Many hands

When we were in Albany, B5's wife Maxine, advised we girls that she had found Sturgeron to be the best sea sickness medication she'd used during their cruising years.  This confirmed what we had heard from other sources. Our mission was to get our hands on same!

On 6th January, I'd made an online order. 9 packets of 15 pills. 3 packets each. That should keep us topside, vertical and awake for whatever weather we encountered. We all lamented how Kwells and Travel Calm, even when taken in fractions, made us drowsy. A full pill knocked us out cold. This Sturgeron sounded like the stuff we'd need. It was less urgent for me as I'd been given some US equivalent (even better reportedly) by Andrew and Carolyn as a farewell gift. Sweet, but after 10 days and the tube empty... then what?

So the order was placed and better still, it happened to be 'on sale' at the time from the on-line chemist, so for the princely sum of $45.23 we would be saved from Mal De Mer! I gave the Esperance PO as the delivery address. We'd be there in a week or so. TICK job sorted.

We spent 12 days in Esperance. Visits  every other day to the PO to claim our parcel gave way to phone calls. Still nothing. We left without any clear plan what to do if it arrived after we left. I consoled the girls that I'd share my 10 pills of the good US stuff for the Bight crossing. At least this was a 'Plan B'. In the meantime I was looking at the mail tracking site - the trail went cold on 8/1/2014 with the parcel apparently at the overseas handling facility. The message never updated. A check of the website said it should arrive inside 15 days and in any event not to bother the company until 20 days had elapsed. I would need to contact PayPal within 28. Dark thoughts.  Clock ticking, the Esperance Big Ben a reminder each day DONG, DING, DONG.

We left for The Duke of Orleans Bay on Australia Day. That was day 20. I decided to wait until after the long weekend, just maybe the 3 day long weekend might give enough extra time for the package to arrive. Still no plan as to what to do if it had arrived. Package in Esperance, sailors at The Duke -LOL!

The phone call made on Wednesday 29th revealed the package had arrived only that day. I told the PO person how pleased I was because this contained seasickness medication for our Bight crossing. I'd have to get back to them with a method of collection. Did they have any suggestions? No. Leanne, by this time very motivated, had sensibly phoned the caravan park to ask if they could receive mail items for us in their mail bag. Another call to the PO to request if the package could please be delivered via 'The Duke Caravan Park' mail bag was met with proper procedure and protocol. Did it need to be signed for? No. Well that was something. It would technically be a redirection the voice said flatly. Great! What is the cost? Can I pay by card? Well no, we don't have that facility. Can I pay at collection? No. But it's our seasickness stuff! It was 4:55 pm. Home time 5:00 pm. A conundrum. Two brains at each end of the call thinking "What to do? What to do?". The result "Mmmm oh oh ummmmm I'm putting it in the bag now, OK".

THANK YOU! THANK YOU! THANK YOU!

This is what all the fuss has been about.

A UK on-line site, handled by an Indian name and poststamped Malmo, Sweden. Our small world.

I was told later by Wendy, one of The Duke's owners, that the plan nearly got unstuck at the 11th hour. The vehicle that is used daily to go into Esperance for the mail etc.. broke down on the way and except for the fact that they knew about our package they would have skipped the collection for the day! The kindness of strangers is shown in multiple ways every day!

Running out of water

"Get up quick, it reads ZERO beneath our keel!" bellowed the Bloke. Not a cup of tea in sight. This must be serious. We knew when we anchored on Australia Day (Sunday) that the forecast for Thursday with a NE morning breeze would coincide with an especially low tide meaning that we would swing into shallower water towards the beach. Scrambling topside, the morning beach profile rendering up its weed beds and a small boat mooring now at rest on a cushion of seaweed said it all - A Very Low Tide! Wowsers!

We don't talk about the weather to pass the time and after almost 37 years together we hardly have a need for small talk but we talk about the weather all the time now. We'd discussed our options for when the wind swung to the NE because this is the wrong anchorage for a Northerly or North East wind. It would put us on a lee shore AND not give any protection. There would be plenty of fetch from across the bay. To top it off  we'd swing into the shallows: and now we had. We were out of water beneath our keel. In the words of King Julian of Madagascar it was time to 'move it, move it'!!

In case you're wondering why we didn't anchor in deeper water in the first instance, the answer is the the blue spot. Our marine sweet spot equivalent. The holding on weed is very iffy and we'd located a blue spot indicating a small sandy patch ... anchoring nirvana. There were not many blue spots to choose from and annoyingly the best and biggest happened to be near a couple of half abandoned looking trawler-like boats. Think -African Queen. They were too close to these floating obstacles to be useful. Darn. As it was, we hardly knew what the cats would do when they anchored as we seemed to have taken the biggest available sand patch. Our 'blue spot' would do nicely for 4 nights in any case, so we grabbed it while the going was good.

Moored on a blue spot and too close to another one. MV Passport AKA The African Queen. Tabletop Is visible at the back

The depth gauge screamed "Your time is up"! I heard the Bloke sigh with relief over the headsets once I'd confirmed that the anchor was up. We were free. Time to go to a new neighbourhood while we contemplated the next jump to Middle Island.

Urchin had given up on Nares Island the night before. We'd had a boisterous afternoon with strongish wind in the East also delivering an uncomfortable fetch. Messages bounced around the anchored boats. "How are you coping over there?". Tucked up closer to the Island than the others and not having an anchor drag during the preceding days made us feel 'not too bad'. At dusk Urchin suddenly dragged (as you do) and had had enough. They made a bolt across the bay to anchor up in the lee of Tabletop Island, just the spot to hide from the Thursday Northeasterly.  Brrrrooom, brrrrooom, brrrrooom. We motored across for shelter and more water under our keel.

What a pretty spot! No sign of blue spots though. The anchor would have to go down in the ribbon weed. It seemed OK. We did our due diligence. Found objects on the shore to line up on, set the anchor watch program etc... Once settled I persuaded the Bloke that sleep was essential and I could be trusted to call him if needed.

Tabletop Island isn't actually totally disconnected from the shore. There is a sand bar that can be traversed enabling people to wade across in calf deep water and climb up the Island which is a bit like a mini Ayres Rock. A lovely aspect with the white sand, azure water over the sand and partly vegetated reddish rock wall and the sun was shining. What could go wrong? Altogether a better combo than the preceding day. Easy Tiger came across too and anchored once, twice, three times at least before settling for the morning.

With 2 other boats nicely aligned closer to the shore, I had a good indication which way we should be swinging. But not us. We were on a merry-go-round. Bullets of wind were snatching at us from either side of the giant rock and swells were curling around to pat us in opposing directions. The presence of the sand bar created something of an eddy and we were caught in it. So round and round we went. I was feeling giddy. This is a screen shot of our track. Nice donut!

Anchor icon is in the middle and the blue spot is the boat. Dotted line is the boat track. A bit twirly.

By late afternoon we'd had enough twirling. Nares Island was by this time going to offer some protection again. Time to 'move it, move it' through the swell  in search of our blue spot which by now would have enough water around it. The anchor was landed plumb in the middle and we had a lovely night.

What a difference a day makes

The Duke glassed off overnight. What a relief to be perfectly still after 12 days in THAT PEN!!

All the farmers antics from Australia Day were not to be repeated on the Monday holiday. It stayed like this ALL DAY.

Mt Belches, well maybe.

Anchor inspection was hardly a problem. The Bloke paddled us around for the assessment. We gave ourselves and Urchin 10/10 for having the flukes properly buried in sand. Easy Tiger only had one fluke dug in. a points deduction that encouraged them to try again in calm conditions. They couldn't nail the sand and eventually picked it up by hand and dropped it onto a sand patch and then reversed engines on FULL. Yank! Job done!

A passing professional fisherman reckons that if we've found the sand we'll have trouble getting the anchors up..... we don't have a problem with that! Sounds like a good night's sleep to us!

We have added an iPad App to our anchoring armory. It's just called ANCHOR. It's not particularly elegant in design (we have a professional view of this of course) but it does allow the iPad to keep a GPS fix on the notional anchor location and you can set your own perimeter. It sounds a klaxon alarm if the perimeter is breached.  It works very well and only cost us $1,000.99.  $1,000 for the new iPad air which has GPS in it and 0.99c for the App! Esperance businesses turnover is about to tank now that we've left.

Passaging to Duke of Orleans Bay

This post confirms several bars being available at The Duke. It's a bit variable but phone and internet are here. This alone warrants a high score as an anchorage.

We left in mild conditions, so mild in fact that Zofia slid out of the pen. I had to hold her in until the Bloke was ready! All that obsessing only confirms the Bloke as a candidate for a psychiatric couch. His plan came together and we came out with our glossy selves intact. Job well done.

Sunrise over Esperance Bay.

Shipping waiting in the outer anchorage at dawn. One huge tanker left at 10 pm the previous night to be replaced at 11pm with another red dust monster!

We met up in Esperance Bay as if in a choreographed dance the timing was so good. We got going. The breeze picked up as we headed out towards O'Briens, New Island Bay, Woody Island, Lucky Bay.... all the names that we'd been given to visit. Alas a visit to any would need to be for 1 week before another suitable wind window would open up.

Rendezvous at dawn

Wind in our sails. Excellent!

The cats following

Conditions became quite willing for a time. We were on the trough line bus after all. At one stage the Cats disappeared in a squall between a couple of islands. Strangely we missed it all together. We would have loved some of that rain to take that iron ore dusting off our rigging. We decided to hoist our little high cut #3, the sail that Buggsy from Avalaon Sails made us. It was just the thing as it gave us maneuverability without the cost of rounding up. Occasionally we had to motor but this just caused us to cross the trough line again - we seemed to be perfectly synchronised.

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Another Island. They are everywhere. No wonder they say not to travel at night!

How to cope with stupid O'Clock starts

Weird headland

Marbles anyone?

Eye Spy

It was agreed, too much time spent on board was not a good thing and exploring the hinterland was our next team agenda. EBYC members had recommended having a look around. The Western Australian Cruising guide also sings to the charms of the area. Additionally, what were all those people doing and looking at here?

Saturday 25th Jan, 2014. The farmers are a coordinated lot. All the boys toys were on show. Sea Doos towing tandem waterskiers or donuts, quad bikes, trail bikes. ..you name it! By 5pm it was all over. Aahhh the serenity!

As usual B1 would stand watch over Urchin and the other boats while we rambled about the headlands. B1 also goes by another alias - 'Barnacle Brian'.....do not jump to conclusions.

Maree put her mountain walking apparel from her trip to Nepal to good use. The Bloke wore some workwear Blundies which eventually ate his feet and made him grumpy. Not in the same league really.

We'll let the pictures do the talking. I found lots of flowering plants in the heathland to admire,  so with a combination of the spectacular views and the flowers too it was a beautiful way of working up an appetite. Eating a hearty breakfast soon took the Bloke's mind off his chopped up toes.

Pssst... on my signal... scarper!

Not sure if I will.

Fool on a hill

I would notice if there was a Noah... wouldn't I? Surfer left this beach last year minus one leg.

More islands to come

Doh! Don't look down.

So many statements of the bl....ing obvious!

I'm going up there! Yes I am, don't think you can stop me.

Leanne gives some scale to the little cairn

Maree wishing B1 was here

What is it with the urge to build these things?

The Bloke discusses Mt Belches but we didn't climb that hill

What the rock looks like - really quite flakey

The following images are of the flora that caught my eye. The heathland was really very colourfull.