Wednesday 12th June 2019 – Tandabidi to Exmouth

It was only twenty-seven miles to Exmouth and the wind should be light and following so we were not in any hurry. I raised the main and sailed off the mooring and departed Tandabidi around 08:30.

It’s good practice to keep your ballast (COG) as low as possible

Once outside the reef the wind was twenty-four knots and I had to throw in a second reef and unroll a slither of genoa. For a couple of hours, we were flying along doing eight or nine knots, but as we turned to follow the coast the wind gradually became head on and I had to roll up the genoa and motor sail into the sloppy conditions.

As we approached North West Cape conditions rapidly deteriorated as the Exmouth gulf current was apposed to the prevailing swell. For the next hour and a half, it was like being in a washing machine.

 Once we rounded Point Murat conditions flattened out and it was a smooth sail for the remaining hour down the gulf to the Exmouth marina.

The VLF submarine communications antenna on North West Cape is always impressive to see with its thirteen towers, the tallest (tower zero) being 368 meters high, the tallest structure in the southern hemisphere.

VLF Submarine communications antenna

This bad boy is currently fed with two megawatts of power (antenna is rated to 30 megawatts) and radiates one megawatt of radiation requiring one million litres of diesel per month to operate.

Operating at 19.8 kHz, the radio signal is able to penetrate the ocean to a depth of forty meters. Covering the Indian Ocean, enabling communication with submarines without the need to surface.

Because of the very low frequency and narrow bandwidth of the signal, only a series of ones and zeros can be modulated in code representing nuclear launch codes and targeting coordinates.

The naval jetty at Point Murat has been used to refuel submarines and load munitions since WW2.

(Now forget everything I just told you and eat this blog and swallow it)

We pulled into the large new Exmouth marina around 15:30 and strait away refueled and took on water. A friend of a friend had kindly offered us use of their private jetty in the cannels and so we carefully motored down past all the water front homes looking for the correct address.

Unfortunately, Shayne’s jetty was too small for us, so we tied up at the vacant block next door hoping no one will tell us to move on. The cannel was so quiet and a perfect bullet proof cyclone hidey hole.

A butcher bird came to greet us singing a beautiful song

Once the boat was ship shape and secured, we went for a walk around the marina. The place is massive and millions have been invested but as a development it has been a spectacular flop with very little occupancy. There are hundreds of vacant berths and empty water front housing blocks still for sale.

Most of the houses built are rentals and most of these are sitting empty and its such a shame and waste of money. There are quite a few locals living there, but it has a long way to go with land prices off the dial and water front homes selling for a million dollars.

This bloke was fishing off his balcony

Look at the tidal range on the boat pens to cater for storm serge

There is even a massive foot bridge that rivals the millennial bridge in Perth that probably rarely gets walked on which suits the sea eagle that has made a nest right on top.

This is one beautiful underutilized facility that offers safe boat mooring during cyclones, but it blows my mind that government and private investors can find the money for this facility, but they have no money available to dredge the Fascine in Carnarvon?

On our walk around we stumbled upon the Mantarays Beach Resort, so we shouted ourselves to a lovely dinner and after staggered back across the beautifully lit up millennial bridge to the boat in the dark.

Mantarays Ningaloo Beach Resort

Track Sirocco’s progress

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Sirocco