Back in the Islands…
WA – Western Australia; but, in our world….Windy Always! Right on cue, the morning we were due to travel back to Pelseart, we were faced with E/NE winds gusting to 35 knots offshore.. no thanks, so our early departure time needed to be delayed. Time to put the kettle on…
It was nearly 9.30am by the time we felt comfortable enough that the easterly had started to lose some of its gustiness. We sailed our way out, just outside the shipping channel, as there was a ship entering port. He’s much bigger than us and gets right of way, so we were keeping well clear.
The wind was gusting to about twenty knots so we were making good time. Typically, the easterly is gusty as the wind is coming across the land with all sorts of obstacles in its way – hence the variability. Conversely, a sea breeze is generally more stable as the wind may be strong, but, with no obstacle to disrupt the flow, it tends to remain fairly constant.
At about the 16 mile mark of a 32 mile journey to the Pelseart Group, the wind pretty much dropped away to less than 10 knots and the sails were flopping all over the place. Engines on and soldier on!
Before we knew it, we were rounding the corner into the channel that would take us down to the lagoon. There were still half a dozen yachts in the anchorage, including Beau and Hux on Chasing Eden, who came to meet us with a couple of freshly caught crays for our dinner. Awesome – one less thing to worry about.
The weather looked great on Saturday for a run to the Wallabi Group, so we planned to have Friday as a diving and fun day in Pelseart. We awoke to a light easterly and, taking advantage of a high tide, we headed over to the wreck site located on the edge of Halfmoon Reef. We were after a couple of baldies, no crays needed, so of course everywhere we looked there were crays galore… but no baldies!
The current was quite strong, so we moved to another of our favourite spots and pretty quickly, I had a baldie in the bucket. It was time to hand the spear gun over to Nicky and pretty quickly she had nailed a beautiful baldie. One for dinner, one for the freezer.
With our mission accomplished, it was back to the boat for some filleting and lunch. Beau and Hux were heading out on the squid trail so we yelled, ‘give us a call when you find them!’ Within half an hour, Hux, who is only 4, called us on the radio in his cute, squeaky voice to let us know they had squid. We were in the dinghy and over there pretty smartly. At this point there were light winds, beautiful sunshine and clear water. We could see the squid milling around and soon we had christened our new dinghy with squid ink. A slightly traumatising experience for Pete.
We nailed about 8 or so before making our way back to the boat for more processing – Nicky’s turn this time. A visit from the usual scavenger crew, aka the local tiger sharks, kept us entertained. They obviously got a whiff of the squid and knew they might be in for an easy feed. We never throw fish frames or fish scraps over in anchorages – we always put them in a bucket and take them away and drop them off elsewhere. No point encouraging the sharks, I say! They’ll need to go elsewhere to try their luck.
Not long after finishing that job, it was time to head to the beach for a sundowner with some of the other crew in the anchorage. In typical cruiser fashion, everyone brought in a small share plate and, over a few beers, talked about life, sailing and shared some stories. We love meeting all the different sorts of characters doing their thing out on the water.
The highlight was meeting Rolf, a Swiss gentleman in his early sixties. Rolf had decided he would sail, single handedly, from Barcelona to Bunbury in his 40 foot monohull yacht. He also chose to come across in the Roaring Forties latitudes, well known for their strong storms and weather. The journey took him four and a half months, an amazing feat in itself. However, he then amazed us with the story about how, a few months ago, when he was close to nowhere, he got his little finger caught in a halyard (rope) which was flapping crazily. In the process of trying to save the sail from ripping, his little finger got crushed at the tip and bled for the next four to five days. At one point early on, he thinks he passed out for a while before coming to grips with it all and trying various things to stem the bleeding. With only some antiseptic wipes as a local, he cut the end of his finger off with a pair of surgical scissors! He proudly showed us the finger, shrugged his shoulders and said ‘Well what else can you do?’.
Rolf made us a traditional Catalonian dish with fish and pasta that we shared on the beach. He was blown away by the Abrolhos - uncrowded, beautiful and an abundance of seafood to be caught and eaten. His stories of the Caribbean and Med made us not want to rush to get there and to actually reflect and realise how good we have it here in WA. Even more crazy, no sooner had he arrived in WA, he would be shortly on his way to the Cocos Islands and then back to Barcelona!
The next morning it was 0700 anchors up. With Chasing Eden following closely behind, we departed for Turtle Bay in the Wallabi Group, about 40nm to our north. It was a sweet sail, a broad reach (wind over back quarter) with about 12 knots of apparent wind allowing us to fly our screecher sail and mainsail. This had us zipping along anywhere between 7 and 10 knots, running with the sea.
We arrived in Turtle Bay just after lunch and were able to jump onto a mooring. We awaited the arrival of Eden and then headed over to a little spot we’d come to know where crayfish are a plenty. Pretty soon, we had a bagful and were back to the boat for processing. We wanted to make some crayfish pickle for having up the coast. This involved processing the crays, tailing and cooking, mixing the pickle, and then putting it all into jars. It took a few hours, but the results were worth it. You won’t catch either of us diving for crays in the Kimberley!
Our original plan was to depart to Steep Point on the Sunday, however, after a night of strong gusty winds and the prospect of another day of strong gusty winds, up to 30 knots, we decided to play it safe and wait. Once you commit to this passage there is nowhere to go to pull out, so rather than risk it we decided to stay put in Turtle Bay for a few more days. As the saying goes, ‘ better to be in here wishing we were out there, than out there wishing we were back here!’
We had brought a Starlink kit just before we left, so to keep ourselves busy, we decided to set it up. I had a bit of trepidation as these things invariably never quite go to plan, but was pleasantly surprised that within ten minutes of opening the box, we were getting 300mps! Thank you Elon – one thing you have done right!
After careful consideration, and a lot of pondering, we elected to take a weather window to Steep Point. The Eden crew had decided to stay a few more days and they were going to hook up with Sojourn, who were on their way out and keen for a buddy.
The forecast looked promising… but what would it really be like? Historically, our Steep Point passages (going either north or south) haven’t been that enjoyable, with weather predictions being slightly off the mark. What do the ocean gods have in store for us this time?