Thinking about the The Great Australian Bight

We are sitting on the edge of our most exciting sailing adventure to date. Exciting in two ways. Firstly, because crossing the Great Australian Bight will represent our longest continuous passage and secondly, because we will most probably NEVER do this again. We are not coming back this way again!

For some sailors this excitement has faded and they would question what is the 'Big Deal'. Esperance sailors for example, cross the Bight for Christmas and delivery skippers like John Sanders, use this as a freeway, passaging backwards and forwards all the time. For us however, this is a 'Big Deal' and as such we have approached it in the most thoughtful way we could.

In the past few years I would have read 50 or more descriptions of 'Bight crossings' and watched numerous videos of this event. The descriptions vary from placid and becalmed

Mid-Bight 2013 (Image taken from 'Science Under Sail')

to horrendous tales of survival. What we are trying to do is cross on the pleasant end of this scale. It is our desire to sail across, motoring only if necessary.

To minimize the difficulty we have firstly chosen the shortest route. We will sail from Middle Island to Streaky Bay. Secondly, we have prepared the boat as best we can. Testing its ability with short controlled cruises, provisioning the boat with fuel, water and pre-prepared food and assembling good access to the internet and weather forecasting with applications like PredictWind. Thirdly, we have prepared ourselves for the worst possible conditions by purchasing the best ocean cruising equipment. We both have Musto HPX ocean sailing gear with thermal under-layers and fleece tops, gloves and balaclavas. We both have personal epirbs and always wear life jackets and we hook in at night and when on open water. Finally, we choose to stay at Duke of Orleans Bay for a extended period while waiting to cross to Middle Island. This has given us access to fuel (diesel and ULP), gas, water, internet, phone, minor hardware supplies and basic provisions such a bread and milk. By doing this we were able to leave for Middle Island with a fully provisioned vessel.

Most importantly we have waited, not rushing but biding our time to try and select the best possible weather window to cross at this time of the year. During this hiatus we have instigated a watch program that we hope to use during the 4-5 day crossing. For us, it involves eating an evening meal together by approximately 16:00 and then I retire to sleep. At 01:00 Eva wakes me with coffee and then she retires until 08:00 or 09:00. During my watch I eat and drink so when it is time to wake Eva I prepare her breakfast and once she is on deck I retire for a further 3 hours, waking for lunch. We then share the duties on an ad hoc basis until the evening meal commences the cycle again. During this preparation phase I reduced my alcohol consumption to 1 pre-dinner beer and during the passage there will be no beer at all. Eva did not need to adopt any reduction because she is a much more responsible drinker. I think some rules may be broken when we reach Streaky Bay however!!

So our Great Australian Bight  crossing is an exciting adventure for us, and we hope it all goes well. Only time will tell and if it does not, I have no doubt we will survive, even if a little wiser and a little more grey round the temples.