Dampier to Carnarvon

Tuesday 12^th August, 2008 at sea north of Cape Cuvier

Rough night. Wind was not particularly strong but sea was all over the place, swell from one direction, waves from another and wind from another resulting in a very confused and rough sea. Managed to maintain 5 knots throughout the night and the lights of Dampier Salt’s Cape Cuvier ship loader were clearly visible in the distance at sunrise.

Had another aerial flyby about 9am when this time a Customs Dornier 302 overflew us and asked for our details. Have not been able to work out the difference between coastwatch and customs they appear to be doing the same thing but identify themselves differently, probably a bureaucratic struggle going on between Customs and coastwatch over who is keeping our borders secure while the Australian taxpayer pays for this duplication of services.

The southeasterly is with us again and we have the outboards going, the mailsail and genoa up and we are maintaining 7 knots. The southeasterly died out late morning and we motored for a while. The Quobba Point lighthouse was approaching and as we rounded the point Barry set his last waypoint on the Raymarie box of tricks which would take us to the end of the 1 mile jetty.

The wind gods, (who had throw up a few obstacles along the way) were today on our side, as we altered course to the southsoutheast for Carnarvon a nice southwesterly breeze came up allowing us to hoist the sails for the last leg into Carnarvon. Again we were doing 7+ knots, in the distance a side on view of the OTC dish appeared, then slowly the rest of Carnarvon appeared on the horizon. We were off the end of the one mile jetty by about 3pm and then it was across to Teggs Channel and into the fascine arriving at the pen at 3:30pm.

Barry was hoping he could slip quietly into the pen at the yacht club but a phone call from Kay told us our movement along the Gascoyne coast had not gone un-noticed. The new owner of Barry & Kay’s old Spindrift works at Cape Cuvier and he had spotted us sailing past just after dawn. As a result a group of Carnarvon yachties were waiting for us at the pen.

3 months and 6 days after leaving Brisbane, Barry and Spindrift were home.

Well done Barry

Monday 11^th August, 2008 Tandabiddi

Nice quiet night on the anchor, up at 6am and prepared for a dawn departure. Sun rises at 6:51am today. The entrance to Tandabiddi is clearly marked with floating channel markers and difficult to see leads, channel markers also have lights on them, some of which are not working. We were sailing past the last of the channel markers as the sun came up. By now the southeasterly was piping at 20 plus knots, we set the mailsail and the staysail and set course for home.

Saw a lot of whales. They seemed to be gathered in small pods of 2 or 3 whales and these pods seemed to be part of a larger group of about 10 pods. One pod had 2 big adult whales and a juvenile who was jumping out of the water and putting on quite a show. After many failed attempts during the last 3 weeks I finally managed to get a reasonable whale photo of this juvenile. Also saw lots of flying fish, Spindrift slicing through the water at 7 knots must have looked like a threat so these flying fish launch themselves from the water and become flyers for 5 or 10 seconds as they glide up to 50 metres before settling back in the water and resume their lives as fish.

Big day for aviation. First off we had a flyby of two RAAF PC9’s in tight formation and later a Coastwatch aircraft did a pass again requesting the usual details. In the Kimberley we were buzzed almost daily by Coastwatch aircraft but this is the first one we have seen since departing Broome. The Australian Government must be throwing some money at border security. Today’s Coastwatch aircraft looked like a Dash 7, a rather extravagant aircraft for coast watch duties. Our daily Coastwatch buzz in the Kimberley was by a Reims 406 which looked like it would have a quarter of the operating cost of a Dash 7.

George trailed the new Halco lure he bought in Dampier all day and as soon as he went for an afternoon nap the lure hooked a fish so fishing duties fell to me. Much to our surprise we had a large Wahoo probably about 20 kg. He was a bit big for our evening meal so we released him.

Winds have been a mixed bag today. We set sail in the morning with a strong southeasterly wind, by mid morning this was replaced by a light northwesterly which steadily backed around to the west and eventually southwest. The sail wardrobe got plenty of use, in the southeasterly we used the main and staysail, then the main, staysail and genoa and then all afternoon we used the main and geniker. In the evening we went back to main and genoa and then to main only as the wind backed around to the southwest.

Barry is now onto the last of his 80 charts, home is not far away now.

Sunday 10^th August, 2008 Serrurier Island

Up just before sunrise, raised the mainsail while at anchor, then pulled up the pick and we were on our way. No harbour or anchorage to weave our way out of, it was anchor up and on course for North West Cape with a couple of minor course corrections to avoid the Murion Islands. The wind was from the south east which gave us a good off wind leg to NW Cape. We set the geniker again and managed to maintain 6 knots reaching NW Cape just after midday. A big swell is rolling in from the Indian Ocean natures way of reminding us we are moving into yet another different marine environment.

Saw a few whales again today all of which seem to be on a mission. Each time they surface they are heading north at a speed that makes a bow wave. It is often half a kilometer before you see them surface again, totally unlike the behavior we had seen up around Broome.

George managed to land a nice Tuna from the trailing lure. It was a bit large for our frying pan so we released it.

By the time we reached NW Cape the wind had backed around to NE which allowed us to carry the geniker all the way to the entrance of Tantabiddi which we reached at 2pm. Initially we tried anchoring in the NE part of the Tantabiddi anchorage but could not get the anchor to set, bottom looks like it is sand over coral so we motored down to the moorings near the boat ramp and anchored in a sandy hole. By the time we anchored the wind was coming from the NE at 20+ knots but this did not seem to be deterring the recreational fishermen. After anchoring there was a steady stream of boats coming back to the boat ramp, at times there were up to 5 boats lined up waiting for use of the boat ramp.

Phil Woods rang in the evening with the news that the 7 day forecast was showing a significant change to the weather pattern on next Friday when strong southerly winds are forecast between NW Cape and Carnarvon, just the wind we do not want. After some discussion amongst the crew the decision was made to make the most of the current easterly wind pattern and bypass Coral Bay and head straight for Carnarvon.

Saturday 9^th August, 2008 Onslow

Up just before sunrise to use the outgoing tide and the southeasterly to carry us further west.

Heavy overnight dew mixed with the iron ore dust of Dampier made the deck of Spindrift look a real mess so we had a busy bee on the deck to clean things up.

Managed to fly the genica for most of the journey to Serrurier Island and arrived just after lunch. We anchored in a nice protected corner of the island and launched the dinghy and went ashore. I went snorkeling across the reef and coral while Barry and George went for a walk on the island. Plenty of nice brain coral and lots of sponges but not many fish.

First time we have had to cook for ourselves for a while so resorted to an old favorite spaghetti bolognese .

Friday 8^th August, 2008 at sea Mary Anne Passage

Had a good night at sea. Started the night with full main sail and geona, with a strengthening southerly wind the first watch change reefed the main and furled the genoa and the staysail put into action. The Moon is now approaching half phase so the first half of the night had some light to see by. Around midnight we passed Cape Preston which apparently the site of a new iron ore shipping facility, we were well out to sea and in the darkness could not see much but the place was ablaze with lights.

We maintained 4.5 knots all night at sunrise our old friend the southeasterly returned but this time in a moderated form which allowed us to go back to full sails and 6 knots. By mid morning the breeze died out and it was time to turn to the iron spinnaker (the motors) to help us on our way.

George was a happy lad, news from the farm tell him the crop is going well bar some diamond back moth infestation in one of his canola crops and to top the day off George has managed to solve the 5 star suduko in yesterday’s newspaper.

Did some research on Onslow and decided to use a mooring in Beadon Creek. The “mooring” turned out to be a maze of pylons designed for sheltering 20 to 30 metre fishing boats and oil field work boats in a cyclone. Getting Spindrift secured safely for the night required some innovation but we eventually found a suitable solution. We went ashore in the dinghy and called a taxi to take us the 2 kms to town. Laurie the taxi driver dropped us at the Onslow Town Garage where we filled up our fuel containers and then went for a walk around town. A visit to Onslow is not complete without a visit to the Beadon Hotel which we did and had a beer while looking over some of the old photos of Onslow hung on the walls.

Back at Spindrift the midgies proved to be a problem but Barry was up to the challenge with a good stock of mosquito coils and soon two were burning, one each side of the door which seemed to take care of the problem.

Thursday 7^th August, 2008 Dampier

Woke to relatively calm conditions but again as predicted by the weather bureau the southeasterly sprang up early morning and blew hard with gusts exceeding 30knots at times. The forecast is also for moderating winds in the next few days so we made preparations for the next leg of our journey down to Onslow. Beaty & Charlie Mutard, Kay’s cousins, dropped off some wet weather gear which was stored in Barry’s shed in Carnarvon. As we have moved south the weather has become steadily cooler, gone are the warm tropical conditions we experienced in the Kimberleys. The local ABC breakfast program reported temperatures of only 7 deg C overnight in Carnarvon, I will have to go and buy some warmer clothes in Onslow.

In the early afternoon the southeasterly had abated and swung to a northeasterly, it was time to hit the road. Barry called Damper Port Communications on the radio who cleared us to move out of Hampton Harbour. We pulled up the anchor at 2:30pm and were reaching down Mermaid strait by about 3pm. We were on our way to Onslow.

Broome to Dampier

Wednesday 5^th August, 2008 Dampier

The southeasterly blew hard in the morning so we stayed put on Sprindrift not wanting to get soaking wet in the dinghy going ashore. After lunch the wind had died down enough to get ashore and have a hot shower, and wash some clothes at the Hampton Harbour Boat & Sailing Club. Once ashore we met Brad Beamount a school colleague of mine at Carnarvon 40 years ago. Brad invited us to dinner at the HHBSC which we gladly accepted. Brad is a local authority on William Dampier who sailed through the area twice the second time as captain of the Roebuck in 1699. Whenever the names of Australian navigators and explorers are mention the name William Dampier is rarely if ever mentioned. The brief history Brad gave us of William Dampier was very interesting and clearly significant achievements for their time which history does not seem to have much credit to.

Tuesday 4^th August, 2008 Dampier

Late start to the day. After 4 days and 3 nights of sailing from Broome the crew was tired and hit the sack early I stayed up an hour longer for blogging duties and by about 9pm the snores coming from the bunks in both hulls was probably keeping the crews of adjacent boats awake.

Did some housekeeping during the morning, cleaned the boat up (a bit) and cleaned up the spark plugs on the two Yamaha outboards.

After lunch Narrelle Dale, Phil Wood’s daughter, picked up the Spindrift crew and took us into Karratha where she gave us the use of her car for a couple of hours so we could do our shopping. Narrelle and her husband Stu put on tasty evening meal before Stu returned us to Hampton Harbour with our fuel cans full.

Karratha is one crazy place at the moment, gas developments and iron ore mining expansion have Karratha busting at the seams with new houses going up everywhere trying to keep up with the demand for housing. House rents are $2,000.00 per week and caravans at the local caravan park are costing $400.00 per week!

Monday 3^rd August, 2008 at sea east of Cape Lambert

Motor sailed through the night. With the predicted strong wind warning we put a reef in the mainsail and as has now become customary took down the genoa and put up the staysail for our night sailing. The night itself went smoothly we passed two other vessels which were probably trawlers but with the moon only 3 days old it was again another very black night so there was no way of determining what the vessels were. Dawn saw us approaching the Cape Lambert iron ore ship loading facilities. Business is booming in the iron ore business and Cape Lambert is no doubt cashing in on record prices for iron ore. They had two bulk carriers tied up to their shiploader and were constructing an extension to the shiploader to allow the berthing of another two bulk carriers.

The southeasterly wind arrived early morning as predicted so we made our way to the old port of Cossack. Only one problem, the entrance to the creek which leads to Cossack has a sandbar across it and we arrived at low tide and touched the bottom well before crossing the sandbar forcing us to abandon our plans for Cossack. By now the southeasterly was piping and the next best option was to head for Flying Foam Passage. It was a dead run to Flying Foam and we covered the 27 plus nautical miles in less than 4 hours which set us up to transit Flying Foam Passage just after the full tide. The Fremantle Sailing Club’s Cruising the Western Australia Cruising book, (the bible of WA cruising yachies) had plenty of warnings about Flying Foam, strong tidal movement, pearling leases to avoid, shallow water and rocky outcrops. The recommendation was to use the passage at ebb tide. We arrived at the entrance to the passage just after full tide and with the wind behind us we choose to shoot the Flying Foam Passage. And shoot the passage we did, with a reef in the main, and the genoa set and a strong SE wind, and the tide behind us we maintained 7 knots and on a couple of occasions reached 11knots. Barry kept an eye on his Raymarine box of tricks and shouting out headings, George an eye on the depth sounder and I was on the helm. In 45 minutes we were down Foaming Passage and in the harbour of Dampier. Barry gave Dampier Port Communications a call on the radio who cleared us to travel to the Hampton Boat Harbour. The trip down through the port of Dampier was a sightseeing tour of Australia’s resource exports. Out to sea was a big oil rig, we passed by the LNG plant as a LNG tanker ship was being berthed with the help of 4 red tugs, then came a small jack up rig which looked like it was part of a small scale on shore oil or gas processing plant, then came the general cargo jetty, and next the star attraction was Hamersley Iron’s Parker Point iron ore ship loaders, one ship the Boasteel Elevation was loaded to the gunwals and ready to sail, another three bulk carriers were taking on ore as we sailed past. In the distance we could see Hamersley’s East Intercourse ship loader and slightly further on was Dampier Salt’s shiploader.

Finally at the end of all of this was Hampton Harbour, we motored in to the anchorage and dropped the pick at 3:30pm. We had arrived in Dampier.

Sunday 3^rd August, 2008 at sea east of Turtle Island

Sailed through the night again using our 1 hour on 2 hours off roster. The southerly sprang up in the late evening and together with some short sharp seas we had an un-comfortable couple of hours when our speed dropped to only 3 knots. The turning of the tide around midnight leveled things out and our speed slowly increased. By mid morning a light southeasterly helped us along but this was gone by lunch time. In the early afternoon a northwesterly came in and along with a favorable tide and plenty of help from our motors we managed to maintain 6 plus knots for the afternoon.

Our plan for the day was to pass Port Hedland during daylight so that we could see (and avoid) the shipping associated with the iron ore mining of the Pilbara region. We passed Port Hedland about 15 miles out to sea at 4:30pm. Nine bulk carriers were anchored waiting for their payload.

Saw many humpback whales again. They were either jumping vertically almost full length out of the water often twisting and flopping back first into the water making one huge splash or swimming in pairs with one whale lifting a flipper high out of the water and repeatedly slapping it back down on the water.

A phone call from Kay warned us of strong wind warning for tomorrow morning when 20/30 SE winds are expected. Time to start looking for an anchorage protected from the southeasterly.

Saturday 2^nd August, 2008 at sea off eighty mile beach

A good night running a 1 hour on 2 hour off watch roster. Barry set a waypoint the previous night 95 miles ahead and each of us took it in turns to keep the boat on track and avoid any other maritime traffic. The moon is in it’s new moon phase. It was a very black night so the Raymarine box of tricks with its radar overlay on the GPS map was a useful tool.

A gentle southerly wind blew all night. We sailed on the main and staysail . At dawn the every reliable southeastly wind burst into life, we unfurled the genoa and gave the engines a rest as we sailed on at 6 knots.

By mid morning the southeasterly died out and we raised the genica and started one of the engines to keep Spindrift moving along.

As we crossed 122 deg longitude we started using charts loaned to Spindrift by Gary Wescott. All through the Kimberley we used a set of beautifully laminated charts loaned by Phil Woods the one and same who crewed Spindrift with his wife Silvia to Darwin. Ray Ellis has also been kind enough to lend us some charts. Charts are an expensive item each one costing about $32.00 more it you want them laminated. We use roughly one chart each day, so loaned charts for this one way trip is much appreciated.

1^st August, 2008 Broome

Up at sunrise and launched the dinghy and took Kim to the beach so that he could go into town and pick up George Barnetson. George had taken the Greyhound bus from his hometown of Nabawa just east of Geraldton to Broome a 26 hour journey which had landed him in Broome at 7pm the night before. George had spent the night in a motel.

George and Kim returned to the beach at 7am and soon both were onboard and we had breakfast together. At 8 30am I returned Kim to the beach for the last time. Kim went off and returned the Mini Moke to it’s owner and then flew back to Perth.

At 9am we raised the anchor and with a strong south easterly wind were on our way south towards La Grange. Just off Gantheaume Point we encountered some rough tide versus wind water but once across the deep water channeling into Roebuck Bay this flattened out. With the SE wind we were for a time making 7 knots but as the SE wind died out and so did our speed. For a short period we had to down sails and motor until a westerly wind arrived and gave us some assistance. The arrival of the westerly wind caused us to re-assess our destination as La Grange Bay is very exposed to a west wind, we chose instead to sail on through the night. In the late afternoon George caught a small mackerel on the lure we were trailing and this became a tasty meal for dinner.

Another day of hectic whale activity, just out of Broome a large whale and tiny calf surfaced within about 30 metres of Spindrift, in other places there were groups of 2 or 3 whales jumping out of the water and making huge splashes as they re-entered the water. We will keep at least one motor running at night in the hope whales will hear us coming and get out of the way.