Creaseless in Busselton

View from the anchorage, Geographe Bay Yacht Club

After our easy peasy downwind sail we found a spot in front of the Geographe Bay YC (without the masses of racers, they’re tucked away in a marina some 3 Nm away), cruising in under sail to drop anchor. Busselton is another very pleasant place indeed, still in the tourist belt, and the anchorage is not quite as protected as Quindalup. 

Intrepid sailor (and tasteless dresser) on Busselton foreshore, after quenching thirst from another "filtered" water fountain.

Downtown Busselton

Busselton Jetty, longest wooden jetty in the southern hemisphere, over 1 mile long, built from the 1850's, length was added every few decades. Needs to be this long as the Bay is too shallow and they needed shipping to export Jarrah timber. Only a tourist attraction now.

There’s not a lot to tell about our stay here, except we changed the running lines on the rigging and rid the sails of diagonal creases! Took down one line (combined yard/throat parrel) and replaced it with two lines, yard and throat parrel. I think the difference in sailing is there, no way of quantitatively telling, but sure does look better!

Sails are now less creased.

During our 4 days we dragged only once…  as a result we have adopted the regimen of backing down on the anchor with the motor (after dropping anchor, put the motor in full reverse to dig it in). What’s that you say? We hadn’t till up till now? There’s not much power from the little 6hp outboard on a 5 ton boat, so I didnt think it much use, relying on wind to dig it in. But now we have noticed that backing down even with feeble power does make a difference.

Some days the water became really clear off Busselton, here are some pictures taken from the deck. A crab.

A sting ray of some sort, he just lay there waiting.