We needed a sail after a week on a mooring, and Eagle Bay was somewhere we really wanted to visit by boat, the place is famed for its picturesque beach. It is about 6Nm towards the end of the Bay, north west of us just before the Cape. The wind was from the North and light, meaning a windward sail but not uncomfortable. 10 minutes after setting out I noticed another yacht peel out from the mooring field, heading our way. We tacked, heading outwards from the coast which brought him level with us, but 1/2Nm inshore from us, we tacked to a parallel course and we seemed to match speed, then he tacked too… The bugger was racing us. A tall bermudan (meaning a normal yacht) versus the junk rig schooner (and towing a dinghy).
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| Sail to Eagle Bay - creases in the sails |
Not a lot to report, he was catching up, but that was before I knew it was a race, when we did, I cranked her up, if there was any gap closing it wasn’t obvious. We were gliding along at 2.5 to 3 knots, 90˚ tacks upwind and he barely made ground on us for over an hour. I wondered what would have happened if the dinghy was on deck and the sails were sorted properly, they still had those terrible speed robbing diagonal creases in them…
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| Moored at Eagle Bay |
Then we made our destination and I think our competitor was impressed, turning around and giving us the thumbs up and asked where we were headed. Racing finished, we found that Eagle Bay was chock full of moorings, but only a couple boats, so we picked one and settled in. This place didn’t have the crystal clear green waters of Quindalup. It had even more crystal clear blue waters, nestled in a horseshoe of typical WA powder white beach sand with green hills behind. It is simply a stunning location. Susie was very happy. Supposedly Eagle Bay is one of Western Australia’s finest beaches. I’ll give ‘em that one.
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| Eagle Bay |
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