Sailing Around Australia; The Good The Bad and The Ugly

Dillon Bay, Western Australia

30/12/2013 The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

The last two days of our sailing around Australia adventure have produced many facets of the weather, our boat and our selves.

It was decided that we would tear ourselves away from Two Peoples Bay on Sunday. We had originally planned to leave Monday but B2 and Eva wanted to go before the swell increased as was predicted. B2 had himself a bit worked up as to how to tell us this change to the agreed plan, not wanting to change our minds into something we hadn’t planned. But it was all agreed easily and for his worry we awarded him this weeks awesome award.

The awesome award has been instituted among us for anyone doing something really awesome (or stupid). B1 was the inaugural winner after conjuring a flight in B5’s light airplane. I was unfortunately the 2^nd winner for having to do my first ever 3.5 metre dive to untangle our anchor on Christmas Day.

The awesome award winner has the delight of having to wear the black and white checkered “awesome” hat, any and every time the 3 couples are together. (see the meercat photo in a previous blog). Also they must wear the coveted Green jacket. Not quite the golfers version. This one may be, how do I put it, a little ugly. Lime green and hand sewn with swirls and other unfashionable embroidery in Hong Kong, it will look a treat at the Bremer Bay tavern’s public bar.

So it was good that Brian (B2) was worried about how we would feel about him wanting to change our plans, bad that he should know us all better by now and now he gets to wear the ugly jacket and hat.

When we left Two Peoples bay the weather was good. The wind stayed away on a narrow passage through Bald Island (see photo below)and came good enough in the afternoon for us to be making 9.5 knots at one time.

Unfortunately, our cruising guidebook had said that Groper’s Bluff was a good anchorage. I say unfortunately because on this particular day it was a bad anchorage. It had a steady swell that rolled the boats over then back, over then back. Within minutes of being securely anchored Leanne had begun to feel sea sick. There was no way really that Zofia, the monohull, could have stayed there.

They went on a bit further to the next anchorage listed in the book to find it a little bit better than where we were. After they radioed to us that it was better, we headed off to join them. That’s when things turned ugly for us.

When we are anchoring or have someone on the front deck, we use FM headsets to talk to the person at the back of the boat. These are marriage savers. Instead of just yelling at each other we can now abuse each other quite calmly and effortlessly. Except for yesterday when all I had in my headset was screaming, whining feedback, and I don't mean from Leanne.

We were trying to set the anchor about 30 metres from a rocky shore in about 15 knots of wind. Also it is quite a small anchorage so the other 2 boats, including Urchin who were trying to anchor at the same time, were in very close proximity behind us.

Coupled to this was the anchor winch that was constantly jamming. When this happens someone has to run down inside the boat and re set the circuit breaker, while the boat is held in position so that we don’t run over the anchor chain or get it tangled in the propellers or some other similar disaster falls upon us.

All team work and routine was thrown out the window as we had four or five attempts at getting the anchor set. We resorted back to old style communication of instructions, information and insults shouted back and forth whether the other heard us or not.

Fun stuff. Finally we got it set. Leanne retreated to the back of the boat to do some fishing and I sat in silence inside the cabin feeling shattered after an ugly end to the day.

This morning, was a brand new day. After an impeccable anchor retrieval routine, Easy Tiger was off in search of the next adventure. Didn’t have to wait long. As we rounded the headland the wind hit us in the face at about 15 knots straight on. Ugly. The seas and swell combined to form the washing machine effect, with spin cycle added for good effect. Really Ugly.

After 6 hours of ugly crashing and bashing through waves, just when we thought we really had had enough punishment, we came into Dillon bay. A delightful calm little bay with families and kids playing on the beach, bright white sand dotted with some rocky outcrops and clear turquoise water.

What a good place to be for a few days.

Narrow passage between Bald Island and the mainland after leaving Two Peoples Nay