Leg 2 - Bunbury to Busselton (Pt Geographe Marina) approx 25NM

The Bloke and I were up at stupid o'clock again this morning to take advantage of the morning breezes that were forecast to die off late to mid-morning.
When you arrive at Pt Geographe Marina you pray for NO WIND! Somehow methinks the pens and canals face in the wrong direction relative to the prevailing winds but heck what do I know? The floating jetties are also VERY LOW. Executive summary: Arrive with the wind shift and be prepared for low jetties and a potentially difficult birthing ....  no no berthing!
Our second visit here to berth Zofia ahead of a NYE party with the MOB at Witchcliffe have scarred the Bloke's psyche forever. We basically cartwheeled through one of the canals having missed attaching the leads onto the extremely low pontoons here in our allotted pen. Whoops.  Being a plastic fantastic production boat with a big arse, the wind got hold of us and it was a very giddy few minutes before we managed to snatch the bullhorns in a BIG vacant pen, tie up and have a few beers to settle ourselves (read anaesthetic for the difficult birthing). When I visited the Marina office to announce that we had arrived but were temporarily in the wrong pen until we'd settled ourselves, the Marina secretary told me that the pen we had been so fortunate to access would cost us more. "Good" I replied, "Does that mean it's available?". The affirmative reply and at a mere $15 per night extra was a bargain in my view... we'd already squeezed off the bow starboard nav lights fending off a pylon!. "Cheep insurance" I thought, as the sea breeze roared through the office scattering her paperwork!
That was then; the Bloke and I hope are a bit wiser now.
Today we refueled and docked without incident. We also tried out the new Dock Sticks (Verdict: Triple AAA!! see http://www.dockingstick.com/ - definite MUST HAVE items) - well one of the pair anyway as we discovered that only 1 of our mooring leads is thin enough to fit through. No matter, the trusty mid-ships springer was all we needed. A trick we picked up canal boating on the Avon (UK) a few years ago. The long boats are 50' and need a bit of wrangling going through the locks. If you've got'em in the middle you can't go wrong.
We had a lovely trip down here in broad daylight. I began the log at 0500 ahead of retrieving the anchor. We were motoring out of Bunbury harbour by 0530 and out to sea in a divine ENE  15-20 kn breeze. The angle suited our boat perfectly and it wasn't too long before were were striding out averaging 6.5 knots (which included plenty of 8.2's BTW - whoopity doo!). We logged on with ACRM base at 0705 when they announced that they were open for business and logged off again at 1020. Richard and Rae who normally monitor ACRM base weren't on station today. A younger voice was cheerily taking all the logons.
We'd love to meet Richard and Rae from ACRM Base. They are the voice of the SW, their radio base is in Capel and through repeaters we have occasionally heard them as far as Rottnest. Their service to the marine community had rightly been acknowledged with an Order of Australia. They are real characters and always welcome back the voices and boat names that they recognise - even if they haven't heard of them since the previous summer. Bless you both!
On one of our return trips from Quindalup, we stopped in at Bunbury and urgently needed to contact ACRM (Richard and Rae) because a large vessel (not a yacht) moored in Koombana Bay was dragging anchor and was headed for the shipping channel! The Bloke was dispatched in the dinghy to see if he could get a better look at the reg number/boat name so ACRM could attempt to contact the skipper. The Bloke also took a hammer to knock against the hull in case someone was asleep on board. It turned out that the skipper was indeed on board. He had to be woken by a young boy who responded to the Bloke with a lot of "Duh" type utterances but reluctantly got his Dad anyway. When "the Dad" emerged he was "inked" top to toe and sported a matching navy chesty bond singlet (how better to display one's magnificence) and needed to have his predicament explained to him several times. Each time in English using shorter and preferably monosyllabic words. Emergency averted: message communicated: the Bloke returned to Zofia shaking his head. In the time he'd gone, Rae had called me on the phone as we needed a more private conversation than being broadcast to the world on Chanel 80. "Your hubby didn't go aboard the "XXXXX" I hope?" inquired Rae. "I've been in touch with the police and the skipper is a person of interest and should under no circumstances be approached." Great advice, but the Bloke had already sped read the message that the person of interest telegraphed all over his flesh and made a strategic retreat all of his own. Good Blokes'll do that!
So here we are in Busselton again. We'll have a meal with our "in spirit" Bight crossing crew tonight - another 25NM of our journey having been ticked off!
Cheers

Gourmet farewell luncheon on Easy Tiger yesterday prepared by Leanne

Wednesday night twilight racing in Bunbury harbour. We counted a fleet of 23!! Go, KBYC!

Shakedown French Connection

The old 'Shakedown' cruise is always a winner for testing systems. Ours has conveniently been from Mandurah to Bunbury. Since Bunbury is supposed to be WA's 2nd biggest town and the regional centre for the SW, it's quite a good place to do your shakedown cruise and shakedown the bank account while you're at it. More shopping of course.
The naughty outboard motor is now sporting a new propeller. The service job by 'Mr Happy' in Mandurah failed to detect that we had a prop spin issue. Luckily for us we did the troubleshooting of this issue here and not in some remote location AND the local businesses are very pragmatic and happy to help. The spare part/s were available in multiples in Sydney but were 4 days away. No matter for the sales team down here....They had a whole motor on the showroom floor; they stripped off the propeller unit rather than see a $250 sale walk out the door and ordered a replacement so that they can sell the whole unit complete with replacement part on the week-end! I suspect that would NEVER have happened in Perth or Mandurah. (No spare part? That will be 4 days + xxx$'s cha-ching....eat it up Princess!) Rural people are such problem solvers and certainly CAN be bothered!
Love you Bunbury!
For the last 4 years we've done a chunk of our Xmas shopping here! Easy access to everything, relaxed and friendly pace. A very nice educational toy shop too with incredibly knowledgeable staff. You'd hardly guess I'm a Nanna would you? We have made an annual trip to spectate at the December Busselton Ironman event in support of #1 son. The Pt Geographe Marina is almost a part of the cycle leg. We have always stopped in Bunbury on the way. In fact our very first BIG adventure was to Bunbury en route to Busselton. It was a big step since we'd had Zofia for 6 months and still had not reached the James Service Reef cardinal marker just 5NM due west of the Mandurah Marina. What must have the Mandurah Water Rescue radio operators have thought of us up in their control tower when Delta November Zero Six Zero radioed in AGAIN to say they were headed in the direction of the James Service Reef? We still joke about the cardinal marker being a hell of a way away... it takes 6 months to get there in fact!
In a way it's quite appropriate therefore for us to begin our trip in Bunbury. This time I wasn't sea sick all the way and the auto-helm was well and truly used unlike that first trip. We also know to anchor in Koombana Bay instead of tying up at the jetty of perpetual light (the  DPI refueling jetty)!

There is a nice statue of Captain Nicolas Baudin near the Dome Cafe in Bunbury. The French really explored these parts quite a bit ahead of the British and didn't claim it for themselves. My reading of 'France Australie' by local author Leslie Marchant suggests that the French Revolution and The Enlightenment had a colossal impact on the exploration conducted by the French and how they managed their colonisation too. The British had a different approach and appear to have just claimed everything for themselves and didn't care so much if the land could support their colonists. In any event, the south coast here (in particular) is blanketed with references to the French and their boats 'Geographe', 'L'Esperance' etc...Molly Bussel of 'Busselton' fame came way later, most of the mapping was done by Baudin and his early expedition.  So here he is... and we salute you in our French plastic fantastic Jeanneau too!

Bust of Capt'n Nicolas Baudin overlooking Koombana Bay, Bunbury, WA.

If you can, enlarge this image and read all the places that the French have left their mark, you might be quite surprised!

Chill out or melt down

Action Bloke

Getting into the groove of life on the boat is quite a binary thing. It's going great or it's not. From my point of view what could be wrong with lunch ashore with brother and sister-in-law on Monday and again on Tuesday with our friends Lee and Ian who drove down from Mandurah. Wednesday saw us blow the budget completely by going ashore AGAIN and having a counter tea at the Koombana Bay Sailing Club on their twilight sailing night by way reciprocation for the use of their shower/toilet facilities. Always welcoming of visitors/travelers so make sure you check the club out if you're down this way. The Bloke, as you can see from the photo below seems to be having a nice time too on the town beach playing beach volleyball with "the boys". Now that's a cool dude!
All sounds pretty chilled out but what about the fridge? That is the chilled out that is almost as important; no wait, is more important! It's all about the beer and the cold GT at 5ers!
The Bloke lost his cool this morning. Inexplicably the fridge fan kept running all night and the compressor was failing to kick in. Temperature rising, rising, rising and that's not just the fridge I'm talking about. Must be a fever; delirious moaning emanating from the saloon. It would surely explain why the Bloke was up again for half a night. Something about the Amps: Voltage lower than expected seeing as we'd had the generator on, not 12 hours before. How can a girl sleep? 
Grumph and more old mans noises. The panels are off, electrical tool box removed from the lazarette above my head, screw drivers, electrical spares assembled at the ready. Various hypotheses proposed. "If I do this, then ..... X should happen", tinker, tinker... etc, etc. Sounded more of a plea bargain to Neptune to me. Still no improvement. Mystery 2 Amps being sucked from somewhere. The Amp Nazi now in sniffer dog mode. AHA! Culprit found. I'd left my new little vacuum on charge (in the front cabin out of view - a story for another day). Ooops - urgently calling for tips on how to re-ingratiate myself.
The generator is now on and purring away at 80dB. A mystery solved. The fridge grateful of the extra Voltage is now chilled down as is the Bloke. Satisfied that he has conquered and averted a disaster he is now at peace with the world and fast asleep with the generator right above him. It is ON so he can be OFF!

Playing with the boys!

More chain = more sleep

We are by now catching our breath after the flurry surrounding departure.Where did 5 days just disappear?
Our first night was a lesson in anchoring procedure and why it's important not to be distracted by waiting friends.
We carefully selected our anchoring site avoiding the skull and crossbones marker we'd placed on our chartplotter from a previous encounter with the rocks that "categorically do not exist in in Koombana Bay". We know better because we found them. And (for the r ecord)not just one when we were here 2 years ago for Australia Day fireworks. The Bloke saw fireworks of an entirely different sort then!

When I have a mo I'll publish the Lat/Long for YOUR records so you don't have the same 'excitement' if you come here.

Anyway, we anchored in 4m in a light sea breeze and deployed the anchor buoy as well in case we were real rock magnets and needed help to retrieve the anchor. Job done! Beer O'Clock! We retired early feeling secure in a known anchorage. Then the wind swung and to the North which is rare enough and picked up so that the effect was quite jolly. Think chips jostling in a fryer and that was us in the bunk! Suddenly we were on a lee shore with the fetch picking up across the harbour and creating almost surfable waves to what was no longer a distant shore!
The Bloke was up in a flash and on Anchor watch! In a sleepy paralysis my mind calculated and recalculated the anchor chain multiplier. Was it enough? We have new chain and a new swivel fitting for the anchor. How would it perform? Would the locktite secure all the moving parts?- a bit nervous about high tech adhesives Vs the trusty physical mousing wire. Would the anchor buoy lift and displace the anchor if the lead was (or became) too short for the water depth now that there was a 1m chop? OMG ....was the chain enough.....enough......enough?
There is only one solution for all this alarm - put out more chain and sleep well! We had after all, just replaced 40m with 60m and the saying goes "Chain is no good in the locker"!
On Sunday we deployed more chain!
We can see where the anchor is because of the buoy and most of the time it's not in line with the boat and the wind at all which means the chain is doing a grand job and not worrying the anchor at all. Our only fear now is that the Bunbury locals might mistake the buoy for someone's crab pot buoy. It's game on down here. See a pot and raid it--- no matter that it's not yours! So just do as the locals do and adopt a 'Penguin pose' and  SMILE N' WAVE!!

Leg 1 - On the way

Someone has to do all the work.

Finally we threw off the ropes and headed to sea.  We left Mandurah at 5 am and set a course for Bunbury. Six hours of sailing and three hours of motoring later we arrived. On passage we saw many dolphins, drank heaps of tea and ate Mum's corned beef. Life just does not get better than this. It was all a bit of a blur as the hectic preparation finally took it's toll. We are wrecked, no not the boat - just us, we are wrecked. We plan to sleep and cuddle a lot; renew the bonds of friendship and increase our human water levels.


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At 0500 Sat 16th Nov we handed our mooring lines to the crew of Urchin and of Spinifex, then we were whistled off enthusiastically by B1. WEEEEEOOOO! WEEEEOOOO! Phew!

Can't believe we F I N A L L Y  did it!

The cast of Deliverance who occasionally occupied the houseboat in the adjacent pen must have got a shock at that hour. WEEEEEOOOO! WEEEEOOOO! WEEEEEOOOO! WEEEEOOOO! We certainly won't miss the sound of the sacks of ice and clanking of cases of beer that heralded their arrival every couple of weeks as they settled in to constructively utilise their leisure time every FIFO swing. It was always the overture to 48 hours of loud music, hacking coughing, guffawing laughter and animated eloquence "F" style!   F*&@ being the noun, verb, adjective and pronoun of choice... until inevitably they all passed out. Always just a matter of time really and luckily for us, they passed out by 10:30 pm on Friday night so we could get a bit of rest before setting off!

The day was quite benign with a gentle easterly ready to push us down the coast while we were heady with delight and amazement that we had got to this point. Thank you Neptune, we did need that! I was highly emotional for half the day while the Bloke, in King Julien character (AKA Madagascar), sang "You gotta Move It! Move It" to cheer me up.

The inevitable wind shift on the way to Bunbury was not for the usual block buster SW'ly sea breeze but for no wind at all so the Iron Donkey got us there in the end. We decided that the current although still sucking us along at 2-3 knots, was going to make the day too long.

A day of Firsts to follow the day of lasts! First cray pots (avoided), first dolphins, first flying fish, first Cape  (even if it was just Cape Bouvard); first fishing boat anchored on our pre-planned autopilot GoTo Waypoint (how do they always know we are coming!); first Seal which greeted us at the leads into Bunbury Harbour! A Diamond day to begin an adventure.

We are hoping that Urchin will 'Move it- Move it' too and get here ASAP. They are a part of this plan too.

Spashdown and countdown

The Mandurah shuttle is still in operation although not for much longer.
Zofia is now on the hardstand and we were thrilled that the engine was serviced the same day she went up. That leaves the polishing and anti-fouling work. This year the antifouling work will be a bigger job since we have a bit of plaque near the waterline. It would be great if Rob can get that sorted on Monday/ Tuesday. We've already missed the lovely easterlies for this week and Easy Tiger left today for Bunbury in the wee hours to use the last of the easterly flow. The Bloke is getting very twitchy now with multiple daily Predictwind logins and wagging a finger accompanied with exclamations of "Oh! Look. Look!" in reference to the easterly wind pattern which we are missing. To be sure it will come again and hopefully we'll have got it all done and it will be our time to cast off and turn south.
The Bloke got inspired with the canvass renewal and thought 'in for a penny, in for a pound' forgetting of course that Zofia is a boat and there ain't no such thing as a penny when it comes to boats. So another thousand it will be. Anyway the girl is being dressed up and we now have pockets! The noodle on the stern life lines installed so that the Bloke can lean out in comfort is now encased and supports 2 nice pockets for our jib sheets. Since adding the inner forestay there has been an extra rope lying about since the winch can only hold one. A nice result as everything is now tucked away neatly allowing even for the comfort of a water bottle to be close to hand. Oddly, the French forgot cup/bottle/can/wineglass holders at the helm station! Our solution will do nicely. Anyway, the canvass winch top hat can sit more snugly too when we are in port (oops, another drinking reference!).
Now that Easy Tiger has left we feel that progress has stalled to a glacial pace but we do have the sails back now and the canvass parts are arriving element by element and stud by stud (why Danny the Dane doesn't have a pocket full of the things is a mystery. Seems inefficient to keep returning to the workshop just to return with 2 more!). The crew of Urchin face a much bigger task - replacing a motor!
On the upside we can have had a few more evenings at the  Kardinya Hilton and a few more farewell wines or three...hic!

Does my bum look big in this tammy lift?

The girl was splashed in on Wednesday so we've been in overdrive! Wash down the dust and grime from 5 days on a dusty and very windy hardstand, attach the sails, fill water tanks, get smartened up, wash everything, charge up everything, deliver car back to Perth and clean it.....more lists.
The poor car has performed like a ute despite being a hatch and certainly couldn't be left as it was if we expected anyone to turn over the motor from time to time. Besides, if left as was, it would probably give us nasty flashbacks when we return for visits.
Mood swings? Did we mention the mood swings? Will we ever get all this stuff to a resolution and be gone? 6 weeks ago, of our fleet of 3 boats we would all have agreed that we alone could have left if we wanted as all was pretty much ship shape and ready, the Bloke's planning and efforts in preceding months a triumph of project management! Suddenly, the sails are down, the canvass off: naked really, and our lift delayed 10 days! Finding it hard to engage with the conversations that start with "Oh we thought you had gone already" or the "When exactly are you leaving?" Mmmmm. Can't wait to say "thanks for everything, goodbye and hope we don't need to see you again ....(for a while anyway)". .... meant in the nicest possible way of course. So we are looking forward to a flood of "Lasts" including last visit to the Chandler (sorry Andy), drives to Perth and back and most of all last drinks!

So on the verge of departure we have a few thanks, in particular:

• The Manager of the Kardinya Hilton for all the love, support, care and assistance in getting our dream to fruition even if it meant sacrificing a couple of hundred Mummy Monday's
• Viv, Emma, Lucas, Amy and the littlies for hopefully forgiving us for buggering off
• Roger and Jill for offering to store our "stuff". We are optimistic that the Floreat winebottle borer beetle might leave us a few nips to share when on shore leave
• Roger again for weather advice 
• Keith for offering to sail The Bight with us when everyone else said they had to stay home and wash the cat
• Andy and Bek at Hardware for Boats Mandurah for always getting stuff in for us
• Big Dave at Diesel Marine Maintenance for keeping our Yanmar in good nick and for teaching us how to look after our Iron Donkey. His tips on his website are excellent too - see www.dieselmarinemandurah.com.au
• Noelene at the Mardurah Marina for being a great host/landlady for us and Zofia for 5 1/2 years
• Andrew and Carolyn Bellamy and the beautiful Revision II for inspiration and encouragement - our mentors! Same goes to Missie, Paul, Tim & Ben from Wendera
• Dale, Catherine and Oceana our best ever marina pen pals on Georgia 
• Claire who took off in her winebago 2 years ago. A pathfinder!
• Scott Olney from Liquid Leisure who made sure we had all the right Musto kit to keep us dry, warm and comfortable. The Dubarry shoes are winners too BTW.
• All the jetty rats past and present for stories and dreaming times
• Lastly but not least, B1 and Maree from Urchin and Leanne and Steve from Easy Tiger for wanting to share this journey. OK guys, let's just do it!

Zofia said "aaaah" as she was eased back into the water. Note sun shades and pockets. Gotta love the bling!