Leg 21 - Farewell to The Great Australian Bight

Today 18th March, 2014 is we hope, our last day in The Great Australian Bight so I've decided to record it in more detail.

An almost stupid o'clock start. 0700 sun not yet risen but the moon still in evidence. A low mist draped the landscape. The sea's been quite oily, the color of mercury with big rolly swells up to 3m. It's trying to rain or is it that we are in the cloud? We are escorted out of Misery Cove by dolphins and the sea birds on their way out to sea for the day.

Point Avoid revealed today why it got its name. A group of shoals, reefs and islets extend seawards from the point. Had we not been traveling in company with Midnight Blue and have access to their local knowledge our waypoints would have taken us wide of Price Island. As it was, it was eyes-up to visually check for the breaking reef half way across the channel. All we could see was white capped swells filling the gap. We slowed down and consulted Midnight Blue on VHF81. Staying on the Price Island side was the advice. Super. Let's hug a rock with foaming skirting reefs. With slitty, squinted eyes we discerned that the foam on top of the swells was just spume being carried on the current across the channel. Nothing for the Bloke to stress about at all. Phew.

No need for a closer look - rocks for sure!

No blue sky until 0930. It would be nice if the sun stayed. Dark heavy draping clouds hang over the mainland cliffs. The wind farm that is now emerging on the headland won't  be earning its keep today. The turbines are not shifting and the blades on each tower at different angles almost look despondent. Their sentinel presence looking out into The Great Australian Bight disclosed by occasional flashes. The headland looks like it's pulsing. We suspect that this is a rare windless day and they are generally near lifting their foundations.

Out of luck wind farm - No wind today

This will be another motoring day. Midnight Blue looks like its being lifted up and down on a fork-lift. One moment it's just a mast and then the boom, coach roof and hulls appear before sinking again behind the next swell. It's meant to come up a bit in the middle of the day before declining. Definitely 4m by now.

When there's not much going on, thoughts of food surface. The Bloke has remembered the 1/2 doz little sausage rolls I set aside for this passage from Sunday night's catering. Ooh yeh, sausage rolls. Gotta have 'em. Once warmed up they were gobbled up. The Bloke, was so relieved I didn't want to share. I was more keen to crunch down some ginger nut biscuits which I'm convinced are having rather a good anti-emetic effect and without the negatives of a cacky mouth and sleepiness. Sated, the Bloke chose to come off watch for a little lie down (LLD). Didn't  last long though, I made a sudden movement when I detected some cray pots on a lifting swell. All eyes UP, red alert. There were no more that we could see in the troughs or on the crests of the moving sea. Relax again.

The local VMR is good. Cherise from Wild Honey raved about Garry the Tumby Bay operator and not without reason. We'd logged on and off the day before. When logging off at Sensation Beach he said that he'd be on station at 0745 to deliver the weather forecast. And he was. As soon as that was delivered he called out for each of the boats on his log. We of course recognized Midnight Blue, we were traveling with them but we also recognized Fat Albert. It was on a list sent by Ken Hill to keep an eye out for. Can you believe it, yet another Cat! We are beginning to feel lonely or under hulled!  Easy Tiger and Zofia were included in the roll call. Easy Tiger was a 'nothing heard'. Urchin obviously hadn't logged in on 81. A short time later we heard Easy Tiger calling for Urchin on 81. Tumby Bay got excited too and tried Easy Tiger again but they must have been out of range for Garry. He's based in Spencer Gulf. Knowing the cats would be near Flinders Is. and that Easy Tiger should have coverage, we sent a txt for their position. They gave us Urchin's which we then relayed onwards. Urchin is not appearing on AIS. Must contact 'Is it on Maree'. It's ON apparently only it's not visible. Does that mean its actually not working again?

We ponder how Wild Honey are going. They are nearly 24 hrs into their Bight Crossing. At 48' they should gobble up the sea miles and even if they do have to motor, conditions should be mild enough. They were certainly out of range of VHF81 at roll call this morning.

We have made another course adjustment to go inside Cape Rock. It's great traveling with Midnight Blue and being guided the quickest way out of The Bight. Hurrah!  We've never really come this close to 'obstacles' and there was a huge area of spume like a carpet which then broke up like floating alphabet spaghetti. We are also headed inside Linguanea Is. at Cape Carnot. We can expect some current. The sea is shiny again it's so windless and those useless, ugly wind turbines continue to slouch and sag. Some of the swells are pushing up the cliff faces trying to lick their feet but they remain still.

This same stand of turbines is visible from Port Lincoln on eastern side of Eyre Peninsula

Spume carpet

Spume splitting up into alphabet noodles

Linguanea Island

The seas are a mess. I'm not just referring to the noticeable clumps of weed floating on the surface. The swells have broken up an seem to be coming from all directions. Agh the Cape effect! The Bloke, sensing that Austin (the autopilot) is overworking has elected to hand steer. This is a cape followed by a second one - Cape Wiles. It's foaming skirt is beginning to emerge as we round the point.

Cape Wiles looking menacing

This would be horrendous in heavy conditions. How lucky they are mild today. Easily the equivalent of our Leeuwin. No wonder there are so few cruisers on the west Coast of SA. If there was once some limestone on the granite base rock, it's been thoroughly licked clean from what we can see through the spray and mist. There is definitely some current too.

1205 the sea has relaxed. Cape Carnot has released us from its maw. We are in the Southern Ocean but no longer in The Great Australian Bight. Only 16 nm left to Williams Island and we feel that the current is behind us. Could be on anchor in just 3 hrs at an anchorage the Bloke has been looking at, with fascination, for some 3 years. So odd. Carpets of spume are drifting about being blown towards the capes from all the commotion on the rims of Linguanea Is. Cape Wiles sticks out like a decayed and shattered molar; dark and gothic. Gosh we are lucky for the conditions. The sun has come out.

Midnight Blue also motoring, checking a 'steaming' motor while rounding Cape Catastrophe. Thistle Is. in the background

Midnight Blue has been in contact and is pleased with progress and reports that the tidal race through Thorny Passage is favorable for a Cape Catastrophe transit. They propose skipping Williams Is. and proceeding to Snug Cove on Thistle Is. extending today's run by 1 1/2 hrs. The Bloke lifted his head from the day couch and gave the thumbs up... Imagine that, Thistle Is. just spitting distance from Port Lincoln - they day has got even better.

Wind is still struggling to crack 5knots. Luckily our sports cruiser, with optional sails, is striding out at  7 - 7.5 knots!

Excitement. The sea state has gone to shit. The swells are bouncing back off the headlands and then meeting the oncoming swells. This is just like Steep Pt at Shark Bay. We've seen our fist fishing trawler out of Port Lincoln too. Just to give us a smile we've also seen two seals swimming as a pair, leaping through the air like dolphins. Lots more firsts for us today.

Definitely would not like to visit this track in anything but theses light conditions. Wind now 8-10kn. Bloke says chop coming at you from 10 directions. Suddenly it stops as we get into the lee of Williams Is. As we pass it, we are thinking out loud that the conditions would need to be awful to make the anchorage at Williams Is. look good! There are spume carpets strewn all over the place. Their existence spell out how vigorous the fight between competing elements.

Long trails of spume floating on the water

We've ceremonially un-clipped our harnesses. We are now in protected waters. We'll probably clip up again though. Midnight Blue are ahead of us now, the Bloke deferring to the certainty that Ian has tracked through here before. I mention to the bloke we should pull off a little. Midnight Blue's crew look like they are trawling. Do we think we should too? Nagh.. Enough excitement for one day.

Cape Catastrophe, despite its name, was pretty tame today as compared with Carnot and Wiles. The lee side of the headland looks all soft and thickly vegetated. No brutal winds this side stamping their mark.

The lee side of Cape Catastrophe is less battered

Ian from Midnight Blue has excellent judgement and the tidal race, while evident, was not vicious as we went through Thorny Passage. Caution is required here as you can often encounter wind against tide. Enter only at slack or ingoing tide. Lucky us...again!

So we are now parked up at Snug Cove at the NW end of Thistle Island. Tomorrow will see us traverse another 16nm and pull into Port Lincoln. WOW. To celebrate we've had a couple of beers, some bubbles and 1 1/2 doz Coffin Bay Oysters that we've saved for the occasion. An improvement on the extra ration of rum suggested by Dr John!

The Bloke begging me to sit down and celebrate

Job done. The anchor is, we think, in a bed of sand, 40m of chain dragging about on the sea floor and defying the current. The swell is dropping, the breeze is settling and the sun has set over land. We'll enjoy getting accustomed to that - sunset over land, not the ocean.

Happy sailing 'numpties' make it across The Great Australian Bight

Good-night everyone, a sound and satisfied sleep beckons. 

Looking back at Williams Island

West Point