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
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| Gourmet farewell luncheon on Easy Tiger yesterday prepared by Leanne |
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| Wednesday night twilight racing in Bunbury harbour. We counted a fleet of 23!! Go, KBYC! |
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