Norwegian Bay

Anchored in front of the ruins of a Whaling Station

Not a great anchorage, a little rolly for us. But we stayed 3 nights because of the weather on our original planned departure date.  We made an attempt to head out, once outside the reefs there was quite a swell running, which would normally be ok since the wind, healthy as it was, was behind us, but would have precluded entrance to our destination, Yardie Creek, where the pilot guide warns about entering during high swell. So we tacked Ashiki around, two attempts at it, as she needs persuading to tack with reduced sail into waves, and headed back through the reefs to Norwegian. When the sun came out, we made another excursion ashore and checked out the inland country, which was well worth it.

While there we spotted a catamaran motor into the bay (he was motoring before a good wind, so why not sail?), anchored way over near the reef, about a mile away, then appeared to work on a sail laid out on deck. Hmm.. emergency repairs. He left the next morning, heading north.

Whaling station ruins. A Norwegian company (thus the name of the bay) 
set up three whaling stations in WA in 1912, bringing with them the new explosive tipped harpoons, enabling the capture of larger whales and revived WA's
ailing whale industry (oh joy!). This station continued till 1955.

Back country dunes and signs of life!

Country inland of Norwegian.