Newsletter No.4

Eloise

Captain: Tristan Yuswak

Admiral: Jasmine Yuswak

Becoming Carnarvon Locals:

Well, who would have thought that a supposed short stay in Carnarvon was going to turn into almost 4 weeks in the lovely town. We thought we would take the opportunity to send away our broken items to be repaired, with the intention of receiving them back further up the coast. That turned into a “lets just wait till they come back”, which due to postal delays kept us there a lot longer than we wanted. Not that there was anything wrong with that!

Carnarvon was almost a place we could have called home, beautiful weather, great local people and a free anchorage in the middle of the town river. We loved it. We actually put on some weight from all the shopping at woollies… too many tasty items in the reduced to clear basket. I kept saying to Jas “well when we are in Asia, the beef is bad, there is no lamb and the chicken has bird flu, so we should eat up while the going is good”, this was accompanied by many groans and shaking of the head, but I always had my way. Then after the first week “NO MORE MEAT!!!”, I became an instant nutritionist… “Well, think of all the rich sources of iron and protein you are missing out on”, “Don’t blame me if you get scurvy further down the track!”

We ended up having 1st lunch, 2nd lunch and then Dinner and maybe a supper on most days… the harvest was so rich!
We kept getting let into the big secret of Carnarvon, fresh veggies from the local growers if you hire a car and head around to all the stores on the plantations. So, we decided to hire a car, along with Westward II and take advantage of this rich bounty. We headed out to the plantations, most of which were closed and the open ones only had butternut pumpkins and bananas! The locals had forgotten to tell us that we were about 3 weeks too early for the regular produce. So we continued to shop at the local woollies for all our veggies and fruit.

We had many sleepless nights in Carnarvon, trying to decide our immediate future for destinations. We had friends turn up, whom were on their way through to South Africa. This caused us to have a good think and come up with a short term sail plan as we couldn’t make up our minds as to which way we should go. We decided to head up the WA coast to Dampier and then follow our Mentor’s steps (Jane and JC Rochecouste’s) journey to Bali and up through Indonesia to Thailand. They had felt the need to give us all the charts for the journey before we left Fremantle. We believed that this was a sign and started making preparations for the trip. Visa’s and cruising permits to organize, there was so much to do!!

So after all the good times in Carnarvon, we thought we had better get moving, so we upped anchor and started to head up the coast to Coral Bay. The overnight sail was great, we ran into some strong headwinds so we decided to pull into Maud’s landing, hoping to jump straight into the crystal clear water. That was until we saw an orange sea snake as thick as my arm, then a shark lurking in the distance. We decided that we didn’t really need to swim and that sleep was the better option!
Sea snakes seem to be the centre of so many folk stories… you hear from one yachty that the mouths are too small and that they would have to bite you on the ear for them to get you!! Well I have fleshy ear-lobes and I’m sure they would have been as tempting as a 20 piece bucket of KFC to these sea snakes with mouths the size of an onion! Some say that they are too small to worry about, but these big orange buggers are definitely something to worry about!

We continued sailing up the coast, heading for Exmouth. As we were heading up past the Ningaloo reef, we were hoping to glimpse the whale sharks and they make their way north up along the reef. Everywhere we went there were boats full of tourists moving around until the spotter planes radioed in the whale sharks location… Then you would hear a roar as they all went hell for leather to be the first boat on site.

The thing that worried us was the fact that we were in about 50 meters of water, and only another 2 hours up the coast we had a 2-3 meter great white shark come alongside our boat… you would never get me in the water out there!
We continued motor sailing the next couple of days, anchoring at night. We were trying to make as many miles as possible, we had to get to Onslow to meet up with my parents, who have been off backpacking around Europe for the last year. We stopped at Long Island in the Exmouth Gulf, feasted upon fresh oysters straight off the rocks… now that was awesome, plenty of oysters and cold cold beer to wash them down.

One thing we started to notice as we started coming up towards the high tidal flow areas is that when at anchor, you have this strange motion of wind against tide. This can make for very uncomfortable anchoring. We had a shocking night on the first stay at long island, the boat was heaving and rolling, Jas thought we were going to capsize at anchor, and so did I. We moved around to the other side of the island the following morning and it was so much more pleasant. We then spent 2 days relaxing on our own private island, fishing and swimming.

It was great to catch up with my parents in Onslow, so we spent 4 days there catching up and taking them exploring to one of the local islands. We headed for Direction Island, which is one of the Mackerel Island group. Crystal clear waters, deserted island and amazing fishing. We spent most of the day fishing and snorkeling and it was great. It was sad to say goodbye, but we know that we will see them again shortly, as Dad is planning to do the Thailand to Europe leg (3 months at sea) with us if we decide to head that way.

So we headed up for Dampier through the inshore Mangrove passages, which was beautiful. We were always on our own, so we really enjoyed the quiet anchorages and being able to shower out in the cockpit without having to worry who was looking.
We have been fishing every time we weigh anchor, by running lures behind the boat. We had been told that we were starting to hit Mackerel territory and that there were some monsters out there. We were trolling when I heard a bang, I looked up and Jas was lying face down in the cockpit moaning in pain… something big had grabbed the line, she had instinctively reached for the line and in the process it wrapped around her fingers, it cut straight through her skin. Luckily the fish jumped off the line and I was able to reduce the pressure to clear her hand… Jas was lucky to still have her fingers…

So I set out to revenge her. I put out my best lures, hoping to get this beast and teach him a damn good lesson. Within 20 minutes I had a strike, it was a monster 25kg Mackerel, I thought it was a shark when I was reeling him in. I pulled him alongside, gaffed him and threw him into the cockpit. I had been told to watch their mouths as a yachtie had recently had half his heel bitten off by one of these mackerel when he landed it aboard. I had Jas get my maglight and I had to bash his brains in to get him to calm down… It was a bloody scene and Jas went below as there was a bit too much blood and violence for her. So after we landed the beast, we headed for a safe anchorage to start the butchering process. We found a beautiful unmarked anchorage at Cape Preston, some of the clearest blue water we have seen to date. We carved up the fish, which was eaten over the next 4 days in every which way you could imagine.

We have now been in Dampier for almost 2 weeks, it is a pleasant place, though very very expensive in the area of food. It is all geared up for the iron ore industry, which apparently pays very well.

We are waiting for a good weather window to proceed to Bali as we have been cooped up in the boat the last few days due to rain and wind. So the permits are in, everything is ready to go and we are excited…

The passage to Bali is 705 nautical miles, which is going to be roughly 6 days of sailing continuous, with good winds of course. We have been warned that we could run out of wind and that if we do not have the fuel capacity to motor the distance, then you could spend up to 2 weeks bobbing around waiting for the wind. Needless to say, we are stocked up on books.

Well, the next newsletter will have a purely Asian flavour and we will let you all know when we arrive in Bali.

Tristan