tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-85580403934573068342024-02-21T15:28:13.736+08:00Cruising AshikiCRUISING ASHIKI: Sailing and living aboard a junk rig schooner.Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.comBlogger84125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-79973452576150783712015-10-02T09:58:00.000+08:002015-10-22T11:35:53.306+08:00Central Coast NSW<div style="color: #010300;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We’re back. Since arriving at our destination I’ve been a little remiss in keeping this blog up. So here’s an update.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Fondest memory of the final leg Port Stephens - Central Coast, was wizzing past Newcastle at 8 knots. I reckon we had a 4 knot current with us at that point, the East Australian current is certainly something to reckon with. Makes one wonder how we’d head the other way…</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">Of course the current disappeared as we passed Lake Macquarie and 12 miles out from the entrance of Broken Bay the wind turned on the nose. Choice was, tack back and forth all night (we were managing 135˚ tacking angles, some current was against us), taking 12 to 18 hours, or drop all sail and motor 6 hours at our feeble motoring pace. We chose the latter, since it was midnight and the thought of a dawn arrival was appealing. So 2 hour shifts through the night holding the tiller it was (no tiller pilot remember). Theoretically, our functioning windvane (repaired in Port Stephens - 1 hour job - I love low tech gear) could work while motoring into a strong headwind, too bad I didnt think of it at the time…</span></span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Ashiki day sail, Central Coast near Gosford, as photographed<br />by Graham Cox on Arion</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We are settled here on the Central Coast for some time now, we have projects to look forward to, one is a haul out </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">some time this Spring,</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> at one of the boat yards on the Hawkesbury. The paintwork on Ashiki is looking abysmal, it would be nice to make her new again. The torn top panel of the foresail held all the way here from QLD, that's the first project, yet to be carried out, as we’re still daysailing around with it!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Great news was Raymarine replaced our ST2000+ tiller pilot for new. They saw the quite obvious bad condition of the original and gave up! I’m building a stainless steel trim tab assembly to bolt onto the rudder for the tiller pilot to drive, this should make the TP’s job much easier. Our friend Graham Cox (Arion) has had his TP for 14 years on a similar tonnage boat as Ashiki, connected to a trim tab the whole time and believes for serious use, tiller pilots don’t last connected directly to the tiller. Ours lasted little over 4 months and 2,000 Nm.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">The big excitement was the Central Coast super storm of April, 2015. It was three days blowing 50 to 75 knots! Fortunately we were (mostly) prepared for it, the forecast was for 60 knots so we moved Ashiki to a bay protected from the Southerly. But the first night with 50 knots gusts we dragged at a rate of 20m/hour. Late at night on a heeling deck I dropped the second anchor, I wanted to let out more rode on the first anchor but that meant winching in 5m to release the snubber, which I wasnt game to do in the rain and darkness. But the second anchor did slow our dragging, which was not a real hazard since it was towards the centre of the bay. The bottom in Brisbane water is soft mud, not the most ideal holding for anchoring and neither of our anchors, 15kg Plough and a 14kg Super Sarca are up to it. I think a next size up and different design anchor (sugar scoop type?) is in our future.. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">Later that night the dinghy sank, still attached to the boat. We figured its safer under the water than on top. But we lost the oars and a pair of thongs (flip flops to you non aussies).</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We had quite a restless night, all the while checking Anchor Watch (an app on the phone) to see how much we’ve dragged in the huge gusts. At daybreak, because the rain had stopped I ventured onto the foredeck to winch in the snubber and let out an extra 20m of rode, on both anchors. That would be around 45m of rode in only 4m depth. This stopped the dragging altogether and was fortunate because by mid morning the storm reached its zenith with that 75 knot gust hitting us like a sledge hammer. That’s firmly in category 2 cyclone strength by the way. Ashiki heeled and hunted around, but did not drag an inch further. I made a mental note to build a riding sail next.. (small sail for anchoring, is strung up from the stern is supposed to tame the veering around in a gale). What a difference it makes having the anchors finally holding, the stress poured from us and we both could have a decent sleep. Ashiki was still in the protection of the bay with waves no more than a foot.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #010300; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The view of the coastline was different, we were downwind of a mooring field and many of the yachts were having their sails unfurled and flogging themselves to shreads. We had the foresail lowered to the deck, the main resting in it’s lazy jacks were unlashed and it never flogged, even though the luff and leach do hang down. Interesting. Graham on Arion was on a visitor mooring in another bay and saw several boats break free from their moorings and blow past him onto the oyster beds. One large plastic fantastic blew onto him and scraped along his side, his steel boat inflicting more damage on it that on his. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #010300; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On the second night, when the worst of the storm was over (but still 40 to 50 knot gusts) I looked out and was stunned to see the surrounding hills in pitch blackness. The city had lost power, in fact, listening to the radio, land lubbers seemed to be having a rougher time of it than us. No power, trees had fallen everywhere blocking most roads, businesses and work places shut down for a couple days. All the while we were on board with full power, lights on, cooking, surfing the internet etc. Even ran the generator during the blow. </span><span style="color: #010300; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The advantages of off the grid living.. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #010300; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Boats were reported to be all over the foreshore, on parks, on footpaths, it was mayhem. This was their worst storm in 15 years and we happened to arrive in time for it..</span>Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-72072637929264984492015-06-22T12:10:00.001+08:002015-10-22T11:43:30.881+08:00NSW and the Eureka Moment<div style="color: #010300;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ashiki was eleven days in Mooloolaba thanks to a certain category 5 cyclone up Rockhampton way, then we were off with the next Nor’Easter. Mooloolaba is definitely a fun place packed with all sorts of goodies, but we had, as rough as it was, a schedule to keep. We decided to bypass the rest of Queensland, no Brisbane, no Gold Coast, places we would like to cruise next time, instead we found the East Aussie Current. It found us, more like it! Winds dropped to a zephyr but the GPS still had us a 4.5 knots.. We did see a fisherman’s buoy 5 or 6 miles off the coast, it was almost submerged with the current washing over it. It as a good 180 miles to Iluka in northern NSW but Ashiki covered 110 miles the final 24 hours. A record! (lot of exclamation marks this paragraph!). So teepee the auto pilot decided to act up and blew fuse. As I was out of 10A fuses the rest of the way was under windvane. Still in the sleigh ride, the Clarence River mouth hoved into sight and Ashiki was turned towards the coast, there is supposedly a good swell over the bar but considering the light winds I guessed it would be alright and wasn’t worried with a night entrance. Our entry would be against an ebb flow too, but the wind would be behind us so I still thought we’d be okay. With just the foresail up and motor assistance Ashiki did the job making 2.5 knots despite the 2 knot counter current and we found ourselves anchored in Iluka’s fishing boat harbour.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #010300; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It was very pleasant 6 days spent in Iluka, Ashiki’s first taste of the mighty New South Wales, meeting up with the crew of the 46’ homebuilt cat “Imagine” whom we had met in the Kimberley. The pub on the bay with views of our boat is a very fine spot indeed. Several beers and pub meals were had during our 6 day stay.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Armed with a functional teepee (and a handful of 10 & 15A fuses) we set sail south, heading straight out to sea in search of the current. When Ashiki’s instruments showed signs of radical leeway to starboard, meaning - we hit the current and our cue to turn south. In a light Nor’Easter which I would expect us to cruise along at 2 to 2.5 knots, Ashiki started off at 4 to 4.5 settling at 5 knots a few hours later. Passing Coffs Harbour around midnight we were making such good time we didn’t want to stop. Early the next day Teepee gave up. The fuse didn’t blow (15A this time, spec is for 12A but can’t buy those), its pushrod froze. Comprehensively kaput. So back to the windvane again.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">10:30pm on the second night, a fresh breeze was blowing from astern and a following swell was building. At this point the current wasn’t assisting much but Ashiki was still romping along at 4.5 knots. Such conditions puts pressure on the rudder and the tiller begins to throw itself around. This is why tiller pilots don’t last more than a few months on this boat. Anyway, the tiller would often control the vane rather the other way around, being directly connected, flicking the vane over quite violently. At this time while below I heard a mighty “crack”, peeked out the companionway and saw no windvane. Then found it trailing off the stern still attached by its two sets of control lines. It had severed at the wooden base from the top of the post. So much for that, both forms of auto steering gone and neither of us wants to sit in the cockpit hand steering through the night. It is a following wind and Ashiki only steers herself with the tiller lashed if the wind is forward of the beam (roughly to windward). Motoring was out of the question, since that requires steering. It’s either hand steer or heave to. We chose the latter, opting for a good nights sleep.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>cut it in half, added 10' of steel plate and welded it back together, extending the waterline by 10'. Viola, bigger boat. </i></span></td></tr>
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<b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Eureka</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Laying in the bunk with Ashiki drifting half a knot southward I was thinking to myself that there must be a way for this boat to sail itself downwind. It’s a junk schooner with 2,000 years of development behind it, dammit, and everything we found about it handling wise has been quite amazing. Then I had what you might called a eureka moment, jumped up and headed for the cockpit. I let the mainsail out, 90˚ to the hull and sheeted the foresail in, hard, boom pointing fore and aft, lashed the tiller to the middle and sat back and watched. The boat would pick some speed downwind then try to round up, turning to port. As the wind spilled a little from the main it would catch the sheeted in foresail and push the bow back downwind again. It worked. Ashiki was mooching along, picking up speed, trying to round up then back downwind again. Not going fast, not the previous 4+ knots, but she’s managing 2.5 to 3 knots in the direction we wanted to go. I knew there was a way! Incidentally, this is actually the same setup for steering downwind when the swell picks up and we want to minimise rolling. Lucky we built a schooner, no way we could do this with a sloop.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the morning we started hand steering, holding 3.5 knots, then the wind swung to the SW which meant windward sailing where Ashiki can very efficiently sail herself with tiller lashed. We spent the rest of that day below reading and drinking tea. Normal sea life. It didn’t seem to matter being without any form of functioning auto steering devices. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">At this stage it was decided to make landfall at Port Stephens, heard it was a beautiful place and besides, I could get cracking on the windvane repairs. This would make it a good 3 days voyage from Iluka. That night we had an interesting conversation on the VHF. First we heard on ch 16 someone calling to a vessel SE of Seal Rock. Wasn’t us, we’re definitely NE of Seal Rock. Five minutes later there’s a call for the sailing vessel NE of Seal Rock. Ah, someone wants to chat with <i>us</i>. I answer him and he says he’s on a sailing catamaran nearby and for the past half hour he’s been try to figure out which direction we are heading. Happens he had a beef with the non standard lighting we are showing.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It’s true, we deliberately sail at night with not exactly “Collision Regulation” lighting. We’re supposed to only show our three navigation lights (red, green and white on the stern), which we do. But we also have the bright white anchor light on the mast head. Reason being, it works, huge ugly supertankers change course around us, we are really happy with that. It’s a fairly common thing to do, having seen other sailing vessels do the same. It could be a topic for a hot internet debate, but I got the idea from a cruising book, the “Pardeys” always sailed this way. But everyone has their opinion I supposed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I think this guy on the cat was a stickler for rules. So I popped my head out the companionway and looked around, couldn’t see nought in the blackness. Eyes still accustomed to the cabin lighting I suppose. Then roughly 200m abeam of us I saw a faint dark grey triangle shape in the gloom. That was him. No lights at all, huh? Then I saw it, a very faint spec, a reddish dot towards the stern of his hull. That was it. His lighting. The guy’s boat was almost invisible! My god, I had a little chuckle.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I didn’t point this out, not wanting a flame war on ch 16, I told him we’re aware we sail with the anchor light lit and that’s how we do it. He signed off and that was the end of it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #010300; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Next day, midday we dropped anchor in Shoal Bay, in the lovely environs of Port Stephens.</span><br />
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-53434933909788945392015-05-26T11:34:00.000+08:002015-05-26T11:34:01.474+08:00Kimberley Flashback<div style="text-align: left;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We’re in flashback mode. I’ve been meaning to do this for awhile. Problem is, in the topics it is really hot sitting in front of the computer, thus the lack of posting about the Kimberley. Here are some pictures of our Kimberley experience during July-Sept 2014. Still the highlight of our voyage around Australia, this 2 1/2 month, 600 Nm trip without ports, towns or stopovers in civilisation. Meant lots of supplies onboard and lots of fishing. Water, fortunately was quite easy to find.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Approach to Raft Point, The Kimberley. This the place the ancient aborigines launched their mangrove trunk rafts to the nearby Montgomery Reef. The anchorage is to the right, but on closing the current began to take over, eventually we were swept at 8 knots to the left of those rocks in the centre. We were able to motorsail cross current and reach the anchorage, proving even with a small motor, cruising The Kimberley’s strong currents is not an issue.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Inside Prior Point, Ashiki had run aground here, but rising tide had us floating in 20 minutes. We were always sailing during the flood tide.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Snug anchorage inside Prior Point. We motored up the creek in the dinghy for some fishing, where I lost 2 lures, and no fish…</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Really, a dinghy would do for getting ashore..</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">One of the many tourist boats cruising the Kimberley. These guys, and many like them in this very isolated part of the world, can be the defacto link with civilisation, any problem a cruiser may have, radio one of the many charter boats cruising by, we usually saw at least one a day, and they will help you.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Boab tree at Careening Bay, place where Phillip Parker King repaired his 60 foot ship, “Mermaid” in 1820. </span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The famous “Mermaid” tree, Careening Bay.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Price Frederick Harbour rock formations. We tried to find the quartz rocks what were supposedly strewn all over the beach nearby, but found none.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Price Frederick Harbour. The guide said; anchor in front a rock resembling “John Elliot”. Couldn’t find him, but think I found Gina Rhinehart instead..</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Bigge Island, home of world famous aboriginal art</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The spaceman, Bigge Island.</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The beach at Bigge Island, tides are 10m, it moves right up that beach. Was heading out at the time of this picture, marooning the dink.</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Swift Bay. We found the crocodile we heard about, estimate his size at 2 to 2 1/2m. A year ago he had bitten and destroyed an inflatable dinghy leaving one cruising couple stranded on the shore for 5 days. Fortunately there is (the reason we were there) spring water nearby and the shore line rocks provided oysters. They were very lucky, another cruiser arrived in the bay, saw them waving like mad from the beach and delivered them to their catamaran with his dinghy. It is very remote out there. The moral of the story is, when rafting up on the beach in your dinghy, check you don’t raft up on top of a croc! As for us, we were able to grab 60L of drinking water.</span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Rounding Cape Voltaire.</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Laundry day at Freshwater Bay. Two other boats were here, including another Junk! </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Further on up the creek, too far up for crocodiles to get to, was a sizeable swimming hole, we went there for a dip three days running and were able to completely replenish the rest of our drinking water.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="text-align: start;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Creek at Freshwater Bay. Wary of crocs!</span></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The anchorage at Freshwater Bay. “Blue Destiny” (another Junk), “Ocean Jaywalker” and “Ashiki”, all WA cruisers.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The next day they left and two other boats arrived, “Moonshadow” (WA) and our old Broome friend, “Nikita” (QLD). The only busy anchorage we found in the Kimberley, we were alone everywhere else.</span></div>
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<br />Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-81629450254088561452015-04-30T10:56:00.003+08:002015-05-02T10:37:10.633+08:00Not much Sunshine Coast<div style="color: #010300;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We were marooned in Tin Can Bay for 2 weeks by constant SE gales. Some days gusts were over 40 knots. There are worse places to be marooned, but Tin Can Bay is a sleepy little community, the Yacht Club has some facilities but not well patronised by the cruisers, they commented the food is a little plain, and there is a supermarket 20 minutes walk from the dock, and not much else so the place is a little on the boring side. Begs the question why the profusion of cruising boats here, the reason is Tin Can is really the last free anchorage before the NSW border, and apart from Brisbane, the coastal towns with anchorages are few and those have strict time limits. Thus Tin Can is the choice for boats staying out of cyclone territory in Queensland. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After 2 weeks the winds were still SE, but the forecast was for them to moderate. We don’t like beating into 30 knots but 10 to 15 knots is acceptable and this was the reason for us weighing anchor that morning and taking our chances over Wide Bay bar, which is a bar with some reputation. This is how you get out of the Great Sandy Strait to continue South, its either cross this bar or sail backyards going over the top of Fraser Island, adding 3 days at least to the journey.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Ashiki raced with the current the 6 miles out of Tin Can in little over an hour and dropped anchor in a well protected bay just inside the entrance called Pelican Bay. It was the following day we embarked on the voyage over the bar, except we ran aground while still in Pelican Bay, with a falling tide… It meant a 3 hour wait for the water to come up again. By mid afternoon, afloat, we were heading towards Wide Bay into the flood. Being against the current is slower but at least the waves will be smaller than with the dreaded ebb flow. Ashiki had only one panel reefed each mast and motorsailing she was making 1.5 to 2.5 knots. Not too bad, if it hadn’t worked out there was the option of heading back to Pelican Bay. Wide Bay is a channel that runs the gaunlet of a huge line of breaking waves either side. It really is a horrible place. I was amazed that yachties consider this a regular route. One of the cruisers in Tin Can had his cockpit filled by a dumper while crossing here and I'm not surprised.. The trick is to sail along the channel, then pick the line to starboard weaving through the breakers. We watched several fishing boats pass and take the accepted route, they showed us the way. When it was time to turn all we could do is slide the hatch closed, latch the doors and sit tight in the cockpit. Ashiki did attack head on into some 2.5m steep walls coming at us, and her bows lifted over them everytime, but there were lines of breakers always directly ahead of us making us change course all over the place to avoid them. It was a stressful sail, maybe the most dangerous sailing we have done. It took 45 minutes to get through that heaving mass and out into smoother seas (not so smooth, but no dumpers at least!), as I looked back at the bar, I saw a smooth patch of water curl inward away from us and smash into white spray. A breaker from behind is difficult to see, how does anyone sail the other way I wonder??</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Wide Bay, not my favourite place..</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We were on our way to Mooloolaba, just need a 6 mile tack out to sea to clear Double Island Point, Ashiki was surging through the sea when Susie noted the top panel of the foresail had a tear in it and was coming apart under the weight of the 6 panels underneath. This is not good, I’m pretty sure the sail isn’t going to last through the night. We built these sails without bolt ropes, using tabling only, which I realise now is a bit of a no-no. The Chinese designed their sails as a framework of battens and bolt ropes which take all the weight of the rig, the sail cloth is lashed to this framework but it does not take the load, the cloth is there to redirect some wind, thats all. Having a junk rig without bolt ropes is a bad idea and now we are paying the price. However, being a junk rig, everything about it is easily repairable. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">Susie dropped the foresail, leaving the main up she pointed Ashiki into the wind leaving us in a hove to position. I put on my harness, clipped in and walked to the bow with a length of 6mm line. Standing right on the bow roller with the deck heaving over 1m waves I felt very safe in the harness. I simply tied the yard and top batten together at the luff, walked back to the cockpit, raised sail and bore off, Ashiki ploughing through the waves once again. That line became a bolt rope for the top panel and the 20cm rip in the sail cloth went no further. I effected a near permanent fix while at sea in a few minutes. A rip somewhere on a bermudan rig would mean its going to rip the whole length or width of the sail and replacing the sail is the only fix, if you had a spare.. or motoring back to port. We don’t need to worry about it for now, plan to repair it at our leisure when in NSW, over 500 miles away (we’re sewing in webbing bolt ropes luff and leech). Even when the builder screws up the junk rig is unbelievably forgiving, repairs are too easy.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There is the East Australian Current around here, somewhere, just not where we are. Ashiki was 9 miles off the beach but looks like we’re in the counter current, which flows the wrong way. It took a few more tacks to get around Double Island Pt nodding along at 2 knots in plenty of wind. I could tell its an adverse current because the tacking angles were 135˚. In other words we were going backwards on the outward tack. We finally cleared the point next morning and admired the hills on the coast was we headed toward Noosa. The SE was picking up again and Ashiki was riding a little rough, by mid afternoon we started to think of an anchorage at Noosa Heads. The guide doesn’t say anything favourable about the place, but at least it looks to be sheltered from the wind. Couple hours before sunset we were dropping anchor just inside the shark traps off Noosa’s golden beaches, there were surfers along all the breaks. No wind waves but there were long ocean swells coming in making Ashiki roll. Not perfect but settled enough to cook dinner. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Then we saw the strong wind warning for Sunshine Coast region for tomorrow, do we really want to stay overnight in an unprotected anchorage? We decided Mooloolaba was the place to go since it has a calm river to anchor in but is </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">another 20 miles, punching into everything</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">. I estimated a good 10 hours to get there. After a meal and a little rest Ashiki was on her way again, pounding to windward in 20 knots now and tacking backwards, thanks to that counter current. Maybe 20 miles out finds the East Aussie current, we don’t know.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">We beat up wind through the night and by morning the winds were around 25 knots and the surface was more foam than blue water. This was becoming rough. Somewhere along the way I realised I had forgotten how to optimise sailing to windward. I had the more panels up in the foresail than the main, because the foresail always seems to do most of the work. For some reason I raised the main one panel (became 5 panels to the foresails 6) and Ashiki sailed 1 point closer to the wind! Raised another panel, so equal number of panels fore and main, she sailed another point closer.. (one point is approx 5˚). A new rule to never forget sailing schooner to windward - always keep the rig </span></span><span style="color: #010300; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">balanced</span><span style="color: #010300; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">Interesting reading the guide book, it says Mooloolaba is an all weather </span></span><span style="color: #010300; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">entrance. No problems I thought, except... our book is 20 years out of date, since then the river had silted up, courtesy of the mangrove destruction and canal dredging, a bar had grown at the mouth and now rollers sweep over it! Furthermore, there is a crowd on the groyne waiting for unfortunate victims like us. It's a kind of Mooloolaba blood sport sitting at the river mouth watching yachts deal with the treacherous bar crossing. There appeared to be a lull in the breakers as we approached at 2 knots, against both wind and current, but that didn't stop a 1.5m wave lift and carry Ashiki 10m to starboard, at least she held her course and to her credit kept horizontal, no rolling, she eventually nosed into the river. Speed dropped to 1 knot with the motor at full throttle. The crowd, obviously disappointed we didn't capsize or something..., had begun to disperse and wandered slowly up the breakwater, over taking us. This is how we wound up safe and sound in the protected waters of Mooloolah River.</span></div>
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-85442032827491320782015-04-03T08:47:00.001+08:002015-04-03T08:52:51.662+08:00Dark & Stormy in Bundaberg<div style="color: #010300;">
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Susie favourite drink at the Bundaberg RSL, one thing about the east coast as distinct from the west, they have cheap clubs subsidised by gambling. Can always find a good feed at bargain prices whether an RSL, football, surf or bowls club. We perused the Bundaberg environs for a week, anchoring in front of downtown on the Burnett River, mainly provisioning and indulging in the local eats. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Downtown Bundy</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It’s a working town, not your tourist ghetto, and the same size as Mandurah, in fact several of QLD’s major coastal towns are this size (MacKay, Rockhampton, Maryborough all around 80,000 pop) and is a welcome bit of civilisation. Susie was pleased as punch to finally get her hands on a copy of Alan Lucas’s (affectionately known as “Run-Aground” to his customers) “Cruising the New South Wales Coast”. An up to date edition this time, the QLD guide I bought was 20 years out of date, because I’m cheap :). “Run-Aground” does write a good guide providing the drum on an awful lot of anchorages.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But no lolling about for us, winds were turning Northerly and it was time to look lively, start hand cranking the anchor windlass and run with the ebb embarking on the 52 mile voyage to the Great Sandy Strait - bordered by Fraser Island, the world’s largest sand island. The nor’easter was a headwind for us on the Burnett, so it was bald faced motoring for 2 hours, through the endless sugar cane fields, buzzed by endless Saturday morning fishing dinghies. As everywhere, they were quite curious about this boat of ours, wrong colours, strange sail bundle.. </span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6mkCizvbOPLVpNRduunARpBKfEMYj8jOC1-97-mvQgYh-psljMj1Sb3rIWQnO-RpnqsWNXj4Yz5D04z3OGkF-0JvgH2POxC5kkOO5TSAf_eN6I9Ao3V_0393hx4wnE0x6PGFve0uXqJ8/s1600/cane+schooner.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg6mkCizvbOPLVpNRduunARpBKfEMYj8jOC1-97-mvQgYh-psljMj1Sb3rIWQnO-RpnqsWNXj4Yz5D04z3OGkF-0JvgH2POxC5kkOO5TSAf_eN6I9Ao3V_0393hx4wnE0x6PGFve0uXqJ8/s1600/cane+schooner.jpg" height="300" style="cursor: move;" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px; padding-top: 4px; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Cane farmer has a schooner, on the Burnett River </i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Finally out the harbour and able to point the bows south east to catch the breeze we’re able to connect up the tiller pilot and enjoy a brisk beam reach in the afternoon sun, averaging 4.5 knots for much of the leg despite the nasty coral crusted hull. It was past midnight we were in the lee of Fraser Island, Hervey Bay to starboard and looking for an anchorage as the tide had turned against us. It meant crossing the strait across shallows to a place called Moon Point. To help fight the tide the Tohatsu was employed in a spot of motorsailing, and we promptly ran aground. Fortunately it was a rising tide and with a 20 minute wait we were off again, and dropped anchor at 2am.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The morning being a Sunday, the straits were full of recreational boaties and sailors from nearby Hervey Bay, enjoying the summer sun, and a rare thing that is during a QLD wet season. It would have been tempting to visit this town, but the only anchorage area had a harbour/marine built on top of it, and no anchoring allowed. We just don’t feel inclined to pay for docking our boat and the stress of manoeuvring around a crowded marina for the privilege. I suppose we are so accustomed to anchoring out. Thus we set TP for down the strait with all panels up, we had 6 hours of this tide and had better make the most of it. Ashiki silently sailed the winding navigation channel with the scenic views of Fraser Island to Port and dropped anchor at the half way point before sunset just at the tide was turning, next to a mosquito infested mangrove bank.. In the morning the flood tide was travelling the same direction as last nights ebb! Didn’t make sense. Of course! We’re in the middle of an island, the flood wraps around both ends of the island from the ocean and meets in the middle - where we happened to anchor. We motorsailed against the 1 knot current and in a couple hours the ebb started to help us. Believe it or not, Ashiki blew past MY anchorage.. yes, its actualy called “Gary’s Anchorage” (!), only a mile down the stream which had 6 or 7 boats swinging to their chains. Run-Aground’s guide book said it was full of sandflies so don’t think we missed out staying at MY anchorage.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwU0aSWpPJky6OBzIN1zA_kP7W3dW1Cg58sN_E0zYQ8pmkb4ENjaQz32-DRHEZwMA83HrEZOtxjUBrgEtifF5vOwrk_I4FX8LeB90Q82TLVwTGZQ00dPSu6OwWZeqqYiZmAUHR3eGmYrg/s1600/fraser.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwU0aSWpPJky6OBzIN1zA_kP7W3dW1Cg58sN_E0zYQ8pmkb4ENjaQz32-DRHEZwMA83HrEZOtxjUBrgEtifF5vOwrk_I4FX8LeB90Q82TLVwTGZQ00dPSu6OwWZeqqYiZmAUHR3eGmYrg/s1600/fraser.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwb7I45U0c8A_OSZbq-V514O2irrlf3rk4T3YXfGvxn8uEGwfk_YCxTSuUAtiE-a99mN3QrX7OZwfCMvawfYu64rzMhVljOVJ_OxT6VvVf5igMq65OhQUhU5ccoC7dosVDfKwg05lQ_mc/s1600/sandy+str.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhwb7I45U0c8A_OSZbq-V514O2irrlf3rk4T3YXfGvxn8uEGwfk_YCxTSuUAtiE-a99mN3QrX7OZwfCMvawfYu64rzMhVljOVJ_OxT6VvVf5igMq65OhQUhU5ccoC7dosVDfKwg05lQ_mc/s1600/sandy+str.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">At this point we weren’t sure if we were going to continue after Fraser Island and out to sea through Wide Bay bar. But I had read a little about this place called Tin Can Bay which exits off to starboard before Wide Bay and on a whim decided to visit the place. I don’t think the tide was right for a Wide Bay car crossing anyway, I’ll need to study for that contingency later. The south easter was picking up and Ashiki close hauled along the flat waters of the bottom part of the straits, here known as Wide Bay Harbour, before turning down Tin Can Inlet, a 6 mile close haul on the other tack to the township. We were sailing head on into the ebb tide, but if there is enough wind, we can do that. Ashiki heeled over with 3 panels reefed each sail, held 2.5 knots the whole way, I’d say the counter current was 2 knots, so she was making good use of her cambered panels into the 20 knot breeze. Coming up to the anchorage we could see it was crowded, must be close to a hundred vessels here, half of them occupied. At that point we had turned a little off the wind so Susie dropped the main to keep speed down to reasonable levels in the busy bay. As we neared the part of the anchorage we wanted Susie released the foresail halyard and nothing happened. It’s a common enough occurrence on our junk, when the boat is off the wind and on a port tack the yard is pressed onto the mast and held there. No problem, we know this boat, I waited till there was a gap between anchored boats to port and turned Ashiki beam on to the wind, relieving pressure from the yard and it came tumbling down then righted Ashiki to her original course. With the help of another cruiser, sitting in his cockpit with beer in hand, we avoided a shallow and we chose a spot not far from the Yacht Club anchoring in 6m. We’re in the northern edge of the Sunshine Coast, officially South East Queensland.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #010300; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">An hour later a dinghy cam alongside and (another) Gary introduced himself, he sails a junk rigged schooner too, on a 38’ Herreshoff lee boarder. He noticed us sailing on a beam reach with foresail only saying his boat can’t do that, his would fall off as it doesn’t have enough lateral resistance. Our little fin keel must be doing something right! </span>Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-11477472436087234042015-03-14T12:50:00.000+08:002015-03-16T19:15:56.255+08:00Leaving the Tropics<div style="color: #010300;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0px;">We wanted to stop at Great Keppel because of its fame, being heavily promoted in the 70’s. “Get Wrecked on Great Keppel” I think was the promo.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Well, the place is near dead, the big resort is closed, from lack of water, or a cyclone a decade ago.. depends who tells you..</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">In its place there’s very little left. There’s a water shortage so no use resupplying and no shop to provision. But at least the beach is nice, it’s white, like a WA beach… The only tourism left are the Rockhampton locals arriving on the daily ferry, which rafts up on the beach and drops a ramp. The anchorage is not the best either, on the first night we dragged 80m. But we were a fair distance from the other boats, anchoring closer in found better holding. But it was a rolly anchorage (we pitched, other boats rolled). Then a sizable ketch attached itself to a mooring ball near us, which appeared to be too close. So we went to the trouble of re-anchoring Ashiki 100m away. Then we saw the ketch release itself from the mooring and anchor out. Thanks, all our trouble for nothing! Half an hour later the Rockhampton ferry picked up the mooring, looks like it was them who told the ketch to shove off, it was their mooring. Next day a catamaran wanted to anchor on top of us, Susie popped her head out the companionway and let the guy on the bow know that’s a little close to us. He apologised and moved elsewhere.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">We didnt do any exploring of the island outside the settlement area, we looked around the resort ghost town, fenced off. There’s a sign showing off the proposal, colossal $1 billion project complete with canal and marina. Its approval was withdrawn by Canberra on environmental grounds, the investors are back on the drawing board me thinks. One plus for Great Keppel, the one pub on the island serves up very decent meals.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Then the weather forecast turned ominous, a 65 knot gale was predicted and the Coast Guard even motored past checking on boats in the anchorage if they knew of the weather warning. My preparation consisted of dropping a second anchor and hoping for the best. Actually, our second anchor, the cheap (and heavier) plough, we believe is better than the SARCA. It has never let go in sand while the SARCA has, usually by unsetting itself in 180˚ wind changes and tide reversals. The plough has a hinged stock and has never dragged even in tidal streams. Several boats upped anchor and headed for Roslyn Bay marina eight miles away, many stayed here with us. Result was, we waited and the most we got was 20 knots. The big blow never came.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I noticed a few folks were braving the jellies and swimming without stinger suits, so I threw on some full length clothing, mask and goggles, jumped in to check out the hull. What I saw was the rest of the Great Barrier Reef on the keel. Big fat chunks of white coral, plenty to slow a boat. That explains the loss of 1 knot going to windward and motoring. Hmmm.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Four days at Great Keppel and winds were ripe for our exit. We weighed anchor without bothering to motor and started our 120 mile passage to Bundaberg. Since we’ve drunk plenty of their rum we might as well see the place too!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Eight hours later we rounded Cape Capricorn and officially sailed out of the tropics. This is significant as our mission from Darwin was to get out of the tropics as quickly as reasonably possible during cyclone season. There were no cyclones in QLD so far this wet season (this being mid January). We’ve have been quite fortunate as there was a risk to this voyage. The consolation was the QLD coast has many cyclone holes to escape to when the seagull droppings hit the fan. Though we’ll really feel better when we’re in NSW, the border being another 350 miles to go.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">I counted 23 ore carriers anchored in the roads off Rockhampton, providing quite the obstacle course for Ashiki, towards Gladstone there were another load but being very dark I wasn’t sure how many. This is the second biggest port in Australia (after WA’s Port Hedland #1).</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">24 hours later after a very fine sail, we were absolutely surrounded by thunder storms, 360˚. The air was thick with static. Storm cells were moving seemingly everywhere, the wind was varying from all angles, quite a hand full to keep up with setting sail. At one point while both of us were in the cockpit (most the time we are down below), the wind died off almost completely, then I saw a ripple in the distance, it appeared to be coming at us fast. We dived for the halyards and reduced three panels on each mast a few seconds before a 40 knot squall hit us. It took us all of 5 to 10 seconds to reef and we pulled it off. Ashiki heeled only 15 to 20˚ and drama averted and highlighted yet again the advantage of the junk rig. But the fork lightning continued, I didn’t like it one bit and couldn't watch. If one of those things hits us it’s the end of all our electronics for a start. Worst case is a hole blown in the hull and we sink! Hopefully the bonding of the masts would prevent that. I stayed below for most of the show, waiting for Ashiki to sail out of the cauldron. Susie was happy to watch, calling it nature’s fireworks, listening to her making “ooo” and “aaah” sounds. At one point she saw a lightning hit the water only one or two hundred metres from Ashiki! Sheesh, glad I didn’t see that… </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; letter-spacing: 0.0px;">Ashiki was making way only a couple hours from the mouth of the Burnett River, entrance to Bundaberg, and what a relief it was to eventually look back and see all the thundering storm cells miles astern. We managed to survive that one! The race was on to reach the mouth river by midnight, before the tide turned against us. But what bad luck the wind happen to back to the West making it a headwind for our entry into the river. Looks like our little 6hp will have its work cut out for it. Ashiki motored at 2.5 knots the outer channel and made the Port of Bundaberg just at slack tide (high tide, no current - theoretically). After a tense little motor in the dark, identifying the sometimes confusing channel markers, passing the marina, fishing docks and port facilities we dropped anchor just outside the port limit as no anchoring in the port area is allowed. Plan is to motor onto Bundaberg itself, 8 miles upstream with the flood at 7am the following morning.</span><br />
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-76899992617699699972015-03-02T18:56:00.003+08:002015-03-02T19:28:31.188+08:00Great Keppel<div style="color: #010300;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After ten days waiting out the SE gales on Magnetic we were on our way again, after the first 24 hours close hauled and one tack the wind backed to the north and Ashiki commenced a glorious reach toward Airlie Beach. We made the 124 Nm in under two days, the last 24hrs covering a creditable 85 Nm, and approached the built up resort town of Airlie Beach at dawn. It looked like a mini Monte Carlo with buildings ascending the mountain slopes, an interesting place to explore maybe, but as we closed in the gloom we saw the boats at anchor, maybe a hundred of them, all heaving, bows violently rocking up and down against strong onshore Northerly. Not very appealing so we gave it a miss and try the other Airlie anchorage, Shute Bay which would be sheltered. As we rounded the point, the Northerly stayed as strong as ever and even though the sight of the Whitsunday Islands was tempting, we really didn’t want to waste this wind. Our mission was to get to NSW after all thus set Ashiki gull winged and surged on through the Whitsunday Passage at 5 to 6 knots. We can always explore these islands next year on the return voyage north. The winds increased throughout the day, and being behind us Ashiki, like most boats tends to roll side to side when sailing downwind in swell. To minimise this we ended up sailing with main only and 4 panels of the foresail sheeted in the middle. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Engineless again</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We anchored in Sandy Bay that evening, a few miles north of MacKay. The next morning the outboard stalled after weighing anchor and refused to start again. Seemed to be an issue with either flooding or fuel hose but I couldn’t coax it to do anything. The wind was very light and we ghosted along at 1.5 knots as I changed the spark plug. Without luck we crawled for 10 miles to a settlement called Bucasia on the chart, decided today was a dead loss as far as making miles were concerned and anchored, engineless, a mile off the beach. Bucasia turned out to be a Northern suburb of MacKay, we dinghied ashore and walked a mile to the local shops to stock up on fresh goods. At least we ate well that night, but I was confident the motor would start if I gave it a rest overnight, a rest from me attempting to start it that is, I had spent most the day yanking on the start cord and grew a new blister to show for it.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Engined again</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Next morning the motor started second pull. Strange beast. It pushed us the 5 miles around the point in the sunny near calm conditions. Passing the thriving metropolis of MacKay to starboard, winds remained on the beam but light, but we were quite content to turn off the motor and cruise at 2.5 knots for the rest of the day, with 170 miles to go to Great Keppel Island. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl2fOb3DQXpRKpUHgmnT_RNnLKjvBcyd6XpZkl9tVXq9MkDd0xh_Q7QYOdlOClN-8dDmhswMgD22rG3dxWpZy7EyeInceqg8KexB6r__zKpvQNrbRZOBo1PLCYSUGtdlCtgH9a6mt4Be0/s1600/sunset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgl2fOb3DQXpRKpUHgmnT_RNnLKjvBcyd6XpZkl9tVXq9MkDd0xh_Q7QYOdlOClN-8dDmhswMgD22rG3dxWpZy7EyeInceqg8KexB6r__zKpvQNrbRZOBo1PLCYSUGtdlCtgH9a6mt4Be0/s1600/sunset.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">What was next was three days and two nights of gentle cruising, sunny days and nights of lightning thunder storms over the distant shore. This seems to be the rule over most of Australia, well the part we have cruised, is regular thunderstorms over land through summer months. Us being out to sea we avoid this electrical activity, but it is an entertainment each night. We passed over Viscount shoals, weaved through Northumberland Islands and rounded Shoal Water Bay. Not fast but at least we could hold the rhumb line, the gods still providing the NE winds we need. At one point the Tiller Pilot started acting strangely, changing course in a random manner. Susie thought it was a faulty connection under deck, I said nah, it’s Raymarine, their tiller pilot likes to recalibrate itself and act strange anyway. To placate her I pulled out the multimeter and checked the voltages around the circuit. 11.8V at the plug on deck and 12.8V at the battery. Well 11.8V isnt great but is still enough to run a tiller pilot, but why the one volt difference? I found a loose connection at the battery… Fixed that and TP resumed working properly. Doh!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After entering the anchorage at North Keppel Island in the dark, we made the last six miles into the beach anchorage on Great Keppel Island the following morning, completing a 375 mile passage from Magnetic Island.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4GvTSuVRAkZhiAMLVxIEvIntnh1YJvUJt5C_qIb4-hXIroK1HWGeT7BRM12XD9-6IiSpzFCx04DJrMalJ2P7biaTJEsF4PRHBuuoHmpK2sEl17k1ISuVQaBFeCWSe8VsnWncmHivABn0/s1600/keppel.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh4GvTSuVRAkZhiAMLVxIEvIntnh1YJvUJt5C_qIb4-hXIroK1HWGeT7BRM12XD9-6IiSpzFCx04DJrMalJ2P7biaTJEsF4PRHBuuoHmpK2sEl17k1ISuVQaBFeCWSe8VsnWncmHivABn0/s1600/keppel.jpg" height="218" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Great Keppel Island anchorage</i></span></td></tr>
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-21912587644593687332015-02-19T18:58:00.000+08:002015-03-02T18:49:46.094+08:00The Rainforest & the coral coast<div style="color: #010300;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The mount for the tiller pilot on the tiller itself blew up next. There’s a lot of force on TP, up to 77kg. I have it offset on the tiller because of the narrowness of Ashiki’s double ender stern means TP will be hanging out above the waves if it weren’t. Anyway, the broken pine mount was replaced by a sturdier hardwood version the next day, while on passage. Both mounts eventually blew up again, and both times replaced and reinforced, so far they have held.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After a good 4 days in Cooktown we were lifting the anchor or anchors, since I dropped two of them, the holding is a little suspect here in the river. Also by hand, since the windlass lever fell over board somewhere in the Gulf and thusly the windlass has become a deck ornament. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In a fair wind we quietly slid past Endeavour Reef. The place where an incident took place which could have been the knife edge turning point of Australia’s history, it could have gone either way. 245 years ago Captain Cook assumed the Great Barrier Reef had ended and made the decision to sail through the night. So he, the “greatest” navigator the world had ever seen, ran the ship up onto what is now known as Endeavour Reef and almost lost everything. If he wasn’t able to recover, patch the hole with sail cloth and limp into the creek next to what is now known as Cooktown, Terra Australis would have had a different fate. No Joseph Banks to lobby Aussie as a great place for a penal colony and no English colonisation. Maybe the French would be here, maybe they wouldn’t colonise, just “run” the mining tenements and “manage” the natives like it was a big Vanuatu. Whichever, if Cook screwed up a little more than he did, none of us would be here now.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQl8O4shZhNP_45QpXsiN_JCvTL5dTGP62iZZRq0MIsCsAh8cvnhej_5gc1SyIvDtWrK87ERGWDbhpND9siwrnV0p8s3p9YcVbCkgEufU9hCdhkuyFiBZoB1M7tu31iVdnTQYLxtNDtR8/s1600/Daintree.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQl8O4shZhNP_45QpXsiN_JCvTL5dTGP62iZZRq0MIsCsAh8cvnhej_5gc1SyIvDtWrK87ERGWDbhpND9siwrnV0p8s3p9YcVbCkgEufU9hCdhkuyFiBZoB1M7tu31iVdnTQYLxtNDtR8/s1600/Daintree.jpg" height="271" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Daintree River</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A couple days later we were motorsailing up the Daintree River where we spent Susie’s birthday. The gods tried to serve up a birthday present, because overnight a 4kg snapper jumped into the dinghy and remained there. Alas, it was rigamortice rigid when I found it in the morning. We did explore the river by dinghy but failed to get to the rainforest walking trails. Really need a car to get that far inland.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The day after we were dropping anchor in Port Douglas. An excellent and scenic location with a very hospitable yacht club where we used their laundry and bathroom facilities to the max. We liked the town, it is a full on tourist place, with a busy harbour ferrying punters to the reef. The food is cheap which is a pleasant contrast from WA, in fact, everywhere is cheap after W.A. …</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrd93JBbVt_nmebSSGlLfOa9fgUFAIpN13CSvDBt8V7EAtr-HaMSCZ0zYwazs-mnRPZOAK2swppFQ5CpWj1XzsLGSzJJJp_7rmj9GU9PZuEeZ89LCFGwY7BpSQ7LPE9Fg0VkILZg_r5u4/s1600/douglas+anchorage.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrd93JBbVt_nmebSSGlLfOa9fgUFAIpN13CSvDBt8V7EAtr-HaMSCZ0zYwazs-mnRPZOAK2swppFQ5CpWj1XzsLGSzJJJp_7rmj9GU9PZuEeZ89LCFGwY7BpSQ7LPE9Fg0VkILZg_r5u4/s1600/douglas+anchorage.jpg" height="262" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Port Douglass anchorage</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP6IUwuznaATv7PtrMHNyDYgKqBEJQDEchFZ3b6JgC3PzJgSA-f1hfGk6icebIFJAVa_i0Tcn6x5u-wSthRRZ3kqzO29xjqJrTVoQozZd56MgNOMY1gP9QKKAlyTz6CI3M-cPfg5BOP0c/s1600/douglass+club.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP6IUwuznaATv7PtrMHNyDYgKqBEJQDEchFZ3b6JgC3PzJgSA-f1hfGk6icebIFJAVa_i0Tcn6x5u-wSthRRZ3kqzO29xjqJrTVoQozZd56MgNOMY1gP9QKKAlyTz6CI3M-cPfg5BOP0c/s1600/douglass+club.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Port Douglass Yacht club signs</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">While in Port Douglass we met a chap who saw us sailing north of Cooktown, I remember a boat passing us 2 miles inside of us, it looked like a racing boat (it was). He said the crew were surprised it took so long to catch us, and how we were pointing so high to windward being a junk. We were doing around 4 knots hard on the wind to round Cape Flattery, which didn’t seem that quick, but faster than the norm of late. I didn’t see them till too late but looks like the junk rig left a good impression on them. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Downtown Port Douglas</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But I’m getting a little suspicious of the hull, we have lost a knot in speed motoring and speed drops off dramatically when going from beam reach to a more windward course. She didn’t used to, she’d usually perks up a little when turning her bow towards the wind with the boost from apparent wind. I vaguely remember her sailing 5.8 knots hard on the wind off Mandurah.. Maybe there’s too much growth somewhere slowing us down, but I always scrape the hull near the waterline.</span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Never left the couch..</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The day we left Port Douglas for Cairns may have been a little unlucky, because the wind turned against us and by Zeus a gale came upon us in the night. As well as being back to making little progress with the wind on the nose nonsense, the wind started howling and the ride got rougher. I was in my usual position, on the couch reading and about to get up to reef the sails when I saw Susie was already near the companionway. So I asked her to do it, drop a couple of panels each sail, thanks. She climbed out, I heard the can cleats snap a few times and she finished the job in 30 seconds. Both sails reefed, noise reduced, motion calmed, I never left the couch! Sometimes the value of the junk rig really pays off. The storm remained with us all through the next day.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwWpu_nBY13Hi-gmdDoQJhmJPJtc8TiPCiDlwfjt-72hNzcqUVva-uZx7UoLhY-tK9BplBZM1HKh5U6qzDeMekMw4H659qGMsp99ABvIyRj1kxaSwvaMQcJrTnb0-3T7YKwgeF_Pnm_zA/s1600/gale+p+Douglas.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiwWpu_nBY13Hi-gmdDoQJhmJPJtc8TiPCiDlwfjt-72hNzcqUVva-uZx7UoLhY-tK9BplBZM1HKh5U6qzDeMekMw4H659qGMsp99ABvIyRj1kxaSwvaMQcJrTnb0-3T7YKwgeF_Pnm_zA/s1600/gale+p+Douglas.jpg" height="297" width="400" /></a></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">So that supposedly “short” 50 mile sail was a real pain, or maybe as some Aussie Prime Minister (almost) said, it was the storm we had to have. One positive about the hull, although it can get noisy with waves crashing into it, like solid thuds, there’s no creaking or groaning sounds. That’s what we hear, solid thuds as if the entire boat was one solid object (as it is, all epoxied together). We must have built this thing right.. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Coast between Cooktown and Port Douglas</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Cairns was the realisation of 1) probably Queensland at is best and 2) this is the motherlode of cruising. We hear QLD has all the nations cruising and live aboard yachts and the river packs about a hundred of them at anchor. (Port Douglas and Cooktown were packed out too, must look hard for anchoring space.) It’s a big tourist town (& presumably a big party town - we wouldn’t really know, being aboard each night) with great atmosphere and cheap, choose where to have your $12 steak, with beer included.. Unheard of for us sandgropers.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Enroute to Cairns</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Cairns</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD7bnz-q-0D8Fa7yksJeGDC8J9GFQH37tCqhA70RvN8Ch_v4kkEDmqLWjSRp0CGbuhtfwDXSlpOfOsNMXF-D0LBhSwEJHr9S3sYp1_cax9dD1lTOzEnuBJU7QnGzSbvo1-kW3rB3opneg/s1600/cairns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiD7bnz-q-0D8Fa7yksJeGDC8J9GFQH37tCqhA70RvN8Ch_v4kkEDmqLWjSRp0CGbuhtfwDXSlpOfOsNMXF-D0LBhSwEJHr9S3sYp1_cax9dD1lTOzEnuBJU7QnGzSbvo1-kW3rB3opneg/s1600/cairns.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Dinghy Dock Cairns Marina</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The winds turned to northerlies the day after we arrived, wouldn’t you know it ?! Thus we kept our Cairns visit regretfully to three nights and headed off with a Westerly one fine morning. To add drama the motor conked out just as I raised the anchor and wouldn’t start right away, so Susie pulled up the foresail and suddenly we had steerage and easily winded our way through the anchorage and up the channel. Who needs a motor anyway?! (It did start when I tried it 20 minutes later.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Speaking of anchors, I was still hauling up the anchor by hand since no lever had materialised yet. To top that off the depth sounder stops working 80% of the time, so we’ve been using a crude leadline, actually, an old pipe wrench on the end of a line to measure depths. So far in Cooktown and Cairns we have struck out in finding a piece of steel flat bar to use as a lever for the windlass. Thinking of installing a through hull transducer type sounder during the next haulout, the current one, which doesn’t work, is a “shoot through” type - it sits inside the hull and shoots through a wall of solid epoxy towards the sea bed.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Cruiser outside Cairns</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After a night at Fitzroy Island, a hideaway for Cairns locals, I had to resort to the handy billy (block and tackle) to get the anchor up, it was a deep anchorage. But 4:1 purchase of the tackle made it an easy job. Can lift anything with that thing, very handy to have on a boat. We had a dream run down to Magnetic Island, opposite Townsville, Ashiki holding a 5.5 knot beam reach for hours on end. I know from reading the old cruising books and speaking to sailors who’ve done ocean crossings that 100miles/day is common and often exceeded by small sail boats. In coastal sailing, the wind never stays around long enough. Ashiki would reel off 55 miles in 10 hours, then the next 14 hours are either light breezes or calms, only adding 30 miles to the total. So still, we never cracked the hundred in our 3600 miles to date. Closest was 98 miles coming out of Carnarvon in WA (the opportunity was there to go well over 100 but that night we reefed right down to go 2 knots so the windvane steering could cope while we slept). The difference is, I’m told, is that the ocean trade winds blow 24 hours and those big daily distances should be no problem. </span></div>
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<b><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Magnetic Island</span></b></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This is a mountainous island covered with pine forests, Hoop pine to be specific - one of the few marine type soft woods native to Australia, the other being Huon Pine in Tasmania - far superior but is now unavailable. (If ever we wanted to build a solid timber mast, this is the place to come, just quietly slip in a fell a tree..). We anchored in the south end at Picnic bay the first day, when the wind switched to the SE we weighed anchor and headed for Horseshoe Bay on the Northern shore. A perfectly protected anchorage with a lively holiday town on the shore. Just as well is was lively because we were stuck there for 10 days while gales were blasting over the hills from the SE. The only criticism of the place is cars. They let punters ferry them across from Townsville, thus we have traffic in paradise… Rottnest is far superior in this regard, being a no cars all bicycle zone. But in Magnetic’s defence, it is basically a Townsville suburb with private housing unlike Rottnest.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We spent a day exploring Townsville, a short ferry ride from Magnetic electing to leave Ashiki with her securely dug in anchor. Townsville is clearly a working town as opposed to Cairns the tourist town. There are several large marinas and lots of river moorings in Townsville which I liked. But by comparison Cairns seemingly built from the ground up to please the casual visitor, has lots more to offer and more choice. Noticeably too, Cairns is very multicultural (Asian food rules!) while Townsville is closer to the Aussie norm. But Townsville does not cater well for the anchor out cruiser, the one anchorage called the “duck pond” is a long dinghy ride to the beach and questionable protection.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Magnetic Island, Townsville</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The good news is, we found out about getting a lever for our anchor windlass. I was on the phone to a “Maggie” local who had a hire/tour boat business and built his own boats, thus had a workshop. Over the phone I gave him the measurements for our lever, made from steel flat bar (he had no stainless steel) and he delivered it right to us for $30 all up. You’re thinking that’s going to rust in no time, right? Well, I sprayed it with lanolin oil, that stuff dries to something like a thin plastic coating and left it out on deck in sea salt spray passages and it hasn’t had a spot of rust on it since.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Nice boat, on Ross Creek, Townsville</i></span></td></tr>
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-54385550840379514072015-02-10T07:33:00.001+08:002015-02-10T07:44:50.242+08:00Cape York<div style="color: #010300;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After 3 days provisioning at Siesia we hit the sea lanes again. Siesia was a good provisioning port, the comfortable anchorage was a short dinghy ride from the beach and the water and supermarket were close to the beach. That Sunday at the supermarket, mindful of the absence of meat at the big brand name supermarket in Gove on a Sunday, I asked the staff if they had any roast chickens, not expecting much. The aboriginal staffer (all the staff are aboriginal here, Siesia is an aboriginal mission), turned and looked at a rotisserie which was loaded with brown chickens, and said, “Five minutes?” And of course the meat fridge was fully loaded with vacuum sealed cuts. That supermarket in Gove should give up, these folks here in Siesia know how to run one!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Had a fair sail for 6 hours through the islands, the coastline here, our first patch of Queensland, is noticeably different to elsewhere so far. Greener and mountainous. The tide changed when we entered Endeavour Strait and we couldn’t make it past Cape York. So decided to run for the coast, which happened to be behind York island right adjacent to the cape itself and that’s where we anchored for the night.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Our anchorage, that's Cape York lighthouse over the hill</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Rounding the mighty Cape Ashiki had turned a corner in her voyage, she had made the milestone in reaching top of the Aussie continent, sailing over 3,500 Nm since Cape Naturalist in W.A. and commenced the journey down the East coast. We were in the coral coast waters sheltered by the mighty Great Barrier Reef. The scenery continued with its mountainous coastline. Stunning. The next three days was spent fighting headwinds and currents, continuing the pattern of (not) sleeping and periodic peaks out the companionway, just like the previous month, but with the added fun of dodging ships in the shipping channel. One afternoon after a long tack, getting close to a mile of a reef (Hunter Reef), I climbed out of the companionway to tack her around and surprised to see a large power boat alongside us. It had “Customs & Border Protection” emblazoned on its side and 5 or 6 guys staring at me. So I answered the same old questions over the VHF. At the end of it the friendly guys informed we are heading for a reef. Err, thanks, I know. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Some very agreeable Far North Queensland coastline, and some laundry..</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Another time we made a long tack towards the coast, the further from that busy shipping lane the better, to waters where the chart said incomplete survey but soundings were still marked. While sailing along I thought I saw a log coming past, but then noticed is wasn’t bobbing up and down with the chop. Water was splashing over it.. It was a rock! A sharp pointy one in supposedly 13m deep water and Ashiki glided passed it only 30m away. That did freak me out a little, we promptly tacked around and got out of there!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After 3 days we made less than 90 miles made good. Nothing great.. Where were these so called Northerlies that are supposed to be prevalent this time of year? I’m really hating these SSE winds and had forgotten what’s it like to sail even a beam reach let alone downwind. That seemed a distant dream. At this time we came upon Cape Grenville with a sheltered Margaret Bay in its lee and I suggested to Susie we anchor there for better wind. A North wind must show up eventually and we were prepared to sit and wait for it. It’s always a relief to be in a calm anchorage after days of try to live beating into the chop. We had a nice meal and settled into sleep for the night. I woke sometime around midnight and thought I noticed something odd about the boat at anchor. Climbed out the companionway and saw that Ashiki was laying to anchor the other direction, nothing unusual the tide had changed, but the wind was coming on the beam.. Shone a torch on the compass to figure out whats going on. Ashiki is pointing Eastward, therefore the wind is from the Nor… it.. it’s… it’s a NORTHERLY!! Unbelievable. Nice that we didn’t need to wait long. We didn’t up anchor and go then and there, the sleep was more important at that stage.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>The shipping lane complete with car transporter</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The next day, the wind was light and from the NE, but what a thrill it was to scud across the bay on a beam reach on flat water. Can’t remember the last time… Winds strengthened throughout the day and Ashiki sailed 78 miles made good in the next 24 hours, alternating between wing on wong and a broad reach. Almost as much as she made in previous three days. We’re liking this favourable winds business. Northerlies up here means light winds interspersed with periods of calms, which is still much better than beating. Even drifting along at 2 knots is great, that’s 2 knots in the direction we actually want to go, still doubles the progress of beating into it. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A day later we were in t</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; text-align: center;">he 90 mile straight, it’s a stretch of shipping channel almost a straight line fitting between the reefs, a mile wide swarth. Ashiki held a perfect line a few metres outside the actual channel the whole length, with Tiller Pilot a twitching, gliding along at 1.5 to 5 knots depending on wind strength at the time. There were a lot of ships, all of them bulk carriers, those 700’ long things. At night you see their two steaming lights, one on the bow and a higher one near the stern, this way you can identify which direction they are heading. One light directly above the other tells you it is heading straight for you. In the evening I saw a vessel heading up our stern which looked very different, it appeared to be a solid wall of light. A mile away it turned towards the other side of the channel to avoid us, either seeing our stern light and anchor light on top of the mast, or us on their radar. Considerate of them. Seeing it present its side to me I figured out what is was. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Passing in the night</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A large cruise ship. Passing a half mile off our port beam we could see moving pictures on the top deck. Punters were watching a movie under the stars… completely oblivious to the rigours of sea navigation and a classic example of intrepid sailoring going on just off their starboard rail. Susie and I were sitting in the cockpit watching this spectacle go by, joking about the perpetual all you can eat buffets those people were probably queueing for five times a day, getting fatter by the day. Our fresh food was gone and we were feeling a little peckish, we have several months supply of canned stuff but that’s not the same… Wonder if we had manoeuvred up to them they’d throw us a chicken leg or a dozen, a few tinnies too. I suppose we could’ve bailed them up on the VHF and pleaded starving intrepid sailors nearby.. Cooktown, our next hope for civilisation (and real food) seemed a long way off. Over 200 Nm to go and with the light winds and regular morning calms, at least another four days.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Where did the wind go?</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Just to show, this is the Great Barrier Reef!</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #010300; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">We were about to make Cooktown, the place Captain Cook careened the Endeavour for repairs, three days later not four, but not wanting a 4am anchoring we stayed the night at a bay 18 miles north of the town. Next morning we were making a sailing entrance into the picturesque town nestled below mountains and anchoring in its shallow creek. I’m liking Queensland already. 350 miles in 9 days, including three nights at anchor. We had made a good start down Australia’s Eastern coast and the cyclone season had just begun.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Cooktown sunset</i></span></td></tr>
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-65688176079082152032015-01-28T18:47:00.001+08:002015-01-28T18:55:28.053+08:00Carpentaria<div style="color: #010300; min-height: 19px;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Gove is both a heavy industry port (Bauxite strip mining) and an Aborigonal community with its own name: Nulumbuy. The Gove yacht club has great food with huge servings, biggest I’ve seen in a restaurant since last time I visited the USA 20 years ago.. The slight inconvenience exists in fact that the club is 13km from the town where provisions can be bought. Transport can be a bit of a bummer, but we struck up a conversation with a local and he offered us the use of his car for the morning! So in one trip we filled up one trolley load of Woolworths goodies and filled up all our petrol gerry cans. Not happy that Woolies had no fresh meat, being a Sunday it was sold out. Also this town require you to obtain permission to purchase any take away alcohol (being an aboriginal mission they’re a bit touchy about the devils drink). Lucky we still have some rum left..</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We had the big body of water known as the Gulf of Carpentaria before us, 330 miles across to the next settlement, Siesia, another aboriginal mission/town just South of the Cape of York ( - which is the most Northern point of the Australian mainland). We were warned that the seas can get quite rough in the Gulf too. The winds were still from the East so that bogey was still in place. I was hoping we can knock this off in 10 days, to the surprise of other boaties here, who plan on a 5 day trip, for reasons… never mind.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdw4Ska657iq-hPeTY_1Eu_l-dOf41jFtOl-6rVR93sYwM3kcXmOzQqf8uulIL-apZpB7VYdY3bcN12GEOGvi6LepSrLhR2DHNf7rE7PXxP9ZcVEU7gzUjmN8mEob175C_rEYmnWS8uWA/s1600/carp+sunset.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjdw4Ska657iq-hPeTY_1Eu_l-dOf41jFtOl-6rVR93sYwM3kcXmOzQqf8uulIL-apZpB7VYdY3bcN12GEOGvi6LepSrLhR2DHNf7rE7PXxP9ZcVEU7gzUjmN8mEob175C_rEYmnWS8uWA/s1600/carp+sunset.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Gulf sunset</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">It was great the first 1/2 hour sailing West through the harbour, the wind was behind us, such a rare event! Swung around the point and made Eastward into the 10 to 15knot SE’er. We sailed 42 miles made good that first 24 hours, compared to the 28 mile average of the last leg I’m not complaining. The we settled into a pattern, lashing the tiller most of the time, sometimes using TP when I thought it would do better. When the wind was closer to SE we’d make good progress as Siesia is on a ENE bearing. But most the time it seemed the wind was on the nose, ENE which made us go wildly off course. At least the currents this passage aren’t as bad as over Arnhem Land and we were doing better distances made good this time. Usually 30 to 35 miles/day. Doesn’t sound great but, our expectations have been lowered.. Some days there was a very light Easterly and tacking at 1 knot means more leeway and wider tacking angles, its much better to motor, 2.5 to 3 knots directly there. </span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">One time I was standing on the aft deck leaning against the boom crutch with hearing nothing but the relatively loud Tohatsu when suddenly a huge roar blasted from behind me. It was our old mates, the @#$% Border Protection plane flew really low over us, almost up the wazoo, to get a pic with their high tech camera mounted under the fusilage. Never heard them coming and scared the living c#@~ out of me! Of course they radio’d us to ask the same questions to which the answer was: “Fremantle, Gove, Siesia”. Susie, who tends to do the talking with those guys, carried out her threat and asked them if they knew the weather forecast. You know, make them useful for a change, the border protection guy answered, “well its a SE’ly now” (thanks, we can see that) “we dont have any forecast reports…”. She tried..</span></span></div>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1yolY2Lj2O3AHZ_6gmC8spk-TlS0j9S2TRHSpKxFjne0cdM-KSnnXVwm9JWPZPGB9WSqRUR5Ka65THFGUfQZoVo72b9-hIqvAbrMKhVb0EonB4DIlvhJ8kQqXONdEwgJNLc9IiqhTvCA/s1600/fishing+boat.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1yolY2Lj2O3AHZ_6gmC8spk-TlS0j9S2TRHSpKxFjne0cdM-KSnnXVwm9JWPZPGB9WSqRUR5Ka65THFGUfQZoVo72b9-hIqvAbrMKhVb0EonB4DIlvhJ8kQqXONdEwgJNLc9IiqhTvCA/s1600/fishing+boat.jpg" height="255" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Gulf fishing boat</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">At one point the Tohatsu wouldn’t start. Usually its a problem of flooding, but un-flooding it didnt help. As Ashiki bubbled along at 2 knots I changed the spark plug, to no avail. That’s it, we’re one of those engineless cruisers now, and this doesn't particularly worry us. Thinking back, almost all the anchorages in the past 6 months were doable without motoring. I don’t think it's that hard. So we push on, sailing around 50 miles a day, of which about 30 is made good. That is to say, we are 30 miles closer to our destination. Two days later, as I’m always puzzled why something stops working, I give the Tohatsu another pull on the cord, and the thing starts. Must have been a severe flooding problem and that's all. We are no longer “engineless” cruisers.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We made the halfway point in the Gulf and set our clocks forward 30 minutes to Queensland time zone, Ashiki is in QLD waters for the first time. Also we are officially in the “Eastern states” where strangely (to me) the sun sets on land and rises from the sea, as Susie is from the Eastern states, she gave a little “yay”. I dunno, I’m a sandgroper, but could become a banana bender, if coerced enough. I asked another cruiser in Darwin what he thought about that and he, having been to both places replied “the mind boggles”, maybe thought it was a concept beyond comprehension. (WA people and QLD people are both known to be quite parochial species.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Anyway, we are now struggling against wind on the nose in QUEENSLAND and someone, Neptune, Poseidon or who ever decided no more mister nice guy and sent a 30 knot gale our direction. We’re down below, as usual, laying around reading our kindles, as usual, when Ashiki starts heeling a little more and is noticeably more bumpy. Poking my head out the companionway it all looks quite violent pitching over 1.5m waves and decide its time to reef. All it takes is to sit in one corner of the cockpit, release a line and drop 2 or 3 panels, snub up the 2 parrels, move to the other corner do the same to that sail and the motion completely changes. Less heel and more gentle and I’m back below with my Philip K Dick novel. This is what a storm is to us now. No big deal. Ok, sometimes when Ashiki is pounding my mind does wonder whether the foremast is strong enough, will the hull stay together.. I really paid attention to detail building this hull, over built a little, extra layers of glass on all the chines. Over the next couple days the sea remained quite rough as we were warned about, but don’t think the waves are ever over 2m. If this is as rough as it gets in a the Gulf, well, from a West Oz sailor… “..you call this rough?” (Holds up a piece of WA coastline) “This is Rough!”</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">As with the leg from Darwin, we get into a routine, we grow accustom to life at an angle. Susie actually likes the completely water borne existence, with no land in sight, only flat horizons and and the length and breadth of Ashiki becomes our known world. It does take a fair bit more effort to do anything at an angle. You must climb everywhere even at 20˚. (I can see the point multihullers make..) I try to keep the heel to no more than 20˚, though going to windward she will go faster at 30˚, but that angle is too hard to live with. Oddly enough, Ashiki doesn’t become more efficient as we reef. Most Bermudan boats when overpowered in a strong breeze will sail faster after reefing down. On the other hand Ashiki goes a little slower after reefing, both windward or on a beam reach. Overpowered and on her ear she loves, however, an overpowered junk sail doesn't look overpowered, there’s no ballooning out off the sails like on a bermudan, because the battens keep it in shape. She just heels more, and goes faster. This could be to do with the hull shape too, the dory is quick to heel the first 20˚ then hardens up considerably. She’s never been over 35˚ in the strongest squalls. 30˚ just may be a performance sweet spot. But it's too much.</span></span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The easiest dish to serve when its rough is to open a can, otherwise cheese and something else in a mission bread wrap is a favourite, that’s after the fresh bread is finished. Sometimes when Susie feels energetic she’ll make one of her Thai style coconut curry veggie dishes with white rice, yum. Dessert is canned fruit and if lucky, Susie has a batch of home made yoghurt to serve, both cold from the fridge. Breakfasts are commonly either Wheat Bix, Museli or porridge. We drink lots of tea too, with biscuits.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sleeping is variable, if is calm enough, Susie will sleep in the forward berth with me on the couch. If its rough the forward berth is bouncing too much, she’ll take the couch with lee cloth up or not depending on the tack and I found sleeping on the sole (cabin floor) on a few cushions the best location. The pilot berth at the stern has fallen out of favour for now, it is hard to climb out of and is has since turned into a defacto storage area. We set the alarm and climb up from a look each hour. Waking up every our isn’t the most peaceful sleep around, and I usually fall asleep right away, but never the less, a night at anchor is a nice change.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The last half of the voyage is slower, the winds are more against us and currents seem a little more bothersome, I had a tide app downloaded online while in Gove but its not as user friendly as Navionics one, of whom were still offline (they’re having problems). Then I remembered fiddling with the tide info on the OpenCPN chartplotter on the laptop a few years ago and had decided it didn't work. I reread that part of the manual, hit the “show tides button” on the screen, and presto…. tide stations showed up all over Australia! I had nationwide tide charts all along. Double checked it with the WA tidebook and its spot on correct.… DOH.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">On one of the better days we nodded along for 32 miles NNE, tacked and 32 miles SE, 64 miles sailed in 24 hours but 34 miles made good. We ended up approaching the York peninsular more South that we prefered, but the seas were getting flatter, protected by the mainland and started seeing more ships, I assume coming from the bauxite mining port of Weipa. Drawing closer to Seisia we negotiate the long shoals and opted to anchor in the shallows in the lee of Crab Island for a peaceful sleep, just below the entrance to Endeavour Strait. Yep, Captain Cook territory.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We anchored off Australia’s northern most mainland town, Siesia by midday next day, 12 days out from Gove. Averaged 29.6 mile/day made good which was slightly better than Darwin/Gove but consumed less than half the fuel. Time to re-provision.</span></div>
Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-86536099197395095852015-01-12T14:59:00.000+08:002015-01-12T14:59:00.117+08:00Over Arnhem Land<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Ashiki's zigging and zagging</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">We’re in the Arafura Sea and we are beginning to experience the problem with leaving Darwin. Where are the NW’ers and the Westerlies? It’s all Easterlies, on the nose against us, so are the currents. Sometimes there is no progress at all even while motorsailing, and no where to anchor. What do you do? We want to go East, the wind and current only let us go either North or South. That is a 180˚ tacking angle. So we aim Ashiki North, after two hours, say, she starts sailing a few degrees towards East, eventually she’s heading North East, not bad. The current is slowing changing and letting us make some Easting. Tack around and she can make South East for a couple hours, then the current starts moving against us and Ashiki is heading more Southerly. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #010300; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I find sailing her with the tiller lashed is best, this will let Ashiki follow the wind if there is any change in direction. TP can't anticipate this and wants keep Ashiki pointing on a compass course. She inscribes these weird rounded Z shapes across the chart plotter, its the pattern of the changing currents letting her do what she can. But wind is on the nose and we are tacking day in day out, making good only 30 miles/day. It will take two weeks to get to Gove at this rate! We are spending large amounts of time at 1 to 2 knots. 2.5 knots is a good speed! We had one memorable afternoon when the winds swung from the NE, strengthened and Ashiki can make direct East, romping along at 4.5 to 4.8 knots. I was thinking she had forgotten how to go that quick.. So quick a big pod of dolphins joined us, cavorting over each other to sit on our bow wave. Later that night its back to Easterlies. I prefer the calms at least we can motor straight east, making good 2 to 3 knots (instead of the normal 1 knot made good tacking). </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>One morning we were surrounding by a large pod of midget sized <br />dolphins. None of them over 1.5m (4ft).<br />Few days later it was a pod of normal size dolphins, <br />twice the size of these.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Another night its blowing a gale, at least 35 knots. I’m thinking we could make 3 or 4 knots SE into this, but the Crocodile Islands are only a few miles away so the decision was made to reef down and head North. At least we could sleep and not worry about land. After the storm abated we tacked and headed South again, back on exactly the same track the night before, we ended up making zero progress in 12 hours.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Good thing we always keep a large stock of food on board, at least 3 months supply and 6 weeks of fresh water, because two weeks were up and we still </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">had </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">56 miles to go. We’ve read in the old time cruising books about crews on small sailing boats taking a month or two to cross oceans end up dreaming of the meals they’re going to eat when they finally reach port. We’re were already at that stage! I was thinking lamb cutlets and sausages at that point.. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Anchorage at the Wessel Islands</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We made the Wessel Islands, our first anchorage in 10 days, further south in that chain than we wanted, but we’re there! It took us most the next day to get back up along the island to the “Hole in the Wall”, the gap in the islands we needed to pass to continue on to Gove. It’s a fun little gap and we’re looking forward to it. Time the tides right and you're sailing through it at 10 knots. Of course, we don’t have any tide tables so we’ll have to wing it. We arrived at the entrance and proceeded to sail through, it looked ok. About 300m from it we are starting to go backwards…. yeah, not the right time, fortunately the bay back from the entrance is quite protected and we anchor there for a few hours. We try again and get a few hundred metres inside the narrow channel, I swear the current looked right, Susie was completely skeptical saying its all wrong. Well, Susie was right, we failed again. Hmm, we sail back to the bay and settle in the for the night and missed the radio transmission from that pesky Custom/Border Protection plane that flew low over us.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">In the morning I woke to see another yacht had anchored in the bay the other side of the point. I suggested to Susie we’ll follow them through, they are surely more organised than us and know the tides. Sure enough this boat weighed anchor and made its way to the Hole in the Wall at 8:30am. It was big modern plastic beast, an Oceanis 47 and they seemed to picked the right time as we watched them progress through without getting blown backwards. So we up anchor and head on after them. As we get closer Ashiki is going faster and faster, by the middle of the channel I see 9.9 knots on the GPS. A gust comes, Ashiki heals over violently and heads for the rocky shore! Susie quickly drops the foresail and boat gets back under control. I think main only is best in these circumstances. In a few minutes we are through the other side, the course for the straits between the next set of islands is more Southerly and for once the Easterly is favourable! First favourable winds in almost two weeks! We raise all panels and Ashiki is averaging 4 knots. The big Oceanis in the distance slowly pulls away from us, that’s the difference more waterline makes. </span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Looking back, the Hole in the Wall.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Good thing is those people on the other boat obviously did their homework because we need the current to be with us for the next two straits we have to shoot. The next, “The English Company Islands” is 16 miles away, another “Point William” is 5 mile after that and the tide changes in 6 hours. It’s a good thing Ashiki is sailing fast today because we made both straits within the allotted time and shoot through both at 5 to 6 knots. After the 1st strait Ashiki is surging along beautifully at 4+ knots when I see another large yacht behind us and making ground on us fast, I actually hauled up the last panel on the foresail to give Ashiki more drive and we’re making 4.8 to 5 knots to windward, they gradually pass us, looking to be holding 6 to 7 knots, an R45. A good 15 foot longer waterline than us.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>R45 racing past.. and I thought we were going great guns..</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That last strait cleared and its only 21 miles to Gove, Ashiki is holding over 4 knots, a day we never experienced in the previous 2 weeks, apart from that 4 hour session with the dolphins. In the distance Gove looked like a city of high rises. There aren’t any high rises in Gove, the refraction on the sea made the smoke stacks of the bauxite refinery look taller. But it did make Gove look kind of prosperous and inviting. We were anchoring off the Gove Sailing Club by 8pm that evening. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Later we met the couple on the Oceanis 47, from NZ, they had bought the boat in Croatia having never sailed before. That was eight years previous. I thanked them for showing us the way through the Hole in the Wall, they obviously had their act together with tide tables and timed it beautifully. The skipper said “We don’t have tide tables either, we were winging it…”. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">But its interesting to hear them say they go “slow” everywhere, 3,4 and 5 knots (most yachties tend to overstate their speeds but not these guys). I thought the mighty Oceanis would be quicker than that. In comparison, up here in the tropics I would say Ashiki goes everywhere at 2,3 and 4 knots and the shorter WL amounts to roughly 1 knot lower hull speed.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">It took us 15 days Darwin to Gove, that is 28 miles/day made good. Really slow, but that’s the reality of sailing with wind on the nose. Put it another way, Ashiki sailed over 700 miles to cover the 420 miles. We motorsailed over 50 hours too, can’t say how much time that saved us, it could be 2 days or a week, it may have got us over a patch which might have taken days if sail only. There were several cruising boats in Gove which had just made the same voyage, they mostly took 5 or 6 days. They tended to motor 5 knots straight into the wind the whole way. We can’t do that. They’d run a fuel budget of a several thousand dollars too (including getting down some of the QLD coast). Something we don’t do either. I think we’re happy the way we do it, Ashiki is a sail boat after all.</span></span>Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-83902643762725539082015-01-06T14:55:00.000+08:002015-01-06T14:55:09.348+08:00Over the Top<div style="color: #010300;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A cruiser in Darwin describe the route East across the top in less than glowing terms, expletive laden in fact. The problem is all winds lead to Darwin, from the West its Westerlies, from the East its Easterlies (work that one out..). Easy place to get to a bugger of a place to leave! Anyway, in November Darwin is about the most uncomfortable place on earth, try sleeping in 35˚ and 85% humidity at midnight.. so its a good time to leave.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Dinah Beach Yacht Club careening poles.<br />They bring the boat in at high tide, tie it<br />to the poles and at low tide, the bottom can be painted.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">At our previous outpost of (semi) civilisation, McGowans, an aboriginal run camping ground in the Kimberley, Susie learnt some news from family which prompted a change in plans. The cruise to SE Asia will be delayed another year, and we’re sailing to Gosford NSW instead. Which meant we had some things to do in Darwin before the big sail across the top to Queensland. One of them was the purchase and installation of a Raymarine tiller pilot ST2000. We had always planned to install one, an alternative to windvane steering and now was the time since we have 2,400 Nm to sail and we’ll need all the steering help we can get, especially when this voyage needs to be completed before the SE trades start up again in late March (this being late October now). Originally I planned for the cheaper ST1000 which would connect to the trim tab, but since no more trim tab, the beefier ST2000 is the one to go with. We also bought an extra 100Ah battery and another 80W of solar panels to supply power to the new instrument.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I hadn’t completely finished the installation of the solar panels when we weighed anchor and sailed around Darwin’s harbour. No hurry, there’s always time at anchorages for boat work. Besides, the winds were still favourable, coming from the West. We steered Ashiki to the entrance of the Cullen Bay marina where there is an excellent floating pier with water and fuel available, at road house prices too.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Fuelled and watered, we anchored for the night opposite the Darwin Sailing club, a rolly roadstead, where I completed the solar panel installation. We set sail the following morning on the 420 mile voyage over the top to our next port, Gove, still in the Northern Territory on the Western edge of the Gulf of Carpentaria. The plan was to make it to the tip of QLD, Cape York in the month of November. That is 420 miles to Gove then 350 miles across the Gulf of Carpentaria to Cape York. A month should be plenty of time to make it which means we have those two legs over before the cyclone season. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The winds were flukey, full sail was set all day, winds started with a light NE’er then switched to a NW’ly as we made our way to Van Diemen Gulf with the odd small session of motorsailing during the calms. Ashiki is not a boat set up for serious motorsailing, at sea while she may only sail at 1 knot into the 5 knot breeze, firing up the 6hp Tohatsu will only boost her to 2.8 to 3 knots, which makes a difference, but a far cry from the 5 or 6 knots most other cruisers tend to motor at. At least the Tohatsu only burns 1.1 litres/hour at 3/4 throttle and we carry 65 litres of fuel onboard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">It wasn’t till after dark we entered the strait and later on I slept in the cockpit, in a semi sleep state I remember seeing 6 knots on the GPS, must be at least a 3 knot current assisting in the narrows and a good thing I was awake to negotiate the tanker coming the other direction, the tiller pilot kept us on a dead straight course. It was pure luck the tides were timed right because a glich on Navionics software update have left us without tide data. We had no idea which way the currents would go!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Over night winds increased for an hour or so, kicking up a nasty chop, there was a “crack” from the vicinity of the tiller pilot (TP), which had been working flawlessly till then. No more steering suddenly, the wooden tiller pilot mount I had built in Darwin snapped. Because our bearing was as close on the wind as possible, lashing the tiller worked. So rule no.1 with the tiller pilot, either reef down in heavy weather or disconnect it. TP is not really necessary going to windward anyway.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Van Diemen Gulf turns out to be quite the tidal nightmare, and by morning flukey winds and nasty currents meant Ashiki couldn’t make any Northing. A NE’er was blowing and the current against us, it was either sail East on one tack, or NW on the other (backwards), so the decision was made to drop anchor East of Cape Hotham and wait for the tide to change. It wasn’t deep near the shoals, around 4 to 5m and it was an opportunity to fix the mounting point for the TP. I bolted on a piece of hardwood this time, replacing the pine which snapped and the job was done within an hour. Susie made lunch then we hung around, snoozing or reading our kindles. By around 4pm Susie announced we’re facing the other way, the tide had finally turned, the wind had become an Easterly and we can start sailing North.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The top of the gulf was 48 miles away and Ashiki took 24 hours to do it in the light winds and for part of the time, adverse current. A good portion of the leg was 3 to 4 knots, then many hours at 1.5 to 1.8 knots. Running </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">6 to 7 knots </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">with a near gale and 3m waves up the wazoo in Western Australia is a distant memory! We just made the exit when the current turned again and we were beginning to be swept backwards when we made a mad motorsailing dash towards the coast and dropped anchor for the night, best to wait out this nasty current. Boats coming the other way would have it easy I thought, with winds behind them what an easy sail that would be, but the one yacht we did see, a flashy 70 footer had her sails furled and was motoring!</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Hmmm.</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">But at least we were finally out of Van Diemen Gulf and in the Arafura Sea with Melville Island to port and Arnhem Land to starboard, we had taken three days to cover the first 90 miles, maybe we can do better than this on the mostly straight run for Gove, still 325 miles away. A “straight run”, yeah..</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> sure!</span></div>
<br />Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-45637819132967232762014-12-26T08:34:00.000+08:002015-01-01T05:42:14.951+08:00Onto Darwin<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: left;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Farewell King George! The best of the Kimberley we think.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">We were leaving the Kimberley, setting off from the King George River. We had before us the potentially nasty stretch of water known as Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, or </span></span><span style="color: #010300; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">alternatively known as </span><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">"Blown apart Gulf"... 220Nm of it to Darwin. On the way out a cat crossed the river mouth, “Dog on Cat”. Susie hailed them on the VHF to get weather info, should be plain sailing was the reply, all westerlies which sounded good to us. It was an easy run in light breezes, Ashiki made 70 miles the first day, 60 the second and 50 the third. Adverse currents and calms eventually getting the better of her. But not to worry, it was all lounging around reading our kindles, as the windvane connected direct to tiller did a sterling job leaving us with little to do, most the time..</span></span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Sailing through the muck. Much conjecture as to what it is,<br />either algae or coral spores. Waiting the an Oceanographer to<br />comment</i></span>..</td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">The few times we did motor, and never more than an hour, involved hand tillering which we don’t like, as the windvane doesn’t work in that case. Oh for an electronic tiller pilot. The winds were quite flukey during the last couple days too which doesn't suit the </span></span><span style="color: #010300; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">wind vane either, lots of climbing into the cockpit for readjustments, through the night even.</span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Darwin with hotrodded Customs boat centre. They get all<br />the good gear!</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">Darwin was a sight for sore eyes, the first sign of civilisation for two months. Its looking quite different to what I expected, shimmering white towers on the horizon, like a mini Singapore !? Eh… Darwin? The tides defeated us again on the final approach, electing to anchor across the bay from the city, in one of the few spots without marine cables, gas pipelines etc which are generally anchoring prohibited areas.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #010300; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">By morning we sailed, with all panels up, rounding the bottom of Darwin and anchored in Frances Bay near the mouth of “the creek” just as the tide was turning, and with the motor conking out.. Ashiki sailed the last 30 yards to drop anchor. (New spark plug was needed.) Our first foray into Darwin was via the famous Dinah Beach Yacht Club. I say “famous” because the place for me was immortalised in Kris Larsen’s book “Monsoon Dervish”. Quite the tome, highly recommended. (A bloke who sails out of Tasmania with $1.50 in his pocket, his only piece of nav equipment is a compass, which doesn’t work because it’s a steel boat and tosses it overboard.. it’s interesting reading!) I was hoping to meet the author at Dinah Beach, where he apparently is a fixture, but alas, he is off again to places intrepid in his trusty, and austere vessel, Kehaar.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #010300; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We tied the dinghy to the floating pontoon, the tide went out and we could't leave for the next 5 hours..</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Darwin, what can I say, historic charm gone? I think Tracy took it away, that being the 1974 “beyond category” cyclone, which registered 200mph at the airport before the measuring equipment disintegrated, then practically wiped the place clean. 30,000 souls were subsequently airlifted out in what became Australia’s biggest airlift in history. Can’t blame the place for everything rebuilt new, its bigger too, 145,000pop, but alas, looks like Gold Coast developers have had a hold the joint this past decade, it looks like any Aussie city. :(</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There are plusses, as we settled into Dinah Beach dinners, $8 for fish’n’chips and $5 beers… this place is like the working man’s yacht club, with the odd intrepid sailor thrown in, no white shoes to be seen. :) They have live music 6 or 7 days a week, never heard any other "yacht club" doing that!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Of course we visited the museum to pay homage to sweetheart. No intrepid sailor passes through Darwin without doing so :). Maybe because the beast evokes such circumspection on one’s mortality, or lack of it in her jaws.. she being a 5m croc. I may be a little unfair, sweetheart never hurt anyone. Her aversion to outboards was her only crime, being 300 years old I would have thought she’d understand the temporary nature of human civilisation, if she kept low profile for the next hundred years, I’m sure she would have had her creek back to herself… instead of her eventual fate, under the knife of the taxidermist..</span></div>
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-50810020683173720412014-12-14T09:07:00.000+08:002014-12-14T09:07:00.111+08:00Squatters and Dugong Bay<div style="color: #010300;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yampi Sound is not an unoccupied patch of water. It is remote busy place with Iron ore carriers, barges, pilot boats and helicopters as there are two active iron ore mines here; Cockatoo and Koolin Islands. The ore from here is too pure, they cut it with common dirt to get it down to parity, for the price. Too bad the settlements there are private, no access for us cruisers. There is a 3G tower here, but its Optus! Not working with our Telstra phone.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We ended up visiting the famous squatters of Silvergull Creek. Well worth the effort. Originally the squatters shack was built by Phil and Marion, by the time we were there, they had moved on and swapped with another couple, Mal and Shelley. What good value they are! A pleasant few days floating around their water tank (constant supply of running spring water) and drinking home brew and chatting to fellow intrepid sailors. I won the darts game :)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Next stop was Dugong Bay, first of the major Kimberley attractions, something we were looking forward to. We weren't dissappointed. The sail there meant negotiating the 10 knots current at the entrance, our first experienced with the crazy Kimberley currents. Well, we got there!</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">A stunning place, surrounded by limestone mountains, too bad the 100m high waterfall had dried up. We hung around there 3 nights, explored one of the creeks and climbed the small waterfall for a picnic. Saw our first croc, out in the bay, not big. He gave us a wide berth as he swished along.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">Headed out this time during slack tide so we wouldn't have the excitement of rip tides at the </span></span><span style="color: #010300; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">entrance, then anchored outside waiting for the tide to switch the other direction for us to make our way north.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #010300; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Later on I think I missed an opportunity to take the National Geographic wildlife picture of the year... We could've become rich! We spotted a humpback whale with calf paralleling our course, in time the calf must have strayed over to us to check out Ashiki because what happened next was mind blowing. I heard a splash, turned and saw a 40+' full grown humpback whale horizontal out of the water, a breach 2m above the surface only 30m off our beam! She crashed downward, a mighty belly flop, but not a huge wake from the splash. I think she was sending us a message and honestly I was a little scared and the camera was below. I did duck down to get it, but next she surfaced she was far away, taking her calf with her. That was an event to get the heart pumping!</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Myself and Mal (the Squatter) conferring.</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>View of SilverGull Creek from the shack</i></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Departing SilverGull in a fresh Easterley</i></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Dugong Bay</i></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Dugong Bay</i></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-size: small;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Dugong Bay</i></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWkfyG8fu0ar1PWrgPrlsOCGBcyzTSB7x17Zqoftf8Tx5jGEoS_sIY_TC-qYpD2LNEBqLU52HobhQnU52_Mn2rJp1lVfvat0KPz7g986Ij5aDuKa9Smqb4-4n52sWnptTZW-TwnC8ac9c/s1600/P8270531.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjWkfyG8fu0ar1PWrgPrlsOCGBcyzTSB7x17Zqoftf8Tx5jGEoS_sIY_TC-qYpD2LNEBqLU52HobhQnU52_Mn2rJp1lVfvat0KPz7g986Ij5aDuKa9Smqb4-4n52sWnptTZW-TwnC8ac9c/s1600/P8270531.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Searching for the waterfall, Dugong Bay</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr_MW3XKF06IeZmnPQg-wcWFyKtOQVOUTxxZuzVFUOFWKU6_jMM4UUDmEYPeeaIeG72pRI5AKnULvTQTzpahNJYGM3eLTqp3xBtrASGM1DZbj-8XnvXGHS_l-sllV2i-lLh0euHgt_9W4/s1600/P8270532.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjr_MW3XKF06IeZmnPQg-wcWFyKtOQVOUTxxZuzVFUOFWKU6_jMM4UUDmEYPeeaIeG72pRI5AKnULvTQTzpahNJYGM3eLTqp3xBtrASGM1DZbj-8XnvXGHS_l-sllV2i-lLh0euHgt_9W4/s1600/P8270532.jpg" height="320" width="240" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Pool above Dugong Bay</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Tide rips outside Dugong</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">That whale!</i></td></tr>
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-73414122003139992742014-12-12T16:24:00.000+08:002014-12-13T09:24:32.754+08:00Cape Leveque - Sunday Strait<div style="color: #010300;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We hung around Cape Leveque for two nights waiting for the more reasonable winds, since the Sunday Straits, the stretch of water across the top of King Sound, can be nasty in a blow especially if its wind against tide. I have seen a video of it, large foamy overflows in the middle of the sea, thus we didnt want to take any chances. The safer conditions would likely mean winds too light to get anywhere, so we were prepared with extra fuel onboard to motor the whole 25 miles if needed. The morning of departure had light breeze from the SE. Getting out of Cape Leveque was easy, with the tide we cruised up to 5.5 knots with all panels up. Rounding the point the currents changed to a cross direction and soon we were motorsailing to keep 3 knots. We kept at this for most the Straits, with the Tohatsu purring along at half thottle, 8 litres of fuel consumed in 8 hours. I was chuffed with that miserly fuel consumption, I think the little outboard will do ok in the Kimberley. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Our destination was a place called Silica Bay on Hidden Island, but that didn’t work out. We arrived in the dark to see three boats already anchored in the tiny bay and the space we shoe horned Ashiki into was too shallow. Sometimes plan A doesnt work out, we hauled the anchor back up and headed out into the night. There was no plan B, I had to quickly peruse the charts for an anchorage as we motored. The next spot a couple miles away wasn’t shallow enough so on we went, this time killing the motor and sailed as the current was favourable, taking us slowly up the channel towards Yampi Sound. At one point Ashiki drifted windless, turning around without steerage, but still making 1.5 knots in the right direction so Susie cooked an easy dinner and we dined together down below while high peaked islands slid by in the dark. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Eventually we settled on Myridi Bay arriving at 11pm, this was an instruments only entry as we couldn’t see much in the darkness, occasionally flashing the LED Lenser torch at the shore. The anchor seemed to hold, in a deep 14m, so that was good enough for us. We covered more that we usually do in a day sail, 48 miles in 14 hours, a long day. The following morning we discovered we were in a rather pleasant gorge.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVRiCR0hjQZuOWVR4Cl1Eqh4GD77Gy8XbhW5Lp9jA6JenFYEG3RSd1_WXMrBdJUq_ILqU5FPcg4TOW9Y9oCxiM-Ncc1nu2NmW6zvObbdJtZa7-OT6Lt2MMMYuJ-PATKs35_Uy9E8PNPio/s1600/myridi.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVRiCR0hjQZuOWVR4Cl1Eqh4GD77Gy8XbhW5Lp9jA6JenFYEG3RSd1_WXMrBdJUq_ILqU5FPcg4TOW9Y9oCxiM-Ncc1nu2NmW6zvObbdJtZa7-OT6Lt2MMMYuJ-PATKs35_Uy9E8PNPio/s1600/myridi.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Myridi Bay, the following morning.</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Yampi Sound.</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Outside Crocadile creek, next stop after Myridi.</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-size: medium;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Crocadile Creek, ladder to the pool.</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Crocadile creek pool, tides sometimes swamp<br />here even, giving an opportunity for </i><i>crocodiles<br />visit the place. Pays to have a look around before taking<br />the plunge, which we did.</i></span></td></tr>
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-82591297489816060422014-10-19T08:13:00.002+08:002014-10-19T08:16:32.854+08:00Broome to Cape Leveque<div style="color: #010300;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">First leg of the voyage is the roughly 115Nm Broome to Cape Leveque. I’ll mostly stick to pictures and captions, as there is too much the write. We did try to anchor for lunch during a calm on the first day out, but the bay had too many whales! That wold be Quondong Pt, just before James Price Pt, which has had some publicity of late, where our State leader wanted to build an LNG plant. He couldn't because of the humpback whale highway.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The strategy for the Kimberley, is sail for 6 hours when the tide is with you, anchor, go again the next day when the tide turns for 6 hours. No one gets very far this way, commonly 15 to 30 miles/day. The alternative is to go out to sea, 30 miles off the coast where the currents are weaker and sail continuously, do your 90 miles/day or whatever, but you don't see anything that way.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>First day out of Broome, this guy, longer than our boat, was along side<br />then dived, saw him underwater, a big dark shadow floating, seeming<br />to wait for us to pass. He resurface astern crossing our line.<br />He was giving way to us!</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The whole 6 days to Cape Leveque we saw these shenanigans.</span><br /><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">First we'd hear a "pop", and look to see a pile of spray on<br />the horizon somewhere. So I waited with the telephoto<br />lens and got this shot. Sorry for the fuzzy's, he was a long<br />way away.</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Lovely splash he makes. We'd hear these "pop" <br />sounds all day long.</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Pender Bay, where the guide book says<br />Kimberley-type scenery starts. We can see the difference.<br />The rocks are more interesting and Pandanus palms, </span></i><br />
<i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">a Kimberley native tree, begin to show themselves.</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i style="font-size: medium;">Rocks at Pender Bay, </i><span style="font-size: small;"><i>beginning of "Kimberly-type" scenery.</i></span></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Cape Leveque at last. We had spent 4 days marooned in<br />Thomas Bay prior to this, waiting out gales. We lost a solar<br />panel overboard, but retrieved it the following<br />morning at low tide.</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">On the beach at Cape Leveque</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Kimberley sunset, enhanced by bushfire smoke.</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">The view from Cape Leveque cafe/camp site.</span></i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Cape Leveque beach, people were swimming and<br />sun baking around the corner... don't they know<br />about crocodiles?? (the swimming beach had one visit<br />last year)</span></i></td></tr>
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<br />Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-33111958840053296622014-10-15T19:00:00.000+08:002015-02-10T11:23:27.566+08:00Cable Beach Respite<div style="color: #010300;">
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We’re swinging to anchor in Darwin harbour as I type this, first morsel of 3G reception in 500 miles. The Kimberley adventure is behind us, and I’d better get posting about it’s delights. Firstly, we had yet to leave Broome, the other end of the Kimberley:</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>In Roebuck Bay, not a great anchorage.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Hanging off the hook behind Broome’s port pier wasn’t too bad, we had a calm week, but the Queenslander on the neighbouring boat became excited about the weather forecast. A big blow from the SE was coming and this place isn’t well protected from it. He was heading for Cable Beach on other side of the point for better shelter, so that’s where we ended up for a our final few days in Broome. The 30 knot gale did come, but the water remained flat and calm on this side so it was all good. Much more crowded over here, the locals keep their boats here as do all the charter operations, of which there are plenty. Never knew Kimberley cruising was such big business.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Busy place, Cable Beach</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A crowded anchorage in a high tidal area makes things tricky. We chose a spot at least 60m from a vacant mooring, the next day a 90’ charter boat tied itself to it and things look ok. That night we started hearing loud music right outside our cabin. The big charter boat with music blaring was almost on top of us. Ten metres away! All the crew member onboard said to us was: “We’re on a mooring, we’re not moving, you’re drifting”.</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Well, we frantically started the motor then winching up our anchor and thankfully didn’t collide with the vessel. Motored over using the GPS and depth sounder, dropped anchor a 60 or 70m closer towards the shore, making sure we have enough depth for low tide. We didn’t drift, it was because both Ashiki and the mooring have lots of scope, over 30m each, in the lower tide the two boats simply swing in wider circles thus the near collision. Anchoring is certainly more complicated up here.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We were waiting for the weather window to leave for the Kimberley and by Thursday the gales subsided, we weighed anchor at 7am to enjoy a moderate offshore breeze. Thus started our long Kimberley adventure and route to Darwin.</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>Broome Boab tree</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Broome in its </i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><i>hayday</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Cable beach, the swimming part. No crocs, yet..</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Only part of Broome I remember from previous visit, the pub.</i></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">A pearl lugger, a beautiful 40' wooden boat.</i></td></tr>
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-41722810261286603312014-09-12T13:53:00.000+08:002014-09-12T13:53:00.749+08:00Break in posting<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Since we are presently cruising the Kimberley and there is zero internet access between here and Darwin, blog posting will stop for awhile. Could be a month or more before the next post.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">cheers</span><br />
<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Gary & Susie</span>Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-12741673468635322122014-09-11T20:20:00.000+08:002014-09-11T20:20:00.607+08:00Roebuck rumble<div style="color: #010300;">
<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">Our first night at the anchorage was a baptism of fire. 30 knots and 1 metre waves hitting us, don’t know how we got any sleep. I can see why many cruisers bypass Broome altogether. It was a little hard to bypass for us with so little facilities available in the Kimberley, Broome is the last out post of civilisation and we’d like to top up with water and provisions, just that Roebuck Bay is a terrible anchorage. The tides are big here too, a 9m tide was coming in a few days, so made sure we had 50m of anchor rode out. We rowed into Town beach the following morning, 1 Nautical mile took us 35 minutes. (If you notice in this blog, when I mention “mile”, I mean nautical mile.) Then walked the 1 mile to downtown to look around.</span><span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;"> </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Broome is a pearling town, always has been. In the 19th century it was the biggest mother of pearl producer in the world, with over 300 pearling ships based there. Huge. The industry weathered all kinds of disasters, two cyclone taking 180 lives both times. (The Broome cemetery began filling up!) But what finally killed the mother of pearl industry was a chemical company in the U.S., namely Dupont, inventing plastic in the 1930’s. The world’s citizens who up till then had relied on mother of pearl to keep their shirts on… i.e. buttons, and Broome had 60% of the world’s market cornered. There were pearlers from all over Asia here, the Chinese and the Japanese with their 100’ pearling sampans and the Aussies using cheap ‘expendable’ aboriginal labour. Then the button makers found out about plastic and that was the end of that. By the late 1940’s Broome reverted to harvesting pearls instead, by comparison a much smaller industry.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Can’t post about Broome without mentioning everyone’s favourite pirate, namely William Dampier. His journals of his triple circumnavigations were the hottest sellers back in Britain. He landed around here, somewhere, in 1699 and shot an indigenous fella then scarped to Timor, just to get water, as they had no luck finding any in Australia. (Too bad, the Kimberley waterfalls are just a few days sail from here, all the fresh water he’d need). Thus we have “Dampier Creek” and this bay and the pub named after his ship the HMS Roebuck. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">I last visited this place in the 80’s and boy has it changed! Population explosion, at around 40,000 with all the tourists. The trendy cafes are hopeless for meals, over priced and under portioned but the kebabs in the Egyptian restaurant opposite Coles are excellent (Susie says its the best kebab she ever tasted). The local indigenous still speak with their ancient dialects, never hear that in the city. The traffic is surprising, be careful you aren’t run down, travellers everywhere in 4WD’s, this is the dry season and the place is packed. Too bad Broome does absolutely nothing for cruisers, there’s very little here to attract them. Pity, Broome is a great town and deserves its reputation as a paradise.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After a few days of being beaten up by the Roebuck anchorage another cruiser dinghied by and introduced himself, Brett on “Nikita”, a 36’ steel Pugh design sloop, let us know there’s room over in the Port area, just outside the port boundary which is a better protected anchorage. After the next row ashore, we came into a spot of bother coming back, a 2 knot current took hold of our dinghy and another cruiser came to our rescue, towing us back to Ashiki. That boat is too slow to row with a load, we’ll need to do something about that..</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sick of the lousy location we weighed anchor and motored the 2 miles to the port, anchoring only 600m from the shore this time, tucked in behind the big shipping pier, but a long trek into town. We have bicycles so this isn’t a problem. The anchorage was much nicer, but the dinghy we decided could be a problem, especially in the Kimberley because of crocodiles. We discussed it and with our dinghy being more a planing hull rather than a good rower and we couldn’t very well obtain another one here in Broome, we decided to order an outboard. Now we are the proud owners of a 3hp Zongshen 2 stroke. Not fast, but it works and weighs only 10kg. It was ordered over the phone and the courier delivered it to the boat ramp opposite Ashiki, we watched him drive his van right down to the water as we were rowing ashore. Fine service I say!</span></div>
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-30523289583511602952014-09-07T19:51:00.000+08:002014-09-07T19:51:00.092+08:00Final reach to Broome<div style="color: #010300;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>80 Mile Beach</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Our reach along 80 mile beach, which is over 100 miles actually, did take a few days. The next leg leaving Wallal Downs yielded only 20 miles, from midday till sunset when the wind died, when we simply cruised to a mile off the beach and dropped anchor. Anywhere on this coast is a calm anchorage. Four more day sails we were anchoring in Roebuck Bay off Broome, covering 40 miles each of the next two days, then plagued by calms the final two. Opposite Lagrange Bay, which we decided not to enter because we were sailing so well, we were iPadded. A fishing dinghy motored up to us and our photo taken by tablet. Same day we saw a humpback whale at 1/2 a mile away, next day we saw another at 200m, both much larger than Ashiki.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #010300; font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The final day an excellent wind sprung from the south and we wing and wonged Ashiki past the tall pier and into Broome’s anchorage at speed, averaging 5 knots that day. Though arriving mid afternoon we couldn’t get ashore, it was a mile away and conditions were getting a little boisterous for dinghy rowing. </span><br />
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>80 Mile Sunset</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Shark stole my nice lure!</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Almost becalmed opposite Lagrange Bay</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Dinner!</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="font-size: 13px;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Broome with clouds (water spout material?)</i></span></td></tr>
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-14768690084784671642014-09-03T12:52:00.000+08:002015-02-10T11:22:09.827+08:00Amphinome blues<div style="color: #010300;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Sunset at the Spit anchorage</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">This was to be a big day, 60 miles upwind to the next anchorage was a big ask. We weighed anchor at 4:45am and flew at 5.8 knots behind the spit for the first hour. Can’t say the same about the rest of the passage. When the tide went against us, the wind swung on the nose and waves picked up and progress ceased to exist. This became an overnight’er, 35 hours and Ashiki sailed 90 miles, zig zagging against wind and tide, 30 miles more than the planned route. The wind did moderate and unlike the rest of the coast, the waves didn’t moderate with it. I thought that must be against the rules, downright unfair at least. These shoals fetched up large waves at us with very little wind to give us drive. It was miserable. Out to sea to clear the Amphinome shoals, waves did die down eventually and as we weren’t making much progress we hove to. Then I decided to drop sails which wasnt a great idea because we started drifting backwards with the ebb. The only remedy for that was either anchor in 12m or motor, we chose the latter for an hour at which time the tide turned and we could drift forwards. In a calmer conditions we took the opportunity to have dinner. The wind did pick up again and we were soon racing to the anchorage through the night, not our favourite time as we were both getting sleepy. Sailing the great arc around the shoals left us almost 20 miles offshore where the waves weren’t small, but Ashiki ploughed on at 4 knots through the moonless gloom and despite being in the tropics, the temperature was down to 13C. Freezing compared to the daytime temperature.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We did two hour shifts at the helm, during Susie’s stint she heard a low murmuring coo noise behind her, turning around she saw a large bird perched on the solar panel an arm’s length away, Susie let out a high peached squeal, and the bird took flight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">At dawn I decided to take the shortest route to the coast where we could anchor, it was a hard uncomfortable night and thought we could do with a safe anchorage, for dinner and sleep. By 3pm we were dropping anchor in 8m off Mt Blaze, a mile offshore, not very protected but the winds were light and it wasn’t rolly. The plan was to sleep till 10pm then take off, as the winds lately have been good overnight.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Mt Blaze marked the end of the dusty central Pilbara, the water was no longer grey, here it was a beautiful tourquoise, such a contrast.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSWS_W64njSM-yyfd_9rnhPBJxpJ9j4tp3QSO1rdQjyslOofHixLCYfEtejIuoUHpmiNHAFYa8NMCivAJeHl-N4vahxFo_IMyUNSzXfBZxJ3Hj6uvxXVtS6aCP3XVk54VrlQpTUNTf7jk/s1600/blaze.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjSWS_W64njSM-yyfd_9rnhPBJxpJ9j4tp3QSO1rdQjyslOofHixLCYfEtejIuoUHpmiNHAFYa8NMCivAJeHl-N4vahxFo_IMyUNSzXfBZxJ3Hj6uvxXVtS6aCP3XVk54VrlQpTUNTf7jk/s1600/blaze.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Tranquility off Mt Blaze</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">On the shore was one of those campervan sites. I wonder if we’ll get ourselves reported here too, but I think Customs have our number by now.. A little further up the coast we could see the beginnings of a long stretch of white beach, the western edge of the the spectacle known as “80 Mile Beach”. This we would be following to make the Kimberley town of Broome.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP65JNpwvEmH25BwzkhsCh5MJK08MMazD_w1Wh7jZcottWeHNNC4Yb9xJGx4L9385U0cYr45nFTZkSLYjAiXGDzwk4Gxwn5CHM_lws-ve1oThGZJ9cuPP4PcaJkAsgChErsZhowkuyTEE/s1600/camping+blaze.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhP65JNpwvEmH25BwzkhsCh5MJK08MMazD_w1Wh7jZcottWeHNNC4Yb9xJGx4L9385U0cYr45nFTZkSLYjAiXGDzwk4Gxwn5CHM_lws-ve1oThGZJ9cuPP4PcaJkAsgChErsZhowkuyTEE/s1600/camping+blaze.jpg" height="286" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Mt Blaze camping ground</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The alarm went off at 10pm and there was no wind, so we slept through to dawn. Then there seemed to be light, but enough wind to sail so we weighed anchor and Ashiki made 1 mile in one hour. We couldn’t follow the coast from here, as before us was a 10 mile wide uncharted area to detour around and didnt want to be drifting out there, its far nicer sleeping secure at anchor, so we decided to drop anchor again, opposite aforementioned campervan town. Several hours later, at 11am, a South Easterly did fill in and we started off again. We sailed out to sea 10 miles offshore with a plan to sail as far as the winds hold. But by morning we were having second thoughts and headed for the coast again at around 4am and spent the morning anchored opposite Wallal Downs homestead. 53 miles sailed in 17 hours, all to windward… of course.</span></div>
Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-72662393345209760962014-08-30T12:40:00.000+08:002014-08-30T12:40:00.192+08:00Crossing the monster<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTsW0g8TxGRYutvT0xL9L5ZjOnYl4_HGZdGNHwk3J0xsyf5zyuvtM0tKhV1Pk8Z465XVQHTSuA5s8RNbZNBbbO-oFESXcjtFilkTH6BCnPAF8baHf-byr5wDsYPGwE6ERlhZHSNvv3Zdw/s1600/oyster+bay.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhTsW0g8TxGRYutvT0xL9L5ZjOnYl4_HGZdGNHwk3J0xsyf5zyuvtM0tKhV1Pk8Z465XVQHTSuA5s8RNbZNBbbO-oFESXcjtFilkTH6BCnPAF8baHf-byr5wDsYPGwE6ERlhZHSNvv3Zdw/s1600/oyster+bay.jpg" height="297" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>From anchorage in peaceful Oyster Bay, that's Port Hedland in the distance, about 5 miles away.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #010300;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We didn’t want to stop at Port Hedland, not particularly yacht friendly as its very industrial, we could see the dust over the town from the water. Susie with her asthma to think about was happy to see it pass by. The place is Australia’s busiest port in terms of tonnage and we’ve been there before by land, I having worked in the place in the 80’s. After an overnight at nearby Oyster Bay we streamed over Port Hedland’s shipping channel, giving way to one ore carrier, who at 5 miles away had given us a blast with its horn, and was heading in for his turn at the loading dock. If we thought Dampier and Port Walcott were big, both with a dozen of so ships waiting outside. Try this place. We counted 40 giant ore carriers anchored in the roads, these were monster ships, with a carrying capacity of 200,000 tons and up. A lot of dirt. We heard another was asking for anchorage on the VHF. The reply was, anchor anywhere, the roads are full. There’s talk of the boom levelling off, but from here, Asia still looks hungry for our dirt and hungry for the steel smelted from it.</span></span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV2VQbiQ_NBT3ixUBgUzwNiP71nue9iIu-Pr1tmjtaOL1UPAe_PLgH-WUOwCL6PQy2GbOOQeCxuQeFXDe3GGULdw1zTE6rOWNiMDwWsn_oPq_I9PKB0RccQw6hn_ce_IXq_tXSiZi19S8/s1600/hedland.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgV2VQbiQ_NBT3ixUBgUzwNiP71nue9iIu-Pr1tmjtaOL1UPAe_PLgH-WUOwCL6PQy2GbOOQeCxuQeFXDe3GGULdw1zTE6rOWNiMDwWsn_oPq_I9PKB0RccQw6hn_ce_IXq_tXSiZi19S8/s1600/hedland.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Which place typifies the power of the Aussie economy more than any other? Here it is, Port Hedand. Doesn't look much does it?</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvhSCUlyjQUPVDzAHIJqJBup9W7srCZMU9w1agACPwJzSk3Rkvwv7tQl65YPzlpXFjKgYB4E1G-kIL-lmcPhYY-CW8ugjPRBklGC2Sd3PP1AlMt12QUMI1XrjN1DdcQwk3nlIBVdRL0VE/s1600/waiting.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgvhSCUlyjQUPVDzAHIJqJBup9W7srCZMU9w1agACPwJzSk3Rkvwv7tQl65YPzlpXFjKgYB4E1G-kIL-lmcPhYY-CW8ugjPRBklGC2Sd3PP1AlMt12QUMI1XrjN1DdcQwk3nlIBVdRL0VE/s1600/waiting.jpg" height="190" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Small portion of the road stead. I don't possess a lens wide enough to capture the entire breadth. Would be minimum 8 million tons of capacity floating out there.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Some miles before Port Hedland I heard a ping, then the main yard clanged against the mast. The yard hauling parrel was no longer connected as the little stainless saddle had pulled from the yard. I had used aluminium rivets, cheap me, monel would be doing it properly. I told Susie aluminium rivets were a tenth of the price of monel, so she asked how much monel rivets were. A dollar each, so.. “You skimped for two dollars?!” Umm.. yeah. I made a temporary lashing to get us through, which was quick and easy. In fact a lashing would be more permanent solution as the current trend is, set by offshore racing yachts, is for webbing and high tech ropes like Dyneema and Spectra are replacing stainless steel fittings. So now the yard parrel block is lashed with a piece of 4mm Dyneema cord, that stuff has no stretch and a breaking strain of over a ton. Sounds enough to me.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">That afternoon we made our 40 miles to anchor at Spit Point. The distance as the crow flies is 29 miles, but the zig zag at midday during the two hour stint by the easterlies had us going the wrong way.</span></div>
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-59567127943475325872014-08-26T11:46:00.000+08:002014-08-26T11:46:00.077+08:00Depuch and the Theory of Evolution<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCTsfbS3CsG7EBv0PGQBN7RV1FcRJEaACo-YbgNwv8FF82hCqcoCv3a-gfdhiDlRuJniZ8EU0iZDUFK5SAHfledK1UxzwN-iXG_gPb0DDXJ4aXa8JUTJtI6BUisngQ2Lt07LKcPJO-_3M/s1600/Depuch+anchored.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjCTsfbS3CsG7EBv0PGQBN7RV1FcRJEaACo-YbgNwv8FF82hCqcoCv3a-gfdhiDlRuJniZ8EU0iZDUFK5SAHfledK1UxzwN-iXG_gPb0DDXJ4aXa8JUTJtI6BUisngQ2Lt07LKcPJO-_3M/s1600/Depuch+anchored.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Depuch Island, morning after arrival</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif;">The winds continued their predictable pattern. SE’lies in the morning, when Ashiki can make good Easting. Followed by a period of on the nose Easterlies when we tack up and down hopelessly, and finishing with NE’lies where Ashiki can finally make her destination. At least the speed is good. Windward speed Ashiki depends on the sea state. A strong wind in the open sea always means waves, but for some reason do not go quite the same direction as the wind, which means theres a bad tack and good tack. The good tack is along the waves where Ashiki does 4 to 5 knots in a good blow. Unfortunately the “Bad” tack is usually the direction of our destination, where she consistently manages around 3 to 3.5 knots average. Light winds would be slower, but the seas are smoother, so the speed is still 3 to 3.5 knots. It seems to be her base windward figure. In the storm coming out of the Montebello’s going hard upwind she averaged 3.1 knots, she could have gone quicker, but that would have driven her too hard.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Really, the whole windward equation comes down to the hull, not the rig. Hard on the wind for us means, 45˚ off the wind on the compass or 50˚ on the GPS.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Sailing 40 miles to cover 27 miles as the crow flies, we dropped anchor off Depuch Island in the dark.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Depuch is a significant place, in 1840 maybe the most important sailing vessel in history, the HMS Beagle, visited the island.</span></div>
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<span style="color: black; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The ship which carried a young Charles Darwin around the world from which he formulated his Theory of Evolution. This must have filled in a lot of gaps for a lot of people (and vehement denial by others), that life controls its own destiny, it’s own form. The captain of the Beagle discovered a treasury of aboriginal art on Depuch and they left their own graffiti, which we wanted to see.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaUEFnZkpJcbKGrtg1D1mdFWiCh5v0D6O5DogPPZ73Dnd2ogxrgy0WNvs4N2dcVCPVgOm7AKoe5e2gZ2CLi2NaB1gkTaxapLJDZ_BMVRs0aLfypn7FUBUmFaqx6T6te1tVwAx4HqZb9t4/s1600/on+the+beach.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaUEFnZkpJcbKGrtg1D1mdFWiCh5v0D6O5DogPPZ73Dnd2ogxrgy0WNvs4N2dcVCPVgOm7AKoe5e2gZ2CLi2NaB1gkTaxapLJDZ_BMVRs0aLfypn7FUBUmFaqx6T6te1tVwAx4HqZb9t4/s1600/on+the+beach.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Ashore on Depuch</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj41lfB3IOumOrpbiPrddMgKekEMiOoIf6rOkdIqBslbArHyUHwqszLoEJ8Lsd_5sJ3Y2mKFXwczgl3m9kI_0E77XQkK7cuiouydcmXZDLFgXij-U4kkowzPq0teAum5D5rJFzTdUe6zL8/s1600/artwork.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj41lfB3IOumOrpbiPrddMgKekEMiOoIf6rOkdIqBslbArHyUHwqszLoEJ8Lsd_5sJ3Y2mKFXwczgl3m9kI_0E77XQkK7cuiouydcmXZDLFgXij-U4kkowzPq0teAum5D5rJFzTdUe6zL8/s1600/artwork.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-size: small;"><i>Not sure where the repository is, we rounded the nearest rocky outcrop and there it was!</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7S6yDlkk5ivpkt1eAW_f3LqT7Vc4RsWAFSTxZJ5_YTQm9fbTEQm2pNeXT33vHcVpsEXiE4sA5yERvqkriwcERuxFb-E9nLfmrfb9EjFHgB40kKh9w60kVqzVYiKHS5fSemoYs2klNPNo/s1600/more+art.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg7S6yDlkk5ivpkt1eAW_f3LqT7Vc4RsWAFSTxZJ5_YTQm9fbTEQm2pNeXT33vHcVpsEXiE4sA5yERvqkriwcERuxFb-E9nLfmrfb9EjFHgB40kKh9w60kVqzVYiKHS5fSemoYs2klNPNo/s1600/more+art.jpg" height="400" width="335" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>The early English may have repeatedly pointed out the "sorry state" of the indigenous inhabitants, but they could certainly draw!</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOhObQjybICoPwt5cm0JPiWUMU5zvTKePQH_j7SBZ5uPPCj7RQLzXrjtyFZ046OVZOrRa7QO3q4XywrhKqhnvep52aThCgbmv63v1oqCPickyeR2TeHh-HX_YuqpNLcKQq7m2HwUpsoYg/s1600/grafitti.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjOhObQjybICoPwt5cm0JPiWUMU5zvTKePQH_j7SBZ5uPPCj7RQLzXrjtyFZ046OVZOrRa7QO3q4XywrhKqhnvep52aThCgbmv63v1oqCPickyeR2TeHh-HX_YuqpNLcKQq7m2HwUpsoYg/s1600/grafitti.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Plenty of graffiti from visitors since too.</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMqPZ26j68SU-OKlPtquic6zPDLwTeO-TE2AMNpR1P2S2wPVDKvPc3qhmIKe02sUukZGHI9B_i6_ZBlgdTvWUbbxxj3XAeMIYfZtiCWtlKtZmBYFHl0-Xagm2MZ7y82ydIdKthmMwJMls/s1600/beagle1.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjMqPZ26j68SU-OKlPtquic6zPDLwTeO-TE2AMNpR1P2S2wPVDKvPc3qhmIKe02sUukZGHI9B_i6_ZBlgdTvWUbbxxj3XAeMIYfZtiCWtlKtZmBYFHl0-Xagm2MZ7y82ydIdKthmMwJMls/s1600/beagle1.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Climbing up that ravine and it's right there, near the edge, the Beagle.<span style="color: #010300;"> </span></i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRrXDofCGgvjOIFBMhPQB9e6RMoOmHAXyF-LeSke0mPA3bkcqtpcp1U6-E4uzDGa94wqZbY5jJrekSbFEI2qe7IazJolA86ngBfyASbhat-fwg6VMMtbzuk11Uc1TeewQsNKSKfaDprx4/s1600/BEAGLE2.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRrXDofCGgvjOIFBMhPQB9e6RMoOmHAXyF-LeSke0mPA3bkcqtpcp1U6-E4uzDGa94wqZbY5jJrekSbFEI2qe7IazJolA86ngBfyASbhat-fwg6VMMtbzuk11Uc1TeewQsNKSKfaDprx4/s1600/BEAGLE2.jpg" height="400" width="300" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>There are two Beagle graffitis here.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Depuch itself is a huge pile of loose stones, piled into a 180m high peak. These stones, all iron ore are small enough and ready for export, no need to send them through a primary crusher then a secondary crusher as the mining companies do. Could load a couple ton of the boulders in Ashiki’s bilges and set sail for China. Get $200 for them… hmmm. Makes for hairy climbing, they move when stepped on. Be careful not to dislodge one at the bottom, might collapse the whole joint..</span></div>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>The art depository cairn</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkt2QCd2ZZJkgnh_JzsA4n7DwxPGFYscjNYrWFd9KPtts1nxYz_BgPvaXccgk-yPc0D6q7E4SLB7ztd9UGzXbh2lSrX0gqHul-IXgHi0GEI_3O1y25L6k5GZynOflWsAu0dwvbG9mP33o/s1600/GRAFFITI+08.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkt2QCd2ZZJkgnh_JzsA4n7DwxPGFYscjNYrWFd9KPtts1nxYz_BgPvaXccgk-yPc0D6q7E4SLB7ztd9UGzXbh2lSrX0gqHul-IXgHi0GEI_3O1y25L6k5GZynOflWsAu0dwvbG9mP33o/s1600/GRAFFITI+08.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Message to all future graffiti'sts, please include century. This guy be either 2008 or 1908...</i></span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB1uD4cECW9mRN6-AjTISTktTdSTMuQ5-awwbV0LX3kdtWIWn9_KYujFhRmxIbPdnvYF6rWd3lIaU0aNgyakaVABzAwsaJt5skvkrBRtoSeb1PCbvBmWPTSVoAmS3p69P8m7Swz6Cr1cI/s1600/TURTLE.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjB1uD4cECW9mRN6-AjTISTktTdSTMuQ5-awwbV0LX3kdtWIWn9_KYujFhRmxIbPdnvYF6rWd3lIaU0aNgyakaVABzAwsaJt5skvkrBRtoSeb1PCbvBmWPTSVoAmS3p69P8m7Swz6Cr1cI/s1600/TURTLE.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7O1z0rrdrVRGZeTw1njfYJw64WEv4PTuoUSqYPNHHZVaEDnQdw-btByJvHtvFtrB6Re0Vs5NcJ3PNZYrFHKlQ6xrGZDO2mP-v0vRJnSdQ_lAaKCL5wlDhhSgyFhnSsxj_G0s76pLRKD4/s1600/me+depuch.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj7O1z0rrdrVRGZeTw1njfYJw64WEv4PTuoUSqYPNHHZVaEDnQdw-btByJvHtvFtrB6Re0Vs5NcJ3PNZYrFHKlQ6xrGZDO2mP-v0vRJnSdQ_lAaKCL5wlDhhSgyFhnSsxj_G0s76pLRKD4/s1600/me+depuch.jpg" height="298" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>A pile of loose bolders, this island is..</i></span></td></tr>
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-68082414302415304572014-08-22T11:06:00.000+08:002014-08-22T11:06:00.451+08:00Point Samson/Port Walcott<table align="center" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Hf82CyeoAbist4O6YQ_AOW9xwF6lib4uTX_PKsJBO591dumbXi9M_Z629naQ1DXTGwRaxa7tITRCeQcecUpr3_IV4pChHVl38XVwIfiswtmJ_F-aWZ8IU-FkSJO9wsA03UC0oyxpxgw/s1600/big+map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj6Hf82CyeoAbist4O6YQ_AOW9xwF6lib4uTX_PKsJBO591dumbXi9M_Z629naQ1DXTGwRaxa7tITRCeQcecUpr3_IV4pChHVl38XVwIfiswtmJ_F-aWZ8IU-FkSJO9wsA03UC0oyxpxgw/s1600/big+map.jpg" height="320" width="268" /></a><br />
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKqTqQpq5s0clg9c9aSmWWXW_KjQbM5rznoAywYk5bwJf3WO08078NGE2Abpp2qnDEqfFnyYz1rRPYwDbYzfUw8R_-Zfsam_GiGYEe2SaRI7WFMnkYFzMQ9u1Jwo6fs_jAUGyHMCkOPI4/s1600/pilbara+map.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjKqTqQpq5s0clg9c9aSmWWXW_KjQbM5rznoAywYk5bwJf3WO08078NGE2Abpp2qnDEqfFnyYz1rRPYwDbYzfUw8R_-Zfsam_GiGYEe2SaRI7WFMnkYFzMQ9u1Jwo6fs_jAUGyHMCkOPI4/s1600/pilbara+map.jpg" height="263" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Due to popular demand (actually, only one whinger), a map! Dots mark the anchorages.</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #010300;">Next anchorage was to be Depuch Island, a tall order, against the wind, but its all to windward along this coast this time of year. Some cruisers sail across in the cyclone season when the winds are going the other way, as they think we, the majority of cruisers, are mad going in the dry season when winds are on the nose. We met both types in Carnarvon. Philip King explored this coast in the 1820’s during cyclone season without the benefit of weather forecasting nor cyclone warnings. Ignorance must be bliss, since their gear was crumbling in a mere 30 knots, I don’t think they would have survived cat 2 cyclone.</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We had a ball trying to round Point Samson, both tide and wind against us. Judicious use of the motor helped us through.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm_lwefL6QR0ou4LPShFjip9si6H06vM98qjfSCrPJZguyxA_mB0LDTzxKX00HtD1m45sHyQR3Fyd-0A2pJuNa5O5BS-_RNUsa-e9ZuQhQNhRy53euqXylAe-5MKo22qn1E1gKio7mrnQ/s1600/port+walcott.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgm_lwefL6QR0ou4LPShFjip9si6H06vM98qjfSCrPJZguyxA_mB0LDTzxKX00HtD1m45sHyQR3Fyd-0A2pJuNa5O5BS-_RNUsa-e9ZuQhQNhRy53euqXylAe-5MKo22qn1E1gKio7mrnQ/s1600/port+walcott.jpg" height="217" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Port Walcott</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">There’s another ore loading port at Point Samson, known as Port Walcott, owned by Rio Tinto, the same outfit who run Dampier not far away and I was surprised how big it was. Four super carriers being loaded at a time with another 10 carriers waiting in the roads. Iron Ore is still the hot commodity in Asia, even if the price is a little down lately. This compares with FMG (Twiggy Forrest’s) port at Cape Preston (where we were thrown out of..), no ships being loaded, one anchored in the roads. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We heard Chinese language on the VHF, like in Dampier.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF6ExH_BMxWGgfCDs34mRu2EUJkesNwoqZa6QK4qCHVYACS-19Vd6ubXLVD62wTtZCPx1qgcqHZKwuS20F9TbrHzYOi1Q7Ja22R1akMMaxnQJBfF_MxhcE1YWYwlTg5vOWIp69F0LCWg4/s1600/big+ship.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjF6ExH_BMxWGgfCDs34mRu2EUJkesNwoqZa6QK4qCHVYACS-19Vd6ubXLVD62wTtZCPx1qgcqHZKwuS20F9TbrHzYOi1Q7Ja22R1akMMaxnQJBfF_MxhcE1YWYwlTg5vOWIp69F0LCWg4/s1600/big+ship.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Cargo ship off Port Walcott</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Our destination was still another 25 miles, at least 8 hours of sailing and it was getting late, the zig zagging in the middle of the day had slowed us down. I spied on the charts a small island a few miles away near the coast, Picard Island. Suggesting a night stop there and Susie was quick to agree. After two hours, just after sunset, we were anchored within the lee of Picard, about a mile off its shore. It was a rolly anchorage, but still worth it, to stop and make a hot dinner (Can of butter chicken with fresh potato and carrots thrown in) followed by dessert then sleep.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5xzSm49hX9HqX6wdUQC5RWoOSPxx25ZSZfg0QlE7sF8zCQLtQV_mym2i2NS8blUctd0JKcdiJOwR0JQjhBEEfSsq1JZj5x88J6P2So2AlGvWsFbLVmvQpB38obFonHDLn7pwXRbRtazE/s1600/Picard+island.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5xzSm49hX9HqX6wdUQC5RWoOSPxx25ZSZfg0QlE7sF8zCQLtQV_mym2i2NS8blUctd0JKcdiJOwR0JQjhBEEfSsq1JZj5x88J6P2So2AlGvWsFbLVmvQpB38obFonHDLn7pwXRbRtazE/s1600/Picard+island.jpg" height="238" width="400" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Picard Island in the morning sun.</i></span></td></tr>
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-8558040393457306834.post-71867879910706271232014-08-18T19:25:00.000+08:002014-08-18T19:25:00.814+08:00We the People Smugglers<div style="color: #010300;">
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Huge barge on Flying Foam Passage mooring.</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i style="font-family: 'Trebuchet MS', sans-serif; font-size: medium;">Other side of Dolphin Island, after exiting Flying Foam.</i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">After flying through Flying Foam, a passage heartily recommended when the tide is running the right direction. Tip, go with Dampier flood if heading North. We carved along to windward the other side of Dolphin Island to make anchorage at Dixon Island, near Anketel Mtn, the place our state premier wants to build yet another iron ore port.</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipYnOHUGUj-L5MC9Z8-J4jgUXNcvLdqDFd8DpSpgy7yAOGYT_Hb9J7bTTf8G-j9H-6wtxP_ANTg7RuGseklXwQCVfWnEt3gpnZXWmdN4vxfgSQCw-ZK85G-t6SBrSCxF0LEUuAYz-lQ_g/s1600/dixon+is.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEipYnOHUGUj-L5MC9Z8-J4jgUXNcvLdqDFd8DpSpgy7yAOGYT_Hb9J7bTTf8G-j9H-6wtxP_ANTg7RuGseklXwQCVfWnEt3gpnZXWmdN4vxfgSQCw-ZK85G-t6SBrSCxF0LEUuAYz-lQ_g/s1600/dixon+is.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><i><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;">Dixon Island</span></i></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">We dropped anchor 1-1/2 miles off the mainland behind the island, not far from a camping ground on the coast called Cleaverville (Sounds like a town of axe murderers…). </span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2NiETql2nRO3egW9kOi5z_6EKfvJb1-v5PjsLK8D1nkWvNyS1qHd5bjCNk9E0rVLRUhLHb1_FaLF0AtHdPRw44pY9ITIAS4TltSdtm8eNaxKMZZpHwSgnyAn56KlffAiyLZUuY30hSaQ/s1600/boat+w+guns.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2NiETql2nRO3egW9kOi5z_6EKfvJb1-v5PjsLK8D1nkWvNyS1qHd5bjCNk9E0rVLRUhLHb1_FaLF0AtHdPRw44pY9ITIAS4TltSdtm8eNaxKMZZpHwSgnyAn56KlffAiyLZUuY30hSaQ/s1600/boat+w+guns.jpg" height="261" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Suspicious craft, crew carrying side arms. We were the suspicious ones, apparently..</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The next morning in our anchorage was a small power boat with four armed men onboard sitting 300m from Ashiki. </span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Eventually we could read the writing on the hull “Customs and Border Protection”. A camper at Cleaverville thought Ashiki was a refugee boat from Indonesia with a load of Afghan asylum seekers. They dobbed us in! (We know this because later, someone ashore inadvertently admitted as much.)</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Nice.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">The Customs guys were quite polite, I think they knew the call was a dud as soon as they saw the boat, maybe even recognised it as they were from Dampier, where we had spent 11 days at anchor, near another of their customs boats. I even remember waving to them while dinghying ashore. I recognised one of the “men”, a blonde woman with hair pulled back. A few minutes of standard questioning and they were gone. I’m sure they had a report to write, as obviously they had “kitted up” with side arms expecting something big, another controversial landing of asylum seekers, like the landing in Geraldton last year.</span></div>
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<span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Maybe the reason why Border Protection wanted our itinerary was to field any more dud “reporting”. Its the cross we bare sailing a Badger, not even painting it white…</span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYVHPPleqveTacu86_qbHsJ2C6g-6fItNHqzK43fKOPweU-uPDTPFaiwSEbJfWSL1Bqi2WuUGBzQoIxGg1VdWK4OfNt4Jj0QYU9VdIrWSs0yCjBcRF4XfAWIB6Cs2sA6UK7-S1uHTzzWQ/s1600/ashiki+dixon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYVHPPleqveTacu86_qbHsJ2C6g-6fItNHqzK43fKOPweU-uPDTPFaiwSEbJfWSL1Bqi2WuUGBzQoIxGg1VdWK4OfNt4Jj0QYU9VdIrWSs0yCjBcRF4XfAWIB6Cs2sA6UK7-S1uHTzzWQ/s1600/ashiki+dixon.jpg" height="263" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Dixon Island anchorage</i></span></td></tr>
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<span style="color: #010300; font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;">Dixon Island itself was good, excellent hiking. We climbed the highest peak where someone had already built a cairn.</span><br />
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuUBDVSPAy7pGPddtRYl1DRuJc0d1Gs2_JoCG6Bu8-V7T7pagsDzHvE2hF-s2gUrJrC7XpcvSJfkHo7aUfxUkgpSx7Cgk96zA-MK7gClhUIUpWf7LC1FA9CkjKpPbghJNU8oE4ouiFnIU/s1600/top+dixon.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiuUBDVSPAy7pGPddtRYl1DRuJc0d1Gs2_JoCG6Bu8-V7T7pagsDzHvE2hF-s2gUrJrC7XpcvSJfkHo7aUfxUkgpSx7Cgk96zA-MK7gClhUIUpWf7LC1FA9CkjKpPbghJNU8oE4ouiFnIU/s1600/top+dixon.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>View from Dixon Island peak.</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja4X3q1eEF_DweOXydjpI4FRApvU5I715MUeszmeYNDh9HKJBhXbDcL62h5YJ4yEOGi6BjUGyXoZQRgI5pi4WIq6k-KoDhIaw-Edp_SV9ULBItX7n2GkZOuFkSdP-Hf5JIHFy0E5cLniE/s1600/dixon+view.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEja4X3q1eEF_DweOXydjpI4FRApvU5I715MUeszmeYNDh9HKJBhXbDcL62h5YJ4yEOGi6BjUGyXoZQRgI5pi4WIq6k-KoDhIaw-Edp_SV9ULBItX7n2GkZOuFkSdP-Hf5JIHFy0E5cLniE/s1600/dixon+view.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Industry never far away in the Pilbara, Port Walcott (Rio Tinto port), looking East from Dixon Island. We'll be rounding that cape, not looking forward to it, wind on the nose..</i></span></td></tr>
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<tr><td><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitpPXfEHWZqvcX2Vt1OXC8vAZ1lkBhATxG8KmvI_WxyQ6JpI_6q1Xn2S4Xi9f0Bhwhi5lXjDyhyphenhyphenDe55hWxZctoWQLDOLOfSRVjQ0uBEnz5LHJnD7VZi9jrHNYhrMvFwjNwMBn8egux05A/s1600/pelicans.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEitpPXfEHWZqvcX2Vt1OXC8vAZ1lkBhATxG8KmvI_WxyQ6JpI_6q1Xn2S4Xi9f0Bhwhi5lXjDyhyphenhyphenDe55hWxZctoWQLDOLOfSRVjQ0uBEnz5LHJnD7VZi9jrHNYhrMvFwjNwMBn8egux05A/s1600/pelicans.jpg" height="300" width="400" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption"><span style="font-family: Trebuchet MS, sans-serif; font-size: small;"><i>Pelicans, thinner than their southern counterparts, Dixon Island.</i></span></td></tr>
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Ashikihttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03346046839147702306noreply@blogger.com0