....  Also easy to lull yourself into early senility!

The days go by very quickly and although we are very busy most days...too busy to even update the blog...I couldn't tell you exactly what we have been doing, because I can't remember.  Oh dear!!!

We had one rough night on anchor here, 24 hours after arrival...which we were expecting. High winds 25 knots and lots and lots of heavy rain squalls.  The anchor alarm went off several times overnight, but it was just the boat swinging on the anchor...fortunately there was no dragging this time as the holding here is pretty good.

Margies sister Tinika and her husband Bill are staying up here for a few months, so we have caught up with them and their lovely friends Maureen and Terry with their pooch Jay, who unfortunately had to leave today to head back to Beverly.  They treated us to a wonderful meal ashore with some fresh caught cod on our first night, which was beautifully cooked and very tasty.  We also had dinner with them at the resort restaurant last night.  The food was very good....our only complaint was that as soon as we moved outside to finish our drinks they shut the doors and turned the lights off...and it was only 2030hours!

We pinched Tanika and Bills car the other day (with their permission of course!) and all went into Denham to get some much needed shopping and did the touristy things by visiting the aquarium (cafe only) and eagle bluff where you can look out over shallow water and see sharks, rays and even dugongs in the right conditions.  We did see a shark but it was so far away it was just a moving black line in the water.  The coffee at the aquarium cafe is top notch...very nice!

We have had dolphins, dolphins and more dolphins, much to Robyns delight.  They were all around us when we were dropping anchor and frequently come to the boat and the dinghy when we are travelling backwards and forewords to the shore.

We will be heading to shore tonight for a sundowner then Mike and I will fire up the barbie on the boat for tea.

Nick and Robyn have just been repairing their heady, it looks like it has been chafing against the spreaders (nicks fault for going into racing mode and pulling the heady on too tight, according to unidentifiable sources. We have also just watched Nick towing Margie and Jeremy back to Moonshadow in their dinghy....they either had a fuel blockage or ran out out fuel...either way we have photographic evidence!  Robyn is just going ashore to try out her new blow up kayak...cameras at the ready in case she falls out!  :)

We were last in Monkey Mia about 9 or 10 years ago and there was nothing here.  The resort is taking shape and the facilities are much better than they were back then.

We have decided that it is now impossible for us to get to the Montes...we would get there OK but would be pushing it to get back within the time frame and we don't want to do that.  The current decision now is to spend some time exploring Shark bay in a lot more depth, but the information on appropriate anchorages is limited....will have to go and talk to the guys on the local catamaran to see if where we are thinking of exploring is actually viable.

p.s. message to Chris Dixon.  thank you for reading.  :)

Shark Bay

We finally arrived at Denham at 3pm yesterday.  What a relief to get into the protection of Shark Bay and out of the swells.

We left Turtle Bay at the abrolhos at 0800 hours on Friday morning.  We had no choice really,  the only weather window before tuesday was on friday and overnight, otherwise we would be stuck in turtle bay and the issue with that, was that there was a strong northerly wind and big swell forecast for the Abrolhos and turtle bay was rolly enough as it was without a northerly wind coming straight in...so we had to leave.

The forecast was for a 3m swell and 20-25 knots of wind from the south east swinging east during the day.  The truth of the matter was that the winds were up to 35 knots overnight and the swell was 4m plus with short choppy seas and the wind southerly SSE at best for most of the journey (so all from behind)  The result was an extremely rough and rolly 32 hours which I don't want to repeat in a hurry.

I can cope OK with the boat hobby horsing and rough seas and high winds don't phase me, but I can't cope with rolling side to side and as a result felt very nauseous for 26 hours, despite taking every antiemetic known to man.  I couldn't sleep at all and the nausea became unbearable every time I sat up.  Getting dressed to do the watches consisted of grabbing items of clothing and dashing upstairs dressing in the companionway in between being thrown about by the waves.  Having said that I still did my 3 hour watches overnight....not that  you could see anything..it was pitch black out there with no moon.  The milky way (in between the cloud cover) was stunning as usual, such a privilege to be able to see it in its full glory without any light pollution.  Mike was an absolute legend....donned the full wet weather gear on his watches and sat behind the steering wheels at the back of the boat.  He never gets sea sick but even he was feeling a bit queasy at times.

Had a few greenies over the boat (green water for those non sailors), gave the cockpit a good clean!!  But its a bit rude at 0300 hours to have someone throw a bucket of water over you when you least expect it!  One of these greenies happened just after I had opened the rear hatch to speak to Mike..I did shut the hatch afterwards but didn't realise it was still on vent....so the back bunk got a bit wet when the wave came over, but this dried off OK, so no issues there.

I was convinced that the boat was falling apart, there were so many creaks and groans....I am sure Mika our old yacht never made this much noise in rough weather.  The boat didn't fall apart suffice to say and handled it really well.  We kept reducing sail down to a minute amount of heady out front, the main stayed firmly put away.  Every time we reduced sail to slow down, we seemed to speed up....the end result was about 1sq metre of sail out and we were still doing 5.5-6 knots.  We had to slow down so that we didn't arrive at Steep point in the dark.  This is where you turn into Shark Bay...and we also didn't want to get too close to the Zutydorp cliffs in the dark.  The rebound of the waves against the cliffs makes the seas very disturbed and they were bad enough already!  These were amazing!  Some are 100 ft high and the waves and water crashing against them was reaching the top of the cliffs...quite spectacular.

After the awful night, it was wonderful to reach the haven of Shark bay and feel well enough to have something to eat for the first time in 18 hours...sailing at 7.5-8 knots across flat water with just the heady out.....beautiful....crack open the champers!!  :)

Three exhausted crews arrived at Denham at 3pm to a radio welcome from ACRM base and have anchored just offshore to sit out the rain and the expected 30 knot blow from the east that was forecast for the next 24hours.  The blow has reduced to 20 knots from the ENE, with grey skies and moderate rainfall.  The anchors seem to be holding well.  We need to setoff the boat for a while...go to shore and find the rubbish bins and the cafe...  need coffee!!!

My phone doesn't work here but Mikes does, so at least we don't have to use the sat phone to get into contact with people.

ADDIT:  Famous last words...talk about putting the kibosh on the statement about the anchor....we went to IGA in Denham to do some shopping and were going to go for a coffee at the cafe on the way back but fortunately the cafe was closed so we decided to go back to the boat...we were only gone about an hour.  On the way back, i said to Mike, Where is Aqua Vitae?  I can see Divided Sky and Moonshadow, but AV's mast should be behind the fishing boat and it is not there.....   A little further on we spotted her....way out in the  bay!  She had dragged anchor some 0.5 of a nautical mile and we had to chase after her in the dinghy.  it was only 2.2 meters deep and we had had 30 meters of chain out, which should've been plenty....it obviously wasn't!  Ever heard the saying anchor chain is no good to you in the locker?....guess we learned our lesson the hard way!!!  We had bought a brand new manson supreme 40 anchor for AV to go on this trip and they usually reset themselves if you drag...clearly not this time!!!

We finally caught her up after a very long ride..she had already been anchored about 1 nautical mile offshore as it is too shallow further in in Denham. When we reached her, we got on board and motored back in.  We tried unsuccessfully twice to reset the anchor, the second time with 60 metres of chain out, which then had to be pulled in again whilst we repositioned.  Third time lucky she finally seemed to hold.  It wasn't nice having to do this in 25knot winds and driving rain either!

Nick and Robyn got on board Divided Sky and put the rest of their anchor chain out.  Margi and Jeremy jumped on board Moonshadow and then we noticed that she too had started to drag anchor.  They tried 8 times to reset before she finally held!!  (and we thought we had it bad!!!)

Anyway good job we weren't too long otherwise Aqua Vitae would have been even further out.  It was a very long and anxious trip to catch her anyway.  Need an anchor alarm app on the iPhone for when you need to go to shore...I am sure someone must have invented one....!

Needless to say we both had a crappy nights sleep after that!  The anchor alarm went off once overnight but that was just because we had so much chain out and had swung round with the wind,
I am not going to make any further comments about the anchor holding before we leave the boat today :)