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!