Sailing Around Australia; To Go or Not to Go?

As he was under there anyway, I tried to get this guy to clean Easy Tiger's hulls.
Said I would pay in fish... but no deal. He went back to sleeping on a rock. 

Location; Tied on to Service Jetty; Bandy Creek Boat Harbour, Esperance Western Australia 

It seems to me that after a week or so in one place the crews of Easy Tiger, Urchin and Zofia start asking the same question; “should we go or shouldn’t we go? Is it time to continue our Sailing Around Australia Adventures?

We are now facing the big fat, hairy, scary one. Sailing 550nautical miles across the Great Australian Bight. 100 hours of not stop adventure sailing across the Southern Ocean. If we get the weather right we could do it quite easily and wonder what the fuss was about, get it wrong and we could suffer 5 days and 5 nights of the trip from hell.

So far, our group of sailing adventurers has been spot on with picking the right weather to stay put or to sail on to the next destination with. I think that is because we made a commitment to ourselves to wait for the right conditions, rather than have a time frame or date that dictates when we sail or when we wait.

At our get together yesterday, we actually called it sailing by weather systems, not by time.

This decision making process has seen us sail around Cape Naturaliste and Cape Leeuwin in light breezes and only 1 to 2 metres of swell. Those are  highly unusual conditions. It has seen us anchoring in John Cove Bremer bay, where the locals said no-one has been able to do that comfortably in the last 5 to 8 years.

We also managed to spend a week in Hopetoun on anchor, where we were told that occasionally they get the odd boat for an overnight visit, but to have three stay a week is unheard of. In fact at the Esperance yacht club, people are giving Brian (B2) and Eva strange looks and talking about them in hushed tones, because they are the yachts that went to Hopetoun and stayed a week, no one does that.

The main strategy we follow is using our “predict wind” system that gives us a seven day localized weather forecast. This is useful as a guide only, as it predicts so far in advance things change during the long time frame.

Then we turn to the Bureau of Meteorology or BOM. They have a system called Meteye, which we can use to also back up the Predict Wind forecast. By far the most accurate though, is the BOM Coastal waters forecast. This, while not localised, gives accurate forecasts for the next three or four days.

Another part of our strategy is to talk to the local boaters, such as fishermen and yacht skippers. Brian (B1) and Maree have mastered that here in Esperance. They have had a local fisherman put all his way points (route plans) into their GPS. These way points include places to hide while going across the bight. If things get too bad, we can use these marks on our electronic chart to find places to hide until conditions improve.

Tied to the service jetty at Bandy Creek Boat harbour, we have a constant stream of people  parking literally 4 feet from above the boat and staring at it. Sometimes they get out of their vehicles and wander around for half an hour or more.

I saw a couple with a baby doing this the other morning, while I was wrestling with the hot water system leak.  I went out back to get something and to ask these people if “they were right”. He introduced himself as Fud and said that they owned a fusion 40 catamaran. anyone who can pick the map and model of Easy Tiger, must know what they are talking about, so I invited them on board. Turns out Fud and Faye Mackenzie own the Fusion 40 called Phayse 2. The baby was their grandson. They spend 6 months sailing from their base in Cairns and six months in Esperance, their hometown.

Over a barbie at their house and then a sundowner in town, we picked their brains about sailing around Australia and up to the Louisades in New Guinea and they entertained us with humorous stories of their sailing around Australia adventures, many of which involved crocodiles. One story involved them pretending to be a crocodile scaring the life out of someone asleep on the front of their boat. They have also experienced their mast breaking off while under full sail in the Kimberly's. It was very reassuring that they have had these adventures and are still keen sailors.

Fud has lived all his life in Esperance and most of that has been spent on the local waters as a fisherman, tug boat and tourist boat operator. He has passed on lots of local knowledge of the anchorages, islands and points of interest along the next leg of our journey. 

Armed with three different weather forecasts and heaps of local information, we plan to sail out to Duke of Orleans bay. From Duke Of Orleans we will wait for the right weather to go to either Middle Island or we will cut out the Middle Island and push right across the bight.

It’s just a matter of making the decision, to go or not to go? The weather gods will decide.