Sailing around Australia; The Scheme of things

(Sceale Bay, South Australia)

11/3/2014 In the Scheme of things

We finally tore ourselves away from Streaky Bay and motored out of the bay and on to more sailing around Australia adventures.

Again we picked the weather to a tee. We had a glass-topped ocean to glide through all the way to Sceale bay. In company of Brian and Maree on Urchin (Zofia had left the day before) we marveled at the spectacular scenery once more. The green and yellow pastures on top of the high limestone cliffs, combined with a smooth ocean that reflected the scene made us feel like we were in wonderland.

There were perhaps as many as twenty other small craft out as far as Cape Bauer all enjoying the serene water and bright sunny day. Heather and Geoff aboard their Catalina “Pure Logic” tagged along, Heather and David who had taken Leanne fishing came by with a cheerio as well. A few other boats came by within a reasonable distance to have a look at the two catamarans making their way out of the bay and back into the Southern Ocean.

The only bummer for the day was that a local in a run about boat beige on top and creamy white hull, roared past the stern of our boat, far too close for comfort. He came by so close that his motor picked up Leanne’s lure and trawling line. The impact of this ran out 300metres of braided line, bent our rod holder and damaged Leanne’s new reel. We only hope that our line and our lucky lure are tangled around his propeller. There is a massive ocean out there, so why would he have to come within five metres of our boat while he is doing about 20 knots?

Once out in the ocean, we were joined by a pod of maybe 24 dolphins. They provided great entertainment swimming along in front of our boat. They weren’t shy either as I managed to get our gopro camera down almost to water level to take video of them. I hope to be able to upload this video on to the blog as soon as we get some gigabyte allowance from dear old Telstra.

Zofia arrived into Sceale Bay the day before. They gave us their GPS position which would make it easy for us to know where to anchor and what the conditions were like to anchor.

The limestone cliffs, the sun and the white boat with narrow bow facing us made it the perfect hide out for Zofia. We did not see them at all until we were maybe only a hundred metres from them. Again, thank goodness for GPS and the navigation instruments we have.

Sceale Bay cliffs are limestone. They go straight up out of the water to about 80metres. The water below is about five metres deep at around 50 metres from shore. These cliffs provide very good wind break from the prevailing south easterlies. We were able to easily drop our anchor in to sand and we have achieved good holding with 40 metres of chain out. There is a little weed here and there but thankfully we seem to be away from the ribbon weed.

After anchoring we were able to take in the beauty of this anchorage. Vastly different to all other anchorages, Sceale bay would have to be top 10 of most spectacular places we have anchored so far.

Also the fishing operations manager, Leanne was able to catch a feed of King George Whiting from the back of the boat. That makes the rating of the anchorage a lot higher too.

After two days here our trio of sailing adventures is looking at the next step. Weather is being forensically examined, the charts are being studied and the next anchorages are being interrogated.

As our group keeps reminding each other we are still in the Great Australian Bight, all be it on the eastern edge. That means that we are still sailing on a western coast trying to move south in southeast prevailing winds. We also note pattern of weather seems to be breaking up into a mixture of autumn weather.

Zofia favour a coastal run and Easy Tiger favour heading out to the small islands dotted along the edge of the Great Australian Bight as recommended by local knowledge.

Streaky Bay locals have told us that Pearson Island is not to be missed. However it is 40 nautical miles off the coast. We have a plan to get there doing day time trips from point to point. But the weather will dictate whether we get there or not.

We met a couple who have been sailing for 14 years and they have missed the Sceale Bay cliffs. Another Catamaran came all the way into Streaky Bay for less than 24 hours.

In the bigger picture or in the scheme of things, we are not possibly going to be able to visit every island or every point that is recommended to us. But with time on our hands we will give them all a damn good try.