Abrolhos #Season2

After sitting out a few days of strong winds in Port Denison, we were ready to again venture to the Abrolhos, with the lagoon area at the southern end our destination. With a forecast light easterly, we departed just before dawn using the lead markers as our guide to clear the reefs that lie either side of the marina.

Always a little unnerving departing in the dark, but we had done it a few times now and a cautious approach is always best. As well as sticking closely to the safe route marked out by the leads, we also had to contend with the cray boats coming out of the harbour. They generally travel twice as fast as us and, with their spotlights blazing, they effectively block the lead lights so it is important to set and stick to the right heading early. At the end of last season, we installed a small blue / white floodlight on the back transom and in these instances we turn on the white light just to provide that additional visibility to those who are coming from behind us. The cray boats are not generally expecting anyone else out and about early, so it is good to let them know where you are.

Dawn broke and after a few hours the wind eased to about an 8 knot easterly. An opportunity to put up our asymmetrical spinnaker ‘Shrek’ so we set about rigging it up on deck before launching. A successful set and looking awesome, Shrek helped to keep us on our march towards Pelseart.

It wasn’t long and we had the first landmark, the coral patches, in sight and soon to our stern. As we headed down the channel to the lagoon, we noticed Silverado bearing down on us and gave Ash a quick call. He was also heading down the lagoon and announced his intention to overtake us when he could – always fun in the channel!

With sails down, we were motoring at about 6.5 knots, compared to Silverado’s 10 knots which meant we were soon in their wash. Ash kept a respectful distance and the crew and guests gave us a wave as they left us behind. Just as we were pulling into the anchorage, a friendly local swam across to guide us in. We never get tired of watching these guys move so gracefully at the front of the bow.

After a night on anchor, just off the old guano jetty, one of the moorings was vacated early in the morning so we shifted over and secured to it.

The next week was spent reacquainting ourselves with this beautiful part of the world. Loads of diving – spearing baldchin groper, catching crays and chasing squid; island walks and exploring; meeting and socialising with some new yachty friends and generally enjoying ourselves. Our visit coincided with the solar eclipse; not quite the awe-inspiring event we were hoping for, but the change of light (almost like an aura of sorts) was evident on our dingy ride back from the reef. Best way to describe it is, it was like looking through polarised sunnies, but without the sunnies. Everything had a strange clarity to it.

We scored a couple of amazing full, glassy days where the palette was next level – amazing water clarity, blue skies and warm temperatures; only to be followed up with a few days of strong south westerly and southerlies. That’s the Abrolhos for you.

Our diet went straight to full-time seafood and we were reminded how much we had missed eating fish – daily for lunch and dinner!

We had planned to head up to the northern group, but the forecast was showing a couple of days of strong southerlies – which would mean being boat bound. Nobody got time for that! We decided to head into Geraldton and restock before heading back out to the Wallabis and then on to Shark Bay.

We tagged with Paul and Tracey on ‘Halcyon Days’ on the run back to Geraldton. A shifty south easterly made conditions a little tricky, but before long the Point Moore lighthouse was in sight and we headed into the familiar anchorage of Champion Bay.

A quick catch up with Scott and Lara on ‘Wayfarer’ – we had said goodbye as we sailed out in October last year. They had remained at Geraldton for the entire summer and there they were in the anchorage as we sailed in.

The next few days were the usual run around of laundry, food shop, pick up a few different items, top up the gas and fuel and then get ready to go again. Massive thanks to our friend Deb who lent us her car for the day, enabling us to get about our business quickly and not have to lug shopping for kilometres.

It was a social time in Geraldton with the Shore Leave Festival on, so a bunch of us cruisers had a few beers and a catch up on the Thursday night at the festival.

As part of the festival, a talk had been organised at the Geraldton Museum on the Zeewijk (1727) wreck; 3D photogrammetry survey which took place in 2022. A couple of the marine archaeologists were on hand to give a presentation on the Zeewijk, which was wrecked on Half Moon reef, on the western edge of the Pelseart group. Because of the wrecks location and exposure to swell and surf it has been rarely visited – with one of the archaeologist’s making the quip that more people have visited the moon than the Zeewijk site!

An interesting talk and detail about the site and how they used technology to map it out and confirm that there is only one wreck at that site. For many years it was thought that there may have been two ships at the one location, but this survey helped debunk that theory.

After the talk, it was off to the Yacht Club for more chat and dinner, before an early night to prepare for the run to Turtle Bay.

And what a run it was…. Departing at 5am, we had a 15 knot easterly on our tail as we made our way out of the channel and into open seas. Ray and Jackie on SV Solitaire, were tagging along with us on their first cruising season north. Another hour or two behind us were SV Resolute (Damien and Kerry) and SV Centurion (Ian and Tonia).

Pretty soon, the wind was up and we were getting a consistent 25+ knots of easterly wind. We broke our speed record with a 14.7 knot speed recorded as we were surfing down a wave. Needless to say, we both looked at each other and were like ‘YOWZA!!”. We quickly furled in the jib and with a reefed mainsail were still sitting up in the 8 and 9 knot range – albeit now feeling bit more in control. Running downwind in those conditions can be fun, but also a little bit daunting when you start surfing the waves and the boat starts rounding up when doing more than 10 knots – out of that comfort zone again.

The Wallabi group was soon in sight and, as usual, the wind had almost completely dropped away, as it does before swinging to the south and blowing again. We were trying to count the masts as we approached Turtle Bay to see if we would get a free mooring and we were glad that there was in fact two free, so us and Solitaire would both have one each.

As soon as we had the boat secured, we were in the dinghy and heading to the point to get dinner. We arrived at the supermarket just in time to nab four crays – a couple for dinner and a couple to the freezer. Got to love the Abrolhos!

We had a couple of days before the next weather window to Steep Point so we spent plenty of time diving and exploring. Some old police pals of Pete’s were in the bay (Mitch, Ray and Andy), so it was good to catch up with them, as well as our new cruising buddies and some new faces in the bay we hadn’t met before.

We had the novelty of watching the barge that normally services Rottnest pull in and remove a bunch of infrastructure from a Shore Leave festival event that was held on the beach a few days prior. $500 a head luncheon…. Out of our league, but we always feel we eat like kings at the Abrolhos anyway, so no hard feelings.

With a departure planned for Tuesday, we organised a sundowner at one of the newly constructed shelters. A quick dinghy ride around the bay and we managed to get all five boats in attendance:

- Singularity – Pete and Nicky

- Vamos – Judy, Ben and ??? (we forgot to write their names in the book!}

- Solitaire – Ray and Jackie

- Resolute – Damien and Kerry

- Zarfare – Nick and Heather

- Boys in the stink boat - Mitch, Ray and Andy