Port Lincoln to Avoid Bay  25/2/2015 - 26/2/2015

Tied up next to Tacoma at Andy's pontoon.

        

We departed Port Lincoln Marina at 1pm on Thursday 25th February, from where we had been tethered alongside the pioneering Tuna Vessel "Tacoma". This followed last provisioning, a call upon good friend Andy Haldane, and the return of "Doris" kindly lent to us by Graham Daniels for running around and essential victualling.  We also enjoyed a visit from the wonderful Garry and Sue Smith, who operate Volunteer Marine Radio Tumby Bay, whose radio support for those who ply a vast expanse of local waters from Wallaroo, to Investigator Strait, to Elliston, is quite astonishing. Garry will enable us to "report in" twice a day on a marine "sked", to advise on our location, plans, and to receive all-important updates on the weather. Tumby Bay VMR, and their counterpart, Carol Meill (American River VMR) who voluntarily provides a similar support in Kangaroo Island and surrounding waters, have been crucial in giving us the confidence and support to sail beyond our local horizons. We are happy to add Garry, Sue and Carol to our list of marine friends, adding to the adage put to us by a mariner, somewhere in our travels, that "it's not so much the places that you visit, so much as the people that you meet". This is as true as the wind having the last word at sea.

The irony of our departure from Lincoln was that in spite of the wind whistling in for weeks - so it seemed - on the first part of our passage, 22 miles (at sea the measure of distance is nautical miles) to Memory Cove, airs were likely to be light and flukey which might require us to apply the engine to the sails, in order for us to reach Memory before nightfall. Thus it proved to be. Memory Cove is one of our favourite destinations, but this time as its Whitehaven - white beach came into view, it was what lay before us rather than the charms of this beautiful place that captured our attention. We contemplated launching the ship's tender and going ashore for a swim, but in a first for us we stayed dry on board as the afternoon shadows lengthened.

Sunrise over Thistle & Hopkins Islands as we leave Memory Cove.

      

The setting of a pre-dawn alarm was probably unnecessary, as we both had one eye on the ship's chronometer for the entire night. Or so it seemed. The galley kettle sang merrily, and the horizon turned peach in the east as our anchor chain rattled aboard, and we were away.  It is not far via Thorny Passage to Cape Catastrophe and we soon rounded this gloomy promontory, and set a course for Sleaford Bay between Williams Island and West Point, which marks the southern-most spot on Eyre Peninsula. The irony was that in spite of entering the land of the tiger, at the moment the cat's claws were withdrawn and we took the advantage of a rare day of calm in setting out on the 51nm to Avoid Bay, where a safe anchorage should be found. Beyond the benign conditions prevailing, a trough of uncertain weather was on its way, bracketed between two high pressure systems. Avoid was as good a location as any to sit out this change, so for the moment we slid on toward Cape Wiles, motoring with a stabilising mainsail, feeling as though we were on a jungle path and had just crept past a sleeping tiger.

 

Sleeping Tigers enroute to Pt. Avoid.

 

Tourists coming to these parts often visit Whalers Way, where by Cape Carnot spectacular sprays are projected aloft by the southern ocean billows, dashing themselves on the granite promontory. We have seen this place in a storm and quavered at the thought of being out at sea off such a place. Now we passed the Cape unmolested, and with Carnot and its off shore handmaiden, Liguanea Island, dropping astern, our heading was for Price Island off Point Avoid, paying due respect to Cape Rock and Stuart Reef, two nautical nasties that we would leave to port along the way. Some sailors say that you can pass quite safely between Price Island and Point Avoid, holding Price, close to port. Being new to this locale, we opted for the slightly longer passage, around Price, leaving it to starboard, and watching out for a rocky shoal and then the reef that extends a way from Point Avoid, before rounding up as the sea breeze gathered and dropping anchor in the sheltered waters of Avoid Bay.


Avoid Bay

 

To our pleasure, and admittedly to our relief, a glance across Avoid Bay and the Coffin Bay National Park revealed the peaks of Marble Range away to the north. We hoped that up there somewhere might be a phone tower, and that as a result some form of internet coverage might be possible - for weather-related passage planning, and not to check our Facebook account(!) - here in this remote and desolate place. We soon were forced to retract all of the unkind things we may have uttered over time about our primary Telco, for there we were, miles from humanity, with a workable connection to weather and to the world. We clinked a chilled glass, and watched with interest as two cray-boats bustled themselves into the anchorage, and their crews gave us a fleeting wave as they hurried ashore, where they bundled their plunder onto the back of their support vehicles, and trundled busily up the hill off the beach bound for Coffin Bay, market, and home. The curious geography of this place sees the fishers in Coffin Bay via some 9 miles by road, but over 40 by sea. So confident are they about the shelter provided by Point Avoid, and the stoutness of their moorings, that they routinely eschew the privations of a cray boat on anchor for the comforts of home. For us, with dinner on the stove and one of Ross Haldane's fine reds breathing life into its soul, night fell on the first day of our journey with a half moon beaming encouragement from above.

Rugged coastline outside Pt Avoid.



Sometimes a cruising life is like Dickens' fallible Mr Micawber, waiting, eternally, for "something to turn up". For us we await the trough on its way across the Great Australian Bight, whose far eastern waters we now float upon. Normally the waters of Avoid Bay light up like emeralds under the late summer sun, but now, with a change in the offing, the sun remains shyly behind the clouds and our sojourn ashore the next day leaves us returning aboard without the postcard imagery that we imagined. Still, a delightful stroll along the beach, a swim and a body-surf in the crackling waters further around the bay and a trundle in our duck to the coves under the Point made a day in waiting for the weather much worth the while. We have been grateful to have been in Avoid Bay, and now having had the opportunity to converse a little more with the local crayfishers, we can report them to be universally friendly and obliging to the point of offering us the use of their moorings - there are two in the bay - should the need arise with the change of weather on the way.

Sunset on anchor, Avoid Bay

 

Out to sea and stretching to the North-West lie the fabled islands and anchorages of the West Coast. Planning our next ports of call is a complex mix of destinations, potential anchorages, and distances between, balanced alongside the winds, their direction and strength, according to forecast. On board we have laid out or charts like a nautical chessboard, knowing that in these waters, given the distance between secure places, it would be unwise to arrive at a cove in the late afternoon only to find it untenable. Hopefully we can get to sup on most of the delights of this special part of the world. Behind the change we plan to head some 27 miles out to sea to visit one of the "must see" islands off this coast. Greenly Island, is a place that time forgot, and its virtues have been lavishly extolled by the redoubtable Capt Cotton. According to Allan, it rises like Bali Hai above the western horizon. We can't wait to see it for ourselves, but for the moment the wind following the change is tugging at our rigging and we hope that it ameliorates somewhat to allow us safe passage out of Avoid Bay in the morning.