We got an early start today and had cleared the port
entrance by 07:00 and well underway on a nice close reach with seventeen knots
and a ground speed of seven knots, but I expect the wind to die off around
lunch time.
While underway I fixed the rice cooker that got swamped during
the gale the other night, so Putu should be very happy about that.
By then it was 08:30 and Whitworths was just opening in
Perth and I needed to purchase a new shower pump switch while we still had
phone reception. I managed to get Whitworths on the phone and I had got through
most of the order when the signal cut out, so then I had to climb up onto the
roof and while holding the lazy jacks in one hand, the phone on my ear with the
other hand and credit card in my teeth, try and exchange credit card numbers and
addresses without being flung off into the Indian ocean as the boat pitched and heaved.
The guy at Whitworths thought it was pretty funny and
finally we got the transaction complete and with a bit of luck I will have a
nice new shower pump switch waiting for me when we get to Broome.
Not long after this ordeal, I’m sitting at the nav station
and I can hear a helicopter. Thinking it was doing a pilot transfer, I went out
on deck to take a squiz.
Next thing I know here’s this bloody huge and loud Sikorsky
S-92 helicopter circling Sirocco only thirty meters away with a guy at the
open-door taking photos of me.
I’m thinking “shit, what have I done wrong now?”
Am I in a restricted area? Are they chasing me for drugs? Was I meant to pay
anchoring fees back in Port Headland?
I figure if I just smile and wave all will be sweet. So here
I am on deck waving to the two pilots and the navy seal hanging out the door
and their tacking photos of me and waving back and then Putu says “answer the
bloody radio”.
With all the noise I didn’t realise they were calling
Sirocco on the radio. I’m now thinking “bloody hell I’m a goner, probity going
to get five to ten years for whatever I’ve done”.
Turns out they were a search & rescue helicopter out on
a training exercise and just wanted to say g’day. So, we had a chat for five
minutes while they kept circling us, and I told them about our little
adventures and where we were heading and they were quite impressed and very
pleasant to talk to and then I bid them farewell and off they went. It was all
very surreal and I turned to Putu and said “did that really just happen?”
Suddenly it was quite once again except for the creaking of
the rigging and the sound of the ocean.
The passage between Turtle Island to Bedout Island was
shallow and full of strong tidal streams, up swelling and very confused seas.
There are many shoals throughout the area and most of the area is unsurveyed.
These Islands were very Interesting and I would love to go
ashore and walk the beaches, but you would need perfect conditions and neep
tides to get in close. There were huge coral boulders thrown up all over the
fringing reefs from past cyclones that looked the size of a car through the
binoculars.
There were several vessels close by engaged in a seismic
survey and they called me on the radio to ask my intended course as they were
trailing streamers for several kilometres behind them.
After Bedout Island, I set a course for close to the coast.
It was too late to anchor near Cape Keraudren in the dark as the whole area is
unsurveyed and has many shoals.
The wind picked up in the right direction so we had a
pleasant and fast sail off into the dark night although the wind strength kept gradually
increasing, so I threw in the third reef and rolled up a slither of genoa just in case.
I had a feeling it was going to be a bad night.
Track Sirocco’s
progress
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