Henri Freycinet Harbour

With the weather gods smiling upon us, our plan was to stop and spend the night at Freycinet Island which is located about 30 miles south west of Denham and is the first major island that you pass in the Western Gulf.

We nudged up into the shallows between Freycinet and Double Island and dropped anchor. The wind was basically calm, sun was shining and it looked stunning. We quickly got Bob in the water and headed over to check it out. Freycinet is quite a big island and, like most of the islands here, is a rocky outcrop with a small amount of vegetation – by that we mean grasses, small bushes – no trees or anything of substance. Stunning to get up close, and we could see tuskies (Black spotted tuskfish – close cousin of the Baldchin groper) darting about in the shallows. The island is a major breeding place for cormorants and they were there in their hundreds. Let’s just say the smell downwind was a little spicy! This area has a long history of guano mining - there is still plenty available today!

We just had time for a slow lap and within a few minutes the wind had kicked in. By the time we got back to the boat, it was blowing 15knots and that was us for the day. It wasn’t forecast to get any stronger (or even this strong, ha ha) and it wasn’t uncomfortable, so we decided we would stay overnight as we had originally planned.

Next morning, we had a dive at Double Island and were surprised at how many fish there were around the place. Plenty of snapper and tuskies and whilst no massive ones – perfect dinner size for us! After a quick forage, we secured Bob to Singularity and headed further down the gulf – travelling the 8 or so nautical miles to Three bays Island.

It was a scenic motor – (no wind!) which had us manoeuvring to avoid a few shallow spots, passing west of the sanctuary at Mary Island and just to the east of Baudin Island, which looked spectacular and was definitely on our explore list. Unusually, there is a nice deep area (6 – 8metres) between Baudin Island and Three Bays Island and into the beach, making for a nice little anchorage. Not super protected, but good enough for the weather we had forecast for us for the next week. We nudged our way up to the northern side of Three Bays Island and found ourselves a nice spot to spend some time exploring this beautiful area.

This area is part of Tamala Station and is a very popular camping destination. Unfortunately, Tamala didn’t have their camping permit reissued back in 2020 due to the requirement for a new Indigenous land user agreement. Let’s just say that they haven’t been able to get agreement with the two local groups and, as a result, the area is still closed off to the public – and it looks like staying that way for some time yet (read courts and lawyers). A real shame, but a bonus for the Singularity crew as it meant more deserted locations, more fish to choose from, and nude showers on the back!!

We had an amazing four days…. light winds, blue skies, thunderstorms, full moon rises, unreal diving, island explorations, crazy dolphin encounters, squidding, and a chance meeting with a classic camp host who has been coming to Tamala for 25 years.

Out first exploration was to Baudin Island, which is about 1/2 mile long by 1/3 mile wide at its widest point. We pulled up to a small south facing beach and were able to climb up the rockface to get on top of the island. Pretty barren and quite dry – a lot of limestone/coral rock and the best vegetation area was located right at the very high point. We didn’t go too close here, as we could see a lot of green rock parrots who were obviously nesting in this area. Cool to watch through the binos as we got our ‘twitcher’ hats on.

After a wander around, we could see the tuskies swimming around the edges of the island, so it was back to Bob and a short drive around the corner to a beautiful little cove with a small area of sand beach.

We had an amazing dive around the edge of this island. Although shallow (<3metres), there were a lot of interesting structures and some big black caves. There was a really big variety of fish life with a lot of emperors (spangled / blue spotted / sweetlip), baldchin and tuskfish, western yellowfin bream (which look and taste like a spango) and some big cods. The caves were full of western yellowfin bream and the odd large cod sitting up the back in the dark.

Dinner was found and after an hour or so, we were starting to get cold. One thing about inside Shark Bay is that there is no warm current coming through, so the water is always a few degrees colder than on the west coast.

We had a mixed bag of weather – no real wind except one big thunderstorm that passed up the coast – where we were anchored was only about 7nm from the Zuytdorp Cliffs (as the crow flies….) and we were able to watch a lot of the weather pass straight up the coast and not come inland – even the short distance to us.  Some amazing glassy days and evenings where the reflections on the water were so mesmerizing that you almost felt like you were floating on air. A decent shower of rain from a passing thunderstorm and we watched the lightning as it passed south across Coburn Station.

Another glassy day presented, so we decided we would explore the Guano Islands – which are two small islands that were located about 2.5nm to our east. Another interesting explore – we didn’t venture onto these islands – quite rocky and a lot of terns that we didn’t want to disturb – but slowly working around them in the dinghy and then diving.

The water was so clear you could see all of the marine life – loads of tuskies, shovelnose rays, stingrays, dolphins – paradise!! Another interesting dive with again a lot of caves and dark overhangs… plenty of fish life, so dinner was soon organised.

After the bulk of the day exploring, we headed back to our anchorage. Crazily glassy with the reflections of big white fluffy clouds coming off the water – it couldn’t get any silkier.

Nicky is crazy for squid, so after some lunch and chill it was time to chase squid….again! We hadn’t done too well in the Bay yet and were keen for some diet variation from fish, fish and fish! We had a quick explore around Three Bays Island – this time we saw turtles, rays and a host of other fish and then it was out with the squid jigs. Not much doing, so we worked our way westward and finally had a couple of follows by small squid but, alas, no hook ups. We were excited though to have actually sighted some squid. We were beginning to wonder if the salinity down in this part of the gulf was too much for them. Not so, apparently. Just fussy eaters!

Another stunning night on anchor. We sat waiting for the full moon to rise over the water, which was completely still, but were foiled by some clouds way off to the south east. We got a good moon rise, but it could have been way better if the clouds hadn’t been there. Some star gazing from the roof and then it was bedtime.

The next morning, we knew we had about four hours before a southerly was coming in, only to about 15knots, so we once again headed over to Baudin Island. On our way, we were treated to some dolphin time with four of the locals taking a liking to Bob and spending a good ten minutes weaving in, out, up and down in front of the bow. So fantastic and something you never take for granted… very lucky to participate in these moments with nature. Check out the video - these are seriously graceful creatures!! Baudin Island is a real gem and this time we took Bob around the western side across a large expanse of shallows where, once again, we were treated to an abundance of wildlife including baby sharks, more shovel nose and stingrays, as well as fish everywhere.

Pete had decided that we wanted to cook a blue spotted emperor whole, so he went shopping for one. Sure enough, within a few minutes he had returned to the boat with a perfect sized emperor to cook whole. That was dinner sorted!!

That afternoon, we decided to head into the beach and go for a walk – which unusually we hadn’t yet done here, which probably says something about how good the water was. There were two caravans on a small beach just in from the anchorage and, as we were entering their beach, we thought it only polite to say hello. We knew that Tamala Station was closed to camping, so we were also curious as to how they came to be there. We were soon chatting to Pete and Jo, who were from North Curl Curl on Sydney’s northern beaches and have been coming to Tamala every year for the past eight years. They did some work for the station whilst they were here (Pete is a builder) and hence had come back to do some chores around the station. They introduced us to Yorkie, who is apparently a bit of an institution in these parts. Yorkie and his wife (whose name eludes us) have been coming here for 25 years and have spent the last ten years as camp hosts in this location. Very much a character and, within a minute, we were sitting around his campfire with a drink thrust into our hands and a big chat ensued. I can tell you that Yorkie had the place wired as far as fishing went and had some great stories of his catches and adventures around this section of the coast. Always great to chat with anyone you meet and it was very entertaining…. A pity we were heading back to Denham the next morning, or we are sure we would have caught up again. With the station closed, opportunity for company is limited, so I think all parties were refreshed to have some new faces for a beer and a chat.

With a decent south easterly forecast the next day (Thursday), we had planned to sail the 40nm back up to Denham, where we would do a quick laundry and shop run, and also catch up with a bunch of mates from various places from our past.