Saturday 7th October 2023 – King George River to the Berkeley River

We got up early this morning and crossed the bar at 07:14 without any dramas, leaving the King George River for a 46 mile passage to Riverly Island, where we would anchor overnight before entering the Berkeley River the following day.

As we were leaving the King George River, we saw a small yacht called shark face. I spoke to them on the radio, and they were anchoring for the night before heading back towards Perth.

The passage started off uneventful with a nice 15 knot breeze and we were moving quite well, but it slowly increased in strength and by midday we had 25 knots right on the noise and rough seas for the rest of the way.

The watertight seal in the port saloon window was squeaking and leaking and every time a large wave came over the bow lots of water came in and damaged things on the shelf behind the window and flooded my nav station draw. While this was going on, the dinghy came loose or flooded, and the screws ripped out of the mounting plates on both davits, and I had to tie them up to prevent any more damage.

As we approached our anchorage for the night at Riverly Island, the starboard engine over heated and had to be shut down, then shortly after this we ran aground in the shallows at low tide, then the port engine over heated. There was nothing I could do but drop the anchor for the night and I would move the boat to the centre of the channel later when the tide comes in.

All the way points I was given were slightly off and ran along the shallow edge of the channel, so I edited them to prevent me from running aground on the way out.

We spent a few hours getting all the water out, and throwing things that were damaged and drying things. What a huge mess and what a shit day. This would have to be the worst day on the boat in 17 years.

After cleaning up, I then had to change the water pump belt on the starboard engine and tighten up the water pump belt on the port engine. I was now covered in grease and my body aching.

What a shit day. Claudia cooked beef rendang for dinner and we saw a large turtle swimming near the boat and spotted a boat going past us. We started floating again when the tide came in and I moved us 10m or so to the middle of the channel and dropped the pick again. We went to bed about 11pm. I was exhausted and my body was very sore.

Let’s hope tomorrows a better day.

Track Sirocco’s progress

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