We woke to a beautiful, but cold morning with heavy dew and
the lovely sound of dozens of swallows sitting along the safety lines and perched
on my fishing rods in the cockpit. After coffee and breakfast, we pulled anchor
and headed out bound for Jurien Bay.
Once again there is hardly a breeze, so up with the main and
on goes the iron sail. Sea state is once again calm with a 1 – 2 meter swell as
we cruise along at 6 knots dodging the odd cray pot.
How do you do this again?
Aren't we meant to be going that way?
Cray pots are such a hazard along the Western Australian
coast both to shipping and to wild life with many whales getting tangled and
drowning each year. I have had many dangerous incidents where I have been
hooked up on a cray pot at 4 am in a large see dangling over the side trying to
cut the boat free or limping into harbour with only one engine as rope wrapped
around the propeller has rendered the other engine un-serviceable.
Thankfully this cray season the Fisheries Department has
finally done something about it and as from this season you are only allowed to
have 2 floats (instead of the usual 5) and you have to weight the line so it
sinks vertically. This has dramatically reduced the chance of both whales and
boats from snagging on them.
Having said that, yesterday I hit two cray pots, the first
one must have cut off on the new rope cutting blades I installed on my rudders
leading edge and the twisted tangled rope that was trailing came off easy when
I untwisted it and pulled it through.
The second cray pot I didn’t see either, all I heard was a
slight bang as the rope must have cut through on the rudder blade and by the
time I looked out the back all I saw was two floats going out of view behind
us. So, the rope cutting blades appear to be a great success and money well
spent. (Thanks Peter from Hillary’s boat yard)
By lunch time the sea was getting glassy and I am picking up
ships over 164 nautical miles away on the AIS. It’s such a great safety system
but it’s a pity all the cray boats are not using it, but I guess they don’t
want to share their secret fishing locations with the competition?
I checked my batteries this morning and they had discharged around
77% which is good news as I calculated my bank around 80% so it would appear we
are very close to the mark. We are quite power hungry with both a fridge &
freezer running continuously and more and more gadgets requiring power or charging.
I upgraded my house bank from 300 A/h to 400 A/h recently
and also upgraded my solar regulator from a 30A model to a 40A model knowing I
was going to install a new 56 litre freezer and so far the system is working
very well. I have the option of charging this bank with either the engines or a
generator if needed, but hopefully the solar panels will be more than adequate.
The boat is sitting very low in the water and I have never
had this much load on board. It’s not good to load up a catamaran as it impacts
its performance greatly, but even with the dirty bottom (the water was too cold
to jump in and clean it before we left) we are still maintaining our usual
speed. Yesterday we were regularly getting over 11 knots with the swell behind
us.
I was concerned with the toilet discharge and bathroom sink discharge
outlets being underwater a lot as these don’t have sea cocks fitted, but the do
have large anti siphon loops and I checked many times yesterday and no water
came in. It just pays to be aware and on top of all these things.
We had a very lazy start today as I knew there wasn’t going
to be much wind again, but we should have gotten up much earlier and pushed on
as far as we can. I was hoping to get to Jurien Bay (50nm) tonight but once
again we won’t get their until just after dusk unless the wind picks up, but at
least this time we have several other options such as Cervantes or Grey to pull
into for the night.
The wind kicked in around 13:00 and we had a nice leisurely
sail all afternoon but it was clear that we weren’t going to make Jurien Bay
until after dark, so we headed for Cervantes.
I had been dragging a lour since Hillary’s and it was a
shock when I had a hook-up today. I was totally unprepared and the first one
got off. It was followed by another a short time later which took a back
breaking 15 – 20 minutes to get it in. It was a tuna around 10kg and by the
time I got a pair of pliers, my waddy and a knife it had beaten its self stupid
in the hand net.
I’m not sure what type it was, but it was dark in colour and
the flesh is also very dark. I was looking forward to some fresh sashimi but I prefer
a white or lighter flesh for that.
My batteries didn’t get fully charged today as the sail was
shading the solar panels most of the day which is a real bummer. Hopefully they
will get a good charge tomorrow, if not I will use the engine if they get too
low.
Coming into Cervantes was a simple affair and although the
swell was up there was no dramas crossing the reef and we had a few dolphins on
the bow wave with us.
We picked up a cray fisherman’s mooring for the night, so I
hope they don’t come in late tonight or that will be a real bummer having to
anchor again here in the dark.
The town looks quite old with quite a few old shacks and
also some new buildings. There are the remains of some very old stone jetty’s
too.
Well it’s time for a hot shower and a few cold beers and
even though this is quite a rolley anchorage, I will sleep well tonight knowing
we are on a mooring.
Track Sirocco’s
progress
Following your new adventure
ReplyDeleteCheers Arthur
Thanks for reading
ReplyDelete