Cruising Sailing; Entertainment and Excitement

Quindalup, Western Australia

18/12/2013 Cruising Sailing; Entertainment and Excitement

When Leanne and I first started out on our sailing “life”, someone told us that there is only two things that happen. That is entertainment and excitement.

Put simply, entertainment is when it happens to someone else. For example, some of the first boating people we met were April and Wayne McCarthy. Now they are truly great friends of ours, even though they originally came from the “other side”. Yes, they were motor boaters, or what we commonly call stink boat owners.

Wayne and April introduced us to the paradise of Quindalup at Christmas time. We sailed down and stayed a couple of weeks, with them nearby. I am quite sure they probably wished they hadn’t had company at Quindalup that year as they provided more than their fair share of entertainment for us and everyone around them.

Wayne managed to get their boat stuck on the only bomby rock in Quindalup bay. We woke one morning to find 99 boats facing one way in the breeze, while Wayne and April’s boat was the one facing a completely different angle.

April managed to fall out of their dinghy with just enough regularity to make each time completely entertaining. Especially as she managed to save her new I phone each time.

In fact, April still holds the record on our boat, as the person who came for a day sail, with three changes of clothes. Unfortunately, she needed each set within a couple of hours of each other as she kept finding ways to get saturated. She also managed to fall out of our dinghy, while it was on the beach. Now that’s entertainment.

Excitement is when it happens to yourself. One of our most exciting times was after we sailed all night to arrive at the Abrohlis Islands and tried to hook on to a mooring.

The mooring ropes are usually about 3 to 5 metres long, but the one we tried to hook on to was only about ½ a metre. We had to motor very close to the actual mooring bouy, with Leanne hanging almost upside down off the front of the boat trying to pickup this ridiculously short rope. All the while the wind is howling in our face, trying it’s best to keep our boat away from the mooring.

With Leanne upside down shouting underneath the boat and me with my head up though the roof, we were unable to use our usual method of communication which is shouting at each other. But we still gave that a good go anyway.

Leanne shouted from underneath the boat what I was sure sounded like “I got it”, so I cut power to the engines. The wind forced the boat into a rapid reverse now that there was no power pushing forward. After a second or so delay there was a massive crack sound like an enormous whip. Leanne managed to get her self upright and yell what sounded like it rhymed with truck or duck. Then there was another enormous crack, louder than the first.

“We’ve ripped the stays out”, shouted Leanne. “Oh my god”. It took some time a for me to register what had happened. Leaving the wheel and engine controls, I sprinted to the front of the boat. Once reality set in, I had to sprint to the back of the boat and rush inside.

Our boat, Easy Tiger, has a pole that sticks out the front about 2 metres. This pole takes the spinnaker sail. In order to do this, it must be held down by two stainless steel cables. What had happened, was the mooring bouy got tangled in these cables as we had pushed the boat too close to it. Without the motors to hold the boat forward the wind pushed the boat backwards. The steel cables were the weakest link in this scenario and snapped, whipping about like a stingray tail.

I had to rush down below, first to our clothes cupboard. There I had to throw the clothes aside to see if we were taking on water. The bracket that holds the steel cables goes through the hull, into the sea water here. So I  had to make sure we hadn’t ripped the bracket out or cracked the hull of the boat there. No water! Thank God.Then to the other side of the boat, in behind the forward toilet. Again no water. 

In a state of panic, I then realised that we were drifting very quickly across the bay. Leanne sat on the front, numb and disheveled. 

After some time to try to regain our breath, we summoned up enough of our last energy reserves to then approach another mooring, this time with a long rope. Once we tied on, we sat together, unable to speak or think. We just sat there slowly shaking our heads from side to side.Too much excitement for one day!

After further investigation that day, it turned out that we were so, so lucky not to pull down the whole mast and rigging directly on to Leanne. We ended our Abrohlis Islands adventure a week early to head to Geraldton for repairs.

Today here in Albany, with the first stage of our Australian circumnavigation under our belts, I do wonder what sort of entertainment we are in for and I hope and pray that we do not have too much excitement.

  

Easy Tiger (after the excitement) and Urchin at Turtle Bay Abrohlis  Islands