Saturday 25th May 2019 – Boat Haven Loop to 3-Bay Island (Shark Bay)

We had a late start today, departing the tip of the Carrarang Peninsula around 09:00. We woke at 07:00 as usual, but after some delicious pan cakes for breakfast, I raised the dingy onto the davits to drain all the water out from inside the hull.

I forgot to put the bung in when I first launched it and I think it wasn’t done up tight enough and was letting water in. A LOT of water came out and it’s so much easier now to get up on the plane, I just hope there is no leak and now that the bung is very tight, no water gets in.

We set sail for Freycinet Island and it was a really uncomfortable ride bashing into a twenty-knot wind and sloppy confused ocean. I cranked both engines to get there as fast as we can but it was heavy going for a good hour and a half.

On the way the dingy was flogging hard as we were towing it just by its painter and sooner or later something was going to give, so I pulled up in very rough conditions and replaced the painter with a very long stretchy heavy duty braided mooring line. 

This worked a treat, but I now have to be so careful when I stop that I don’t get this tow line wrapped around the propeller or rudder.

Gradually the conditions moderated and we arrived at Freycinet Island and dropped the pick and went ashore in the dingy after we circumnavigated the Island.

The Island was very rugged with its own beauty and had a small sandy beach in the middle where we landed the tender. The cliffs and topsides were covered in nesting shags and sea gulls.

There were hundreds, maybe thousands of individual nests all with 2-3 eggs or babies.

Trying not to disturb the birds, I climbed to the top of the Island where several sea eagles had their nests; what a life they must have.

On the top of the Island lots of rocks were stacked up like walls. They looked to be too well placed to be natural, so I wonder who did that? I know a lot of these small Islands were mined for guano at the turn of the century, so it could possibly have been a camp at some time past?

I was very weary of snakes, but I never saw any. Back at the beach we watched half a dozen small sharks cruising around in the shallows and we saw a couple of baby turtles on our way back to the boat.

I fixed up the problem with my bait casting reel on the way down and I dragged a popper behind the dingy for twenty minutes and never got a sniff, but I’m so happy its back in action.

From Freycinet Island we set a course for 3-Bay’s Island which is shaped like a three bladed propeller. Along the coast from Giraud Point north, we could see quite a few people camping on the beach as there is an access track through Tamala station.

All this region was first charted by Denham in 1858 sailing HMS Herald and I don’t think it has had much surveying done since, but the water down this end of the bay is deeper and navigation is so much easier. The water is also much more saline and colder as this end of the bay doesn’t get flushed very well.

On the journey to 3-Bay’s Island we saw quite a few dolphins and one dugong dive when he saw us. We arrived at 3-Bay Island around 15:30 and anchored in 2.5 meters of water and immediately headed off in the dingy to check it out.

This Island is shaped like a star and has three beautiful little beaches and we pulled up on the closest one and went for a walk. The lime stone formations were really interesting and there were quite a few large caves, one of them went back about twenty meters and would sleep twenty people. I thought I might see a python or some bats but not this time.

We walked up onto the rough summit over razor sharp lime stone covered in stunted scrub and succulents. There was a large sea eagle sitting on the tallest shrub that took off as we got closer and I was looking around to see if it had a nest nearby.

These twisted knarly trees look like they are hundreds of years old

Suddenly the eagle caught my eye as it swooped in low and took a large baby seagull from the nest as two squawking seagulls looked on. The eagle labored to get altitude with the large bird gripped tightly in its sharp talons. It was marvelous to see such a thing but I felt so sorry for the poor seagulls who have labored all season to raise their only child.

We didn’t walk to the other side of the island to see if the eagles had a nest there, instead we motored about a mile over to the main land to take a close look at all the campers on the nearby beach before heading back out to Sirocco.

There was a large carn on the headland and a small cave that had been decorated that looked pretty bizarre. After a quick look it was getting dark and cold and so we headed back to Sirocco.

I put a few calls out on the HF for the 5 o’clock radio sked with both Don in Perth and also with the Kimberly Cruising Yacht Club cruisers and heard nothing from either. I then switched to 80m and heard some of the boys in Perth booming in so I chatted with them for the next hour and a half.

While cooking dinner one of the galley LED lights had a melt down and took out the circuit breaker. Lucky, I have some spares and was able to get it replaced and working again quite quickly. Once again there was very intermittent mobile phone coverage at this anchorage, but the digital TV worked fine.

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Friday 24th May 2019 – Cape Heirisson to Boat Haven Loop (Shark Bay)

We departed Cape Heirisson around 09:00 headed for Boat Haven Loop. As we left the sheltered waters behind Cape Heirisson, the wind picked up to 18 – 20 knots, right on the noise of course, so for the next couple of hours we flogged heavy punching into the messy slop and half meter swell.

On the passage we passed the Useless Loop salt works with the massive piles of white salt waiting to be offloaded on the adjacent wharf. A little bit further we passed the closed township of Useless Loop.

The entrance to Boat Haven Loop is a maze of sand bars and small shallow channels. The Navionics charts on both Sirocco and my phone were near useless at times and once again I relied upon Google Earth imaging.

Google Earth imaging running on Open CPN on my laptop

Several times we nearly run aground when we lost the channel and at times it was quite stressful, but once inside, the main channel broadened and is was easy cruising. We winded our way nine miles up the inlet where we anchored close to a beach and took the dingy to shore to do some beach combing and stretch our legs.

It was interesting to see all the Kangaroo tracks down to the waters edge where they were either getting some salt for their diet or they were thirsty, and they were having a drink of saltwater. The country here is very dry and harsh and there is very little feed and water for the wildlife.

A baby shovel nose ray I caught by hand in the shallows

Lovely little beach in the southern reaches of Boat Haven Loop 

We had passed a more interesting location, so we decided to move back there and anchor for the night, but the wind came up and was blowing twenty knots when we arrived and the location didn’t provide any shelter and was also lee shore, so we continued back out of the inlet looking for a sheltered anchorage.

The problem was the inlet runs north south and the wind was blowing from the south and I couldn’t find any protection. By now it was getting late and I was regretting moving from the beach which had good protection, but it was too far up wind to go back, so we continued on.

I decided to anchor at the entrance of the inlet at the tip of the Carrarang Peninsula. It didn’t look far on the chart, but in reality, was a lot further and I also had to negotiate all the stressful shallow channels and sand bars back at the mouth of the inlet.

Finally, we made it back out into the deep water, then we had to venture around the corner and then run in as close as I can, until the water shallows to around 2.5 meter where we will anchor for the night.

The anchorage was a bit rolly, but it offered pretty good protection and is about the best I could do. The anchor hit the bottom just as it turned dark. I need to plan a bit better in future as I missed my 5 o’clock radio sked with both Don in Perth and also with the Kimberly Cruising Yacht Club cruisers.

We had BBQ ribs for dinner and I opened my first bottle of red wine…………better put the anchor alarm on just in-case.

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Thursday 23rd May 2019 – Useless Inlet to Cape Heirisson (Shark Bay)

It blew 16 – 20 knots for some time in the night, but the Wilya Mia anchorage was nice and calm with good holding. After breakfast we went for a short dingy ride to shore to take a look at the old pearling camp.

There wasn’t much there but it was interesting just the same. All that was left was the main building slab and upright columns as well as the old wood stove, an old windlass, lots of broken bottles and heaps of pearl shells everywhere you look.

What was interesting was the small size of the pearl shells compared to the ones in Broome. 

There was lots of interesting bits and pieces on the beach also with lots of bronze nails, pieces of lead and I also found a large pistol shell.

There was also some anchor chain that had been sitting there for a hundred years that had returned back into iron ore.

After this, we pulled anchor and headed off down to the bottom of Useless Inlet to check out a possible anchorage for the night in an inlet at the end of the causeway. Useless Loop salt works have cut off the southern end of the inlet with several causeways for their salt evaporation ponds.

After a pleasant two our run in windless conditions, we arrived at the inlet and anchored Sirocco in two meters of water, then went exploring in the dingy. We saw heaps of baby turtles in the shallows and plenty of sting rays, small sharks and lots of fish.

I dragged a popper around while we were exploring hoping to jag a queeny or mangrove jack, but never got a touch. We ventured up a mangrove lined creek for about a mile before it got too shallow. I reckon you would get a few crabs out of the area, but we decided to keep moving.

We up anchored and headed all the way back out of Useless Inlet with a plan on heading to Boat Haven Loop. It was a lovely cruise back out in breathless conditions with a few dolphins riding the bow wave.

The norther end of the inlet has lots of sand bars and shallow channels to negotiate and it was rather stressful at times. My Navionics charts on both Sirocco and on my phone were very inaccurate in a lot of places and once again I relied on Google Earth imagery on OpenCPN.

By the time we got to Cape Heirisson, time was running out, so I made the call to anchor in the lee of the cape for the night in three meters.

With a beautiful sunset, Putu went to take a shower and very quickly discovered we had just ran out of water, so for the first time we had to start up the reverse osmosis water maker to fill the tanks.

It was a noisy evening as it took about five hours to fill our two 350 litre tanks, but at least we had TV reception and mobile phone coverage to pass the time.

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Wednesday 22nd May 2019 – Shelter Bay to Useless Inlet (Shark Bay)

After a nice sleep in, we had breakfast and then went for a look around in the dingy seeing a small turtle and eventually pulling up on Sheltered Bay beach. We went for a long walk along the beach and saw a few small sting rays and a baby turtle.

On the walk back to the dingy we chatted with a few fishermen who were elated after just catching a 20kg yellow fin tuna. On the run back out to Sirocco we hit a sting ray. (Sorry mate)

The road out to Steep Point must have been improved a lot as I am amazed how many people are getting out there now and camping all along the coast. There are even two nice looking houses that have been built right on the water. There is a small ferry that operates to Dirk Hartog Island and a few fishing charter boats picking people up to take them outside of steep point.

As Cam & Billy from Jandu were leaving today, we decided to motor over to them and say goodbye. It turned out they decided to stay another day and they invited us onto their lovely traditional yacht  for a coffee and we chatted for an hour and a half then headed back to Sirocco.

We decided we would head off and start looking around Shark Bay and so we set sail for Useless Inlet after a quick swim. 

The little breeze we had dropped off to nothing and the sea glassed out.

It was so beautiful and within the first hour we saw six dugong basking in the sun and dozens of dolphins. The water was crystal clear and as most of Shark Bay is, very shallow. I was skirting the edge of the channel in three to five meters so we could see the seabed and see fish and sting rays as we passed. 

The entrance into Useless Inlet was very tricky as there are numerous sand bars and narrow channels, strong currents and the Navionics charts on both Sirocco and the newer version on my phone were very inaccurate which made navigation rather challenging.

The DPI and Admiralty charts I had were not much help either as there is a lot of inadequately surveyed areas. We had one small drama where I had to use Google Earth imagery to navigate through some small channels to make our way to our anchorage for the night, where there was a shallow area to negotiate.

The depth decreased to about 1.8 meters giving only about a meter under the hulls which was very stressful until I managed to find my way back into the deeper water once again and continue on to our anchorage where we dropped the pick just on sunset.

This site is called Wilya Mia and was one of the largest and most significant pearling camps in the late 19^th century. Tomorrow we plan to motor over in the dingy to explore the old ruins and see what's there.

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Monday 20th - 21st May 2019 – Wallaby Group (Turtle Bay), Abrolhos Islands to Shelter Bay (Shark Bay)

Turtle Bay was a very rolly anchorage and we both didn’t sleep too well. I picked the closest in mooring which may have been a mistake as the mooring further out may have been a better option.

We departed Turtle Bay around 09:00 heading for Steep Point, the entrance to Shark Bay. As we pulled out of Turtle Bay a beautiful big cat called “Purnama” was coming in. We had a quick chat while passing and they said they will be heading for Shark Bay tomorrow, so I don’t think it will be long before we meet up again.

A mono hull was on the same course as us as we departed, but as there was some major squalls rolling in from the west, I motor sailed for the first hour to try to outrun them, so we left the mono hull in our wake.

Fast approaching squall

We almost managed to outrun the whole storm cell, just catching the northern edge where the wind came up to only about 15 knots, but the rain came down in buckets for about an hour. Rain was gushing down the main sail and Sirocco got to have a good shower, washing away all the salt and dirt.

Bucketing down

 It wasn’t cold; I got a bit wet running around trimming sails etc, but we zipped up the wind wood side of the cockpit and everything remained warm and dry.

For the fist five hours we have had a magnificent run completing about thirty miles on a down wind run with the wind speed ranging from eight to twelve knots and a boat speed ranging from five to ten knots. Sea state was fair, choppy with about a one-meter swell rolling on out aft port beam.

We are over steering quite a bit, so I increased the response time on the auto pilot to try and compensate which seems to have made an improvement, the down side means it will use more power.

Lunch today was left over lamb shanks from last nights dinner. We purchased a new vacuum bagger  and made heaps of vacuum sealed pre-coocked meals before leaving Perth to save having to cook during passages and in shitty weather.

This is the only way to go, whether you are out bush or out sailing, I used to do this on field trips while in Antarctica, just pull out your pre-cooked frozen vacuum packed lamb curry and boil it in a pot of snow for five minutes and in no time you are living like a king, woofing down a three course meal in minus thirty – too easy.

The wind the whole way was pretty much right behind us making it difficult to steer and prone to gybe, so I rigged up a gybe preventor for the main sail and made up a trimming line for the genoa and they both worked quite well but this additional equipment did make me a bit nervous should we experience any more squalls throughout the night.

We had a few more showers and the sky turned really black, but we never got any more squalls.

Shortly after the sun went down, it was so black without a star or moon to be seen. Suddenly I saw a faint orange glow out in the distance, but it was very hard to judge how far away it was.

At first I thought it must have been the light on a fishing buoy, and then suddenly I had a bad feeling that it could have been someone in the water who had fallen off a boat, so I started to flash my torch in the direction and got no response.

About ten minutes later the source of the light was revealed when a huge full moon tried to push its way out of the black storm clouds. Eventually as it raised high enough, it lit up the whole ocean and kept us company for the rest of the evening.

It was a very long night for me as Putu just sleeps all day and all night, so I am always single handed. Throughout the night we had three ships pass head on, one of them was over seven hundred feet long and passed within three nautical miles from us. It even changed course for us, and it felt good feeling the power of sail.

I track all shipping using my AIS and I also have my radar on at night. On both units I also set a guard zone, so they will alarm if a target enters a pre-set distance. This allowed me to get a couple of forty-minute sleeps, but I never really can sleep anyway as I have one eye open and I listed to all the sounds.

I also have my navigation system plumbed into the TV in the saloon so I can get in out of the cold and still keep an eye on things.

Sunrise near the Zuytdorp Cliffs

Conditions hardly changed all night and I only had to tack once in the twenty-four-hour passage. The wind and swell picked up a little just after day light as we approached the forbidding high Zuytdorp Cliffs, but we surfed along at speeds up to twelve knots at times till we eventually reached Steep Point, the most westerly part of mainland Australia and prepared Sirocco to enter the southern passage into Shark Bay.

Zuytdorp Cliffs

The south passage can be treacherous if a big swell is rolling so I took the time to eyeball it long enough before committing myself to enter. Once across the outer bar and into south passage the sea state calmed off and we had a short scenic cruise for a few miles before dropping the pick in two meters at Sheltered Bay for a well-earned rest.

Steep Point, the most westerly part of mainland Australia

Once we were securely anchored and I had Sirocco all ship shape, I went below for a lovely hot shower & shave and fell into deep sleep for a couple of hours.

I woke in time for lunch and then setup the generator to put some power back into the house battery bank which was getting very low.

Next job was to get the dingy in the water and all setup ready to go ashore for a walk. I was still petty knackered and working in slow motion. Putu was working on her first attempt of making bread (what bread we have left is starting to go moldy) and it was smelling pretty good.

I put the dingy in the water and then when I went to lift the outboard with the block & tackle, I discovered that we had left both sets of boat keys behind at home and I didn’t have a key to open the padlock securing the outboard.

For the next hour I tried swearing at it, I tried cutting it with bolt cutters and that just hurt my arms and hardly made a dint in it, then I tried knocking the pin out of the locking handles without successes. 

It was in a tight position so trying to cut it off with a hack saw was out of the question, so in the end I thought stuff it, and I cut through the plastic handle with a hack saw to release the padlock. This was a brand-new outboard that has never been used, Doh !!

I had a new outboard lock (different style) I purchased about eighteen months ago in a box with a heap of other “to do” bits and pieces tucked up in the forward port bow and before cutting off the remaining plastic handle to completely remove the padlock, I went looking to retrieve this new lock.

Sure enough, it was right where I left it eighteen months ago and bugger me there are two different types of keys on the key ring with it. Back then it obviously made perfect sense to leave the outboard padlock key with the new lock, but I had completely forgotten about it with the passage of time.

Anyway, I now had the key to remove the pad lock, minimal damage was done, I lowered the outboard onto the dingy and setup the dingy and installed my lovely new outboard barrel lock and I have the spare padlock to use to lock the dingy as required to any docks etc.

Just as I was packing up my tools and getting ready to go to the beach, we had visitors arrive. Cam & Billy (and their baby) from Jandu, who left Abrolhos the same time as us, (who we last saw getting engulfed in a big squall behind us), dropped in to say g’day.

They have been at the Abrolhos for the past five weeks and were on their way to the Montebello Islands. We had a nice chat and played with their lovely baby and then they headed off to the beach in one direction and we went to the beach in the other direction.

After a long walk on the beach and a chat to a few of the fishermen camped all along the beach, we headed back to Sirocco for dinner and a relaxing evening floating on a mill pond.

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