Sailing around Australia; Bad Names, Nice Places

Tuesday 25 March 2014

Sailing around Australia; Bad Names, Nice Places

(Coffin Bay, South Australia)

26/3/2014 Bad names, Nice Places.

We are preparing to leave Coffin Bay today to continue our sailing around Australia adventures. Coffin Bay is at the end of a long winding channel that should be followed, as the surrounding bays and waterway are quite shallow.

Also there is a 2 metre tide so we leave on an outgoing tide so that the current will be behind us and help push us along.

Urchin have felt the effects of these currents while they have been tied to a swing mooring further into the channel than us. They have been in serious trouble of getting dizzy each afternoon as the tidal currents and the wind have literally pushed their boat around in circles.

I realised this morning that I had not taken a single photo of Coffin Bay. It is a very pretty place with more than 20 boats of various sizes and shapes moored in the very narrow bay. The shores are lined with holiday houses that are also various shapes and sizes. Trees surround many of the houses, so it gives a fairly lush look to the landscape.

To my defense it has been reasonably overcast and wintery since we have been here so the light hasn’t been too good for photography.

We were told that King George Whiting abound in these waters. So Leanne and I loaded up our dingy with buckets, bait, fishing lines and all sorts of fishing tools and gadgets. We donned our life jackets and headed a couple of miles out into the bay.

After anchoring right on the edge of the weed and sand following the local’s instructions, we tried here, there and there and there. One lucky whiting barely size was all we had to show for three hours of our time and about 5 litres of dinghy fuel. I say it was la lucky fish, because Leanne couldn’t see the point of filleting one little fish so she threw it back. That’s right, Leanne threw one back!

After bobbing up and down in our little dinghy and having Oyster farm and other fishing boats roar past us throwing us about, I was very glad to pull up anchor and head back to Easy Tiger.

Yesterday we walked up to the Coffin Bay industrial area and marveled at all the oyster farm sheds. I had thought that it was one big conglomerate that does the oysters here, but was surprised to see many small businesses involved.

We bought 6dozen straight off a boat that had just arrived in from the farm. Leanne put her culinary skills in to play and we had a dozen Natural, a dozen Kilpatrick and a dozen fried in beer batter for tea. Superb.

Over the next three days we will complete a major section of our sailing around Australia adventure by arriving in Port Lincoln and leaving the Great Australian Bight. It will take us three or for days to get to Port Lincoln and that will mean having to pass some really badly named places like Misery Cove, Avoid bay and Cape Catastrophe, as well as Thistle Island.

All being well we will anchor at Memory Cove on Friday night, which will leave us a reasonable day sail to Lincoln on Saturday.