Click on Title to proceed to heading
|
|
SPENCER GULF CRUISE
Finally all the conditions to undertake a longer trip into unknown (to me) waters came together and I was able to organise a 1 ½ week trip into the Spencer Gulf with the main emphasis being to explore the Joseph Banks group of Islands, which are said to be very scenic and provide for good fishing.
I intend to cover the boats performance, maintenance items, cruising notes and scenery without any particular bias and write it up as it occurred, so it may be a bit of a mess for the orderly souls (but that’s not what cruising is all about).
For this trip
I went with one companion (two others cancelled due to commitments)
and it must be said that we (including the autopilot “Fred”) had no
problems handling the boat including flying the spinnaker, which was
just as well as the conditions for it were ideal.
Day 1 - Thursday, Nov 7
The first leg was across Vincent Gulf to Edithburgh, log 43 Mn, with 5-10 kn S winds (90d), max speed 12.5 kn, duration 5 hrs.
The kite will fly at angles from 60 d thru to 140 with the best speeds being achieved between 90 -120 where we typically will achieve 130% of true wind speed.
To launch and stow the spinnaker we use a sock and the current conclusion is that it is best to come into the wind to collapse it when the wind strength exceeds 10 knts as it can be a hard pull otherwise, especially when you forget to put your gloves on.
Another reason
to go into the wind is that I secure the tackline to a cleat at the
start of the bowpole (can be reached from the bowbeam). This avoids
another line running aft, but doesn’t provide for letting the tack fly
when dropping the kite.
This is the first
time I have thought to do this and it shows that at 9 knts apparent
we struggle to achieve windspeed. True wind was about 4-5 knts so I
think it is a reasonable result. If these instrumentation shots are
of interest I will continue to provide them, ie feedback required for
them to continue.
In Edithburgh we found a free mooring which we borrowed
for the night. This is a nice custom here in SA where it is accepted
that you can occupy an unused mooring as long as you are prepared to
move on when the owner needs it.
The next day we
departed at 7.30am and sailed from Edithburgh to West Cape, 53 Nm in
5-10 knt SE winds (120d), again a nice spinnaker run. Arrived approx
3.30pm.
The photo shows the cliff ant the SW corner of York Penninsula, West Cape is just around the corner from here. The sea state illustrates the light wind condition.
Day 3, Saturday, Nov 9
The next day we departed for the Joseph Banks group of isles at 7.30am and had variable S-SE winds. Again a kite run when there was wind, fishing when the wasn’t and a motor had to assist. I have found that when winds drop below 5 knts and I don’t want to sit around doing 2-3 knts I am better served to run one of the diesels at 2000 rpm and we’ll then do 6.5 knts (4 from motor, 2 from sails).
This fish, a snook, looks impressive, tasted terrible fried/poached, not too bad bbq’d but got the thumbs down as it is full of bones. Had some decent ½” teeth though.
I learned a salient lesson in safety procedures as when I lent down to secure the bucket tail to the cleat whilst cleaning up after gutting the fish. I slipped on the corner of the step and was the subject of a MOB exercise. As I saw the boat sail of I was glad that I had Brian in the cockpit to turn the boat around and pick me up. Lesson learned – Don’t venture out of the cockpit unless there is someone else around on deck
Once in the Island group we found a nice anchorage at the northern end of Reevesby Island, in Morton Bay where we anchored at 5 pm. I caught some nice whiting to close off an eventful day.
Day 4, Sunday, Nov 10
As our anchorage
provided a smooth sandy bottom I grounded the boat 2 hours before low
tide in order to clean below the waterline. As the water was to deep
initially I also cleaned the sides, it was amasing to see how much dirt
collects in a year.
The soft hairy growth cleaned off the “copper-cote” anti-foul very easily and it was all done with time to spare. I did not do the minikeel sides as these were still too deeply immersed to get at.
Brian took the opportunity, I only had the one brush, to explore some of the island, reputed to be full of tiger snakes. He didn’t venture into the scrub but did manage to get a nice shot of the boat.
After lunch we went exploring by sailing around and tried several spots for some fishing without any luck. Tried an alternative anchorage but could get a good grip in the weed so we decided to go back to Morton Bay for the night.
As Brian was keen to get more sailing in and the fish weren’t biting we decided to head for Pt Lincoln and stock up on some supplies.
Day 5, Monday, Nov 11
We lifted anchor at 8 am and had one last try for fish
on what appeared to be a good spot and found they still weren’t biting
so we used the SE breeze, forecast 8-13 knts to head for Lincoln.
As the breeze was predicted to increase we decided against the spinnaker, but we had an enjoyable sail achieving 10 knts in 12knts apparent @ 60d True was about 8-9.
On the approaches to Lincoln one encounters a lot of tuna/kingfish fishpens which hardly project above the waterline. I imagine these would constitute a considerable hazard sailing at night as they are not that easy to see during daylight.
We overnighted in Spalding Cove, where we again couldn’t find suitable sand for anchoring so we semi beached the boat using the tides. It did mean an early start the next morning (6.15 am) or we would have been there till the afternoon.
Day 6, Tuesday, Nov 12
The wind had
shifted to NNW and we had a very scenic run down to Cape Disastrous.
Here we encountered quite a severe tidal rip / sea state that bounced us around a bit but the boat handled it without a problem so we proceeded around the Cape and headed into the Southern Ocean.
We trekked along the again very scenic coast using the S winds and saw, spectacular cliffs / dunes, waves breaking on rocks etc and finished with a spinnaker run into Avoid Bay during which the log went up to 15.6 knts.
Here we found a mooring and enjoyed a beautiful sunset to celebrate the end of our outbound leg.
Day 7,
Wednesday, Nov 13
By morning the wind was coming from the SE, and we
had to tack back up the coast. The breeze had stiffened, 13-18 knts
true but the sea surface was still reasonably calm despite the ocean
swell (2m which means 4m top>valley) so we had a nice ride up &
down these rollers
Out from Cape Disastrous is William Island and it has a horseshoe bay with sandy beach which provides protection from the SW>SE winds. It also features a sandy bottom so we decided to anchor there for the night. The fishing was pleasant but not successful, I wonder why.
Day 8,
Thursday, Nov 14
The next day we had intended to head for the North coast of Kangaroo Island, stay in Snug Cove (feature before in the blog) and then work along the coast before going back to Wirinna the following day.
The weather forecast changed all that as the high had become stationary, the temperatures were due to increase and what little wind there was, was going to be Easterly (where we wanted to go).
So we decided to head for home while the wind was ok and got some nice sailing in until mid afternoon, after which it died and we had to motor
Towards sunset the sea was almost milky and the colour of the sea / sky something I haven’t seen before. The photo ‘does’ do the colours justice
We motor sailed
thru the night and arrived back in Wirinna at 6 am on the Friday. The
total distance we covered was 480 Nm
This shows the Navman 6600 Trackfish chartplotter in night mode (unfortunately I jiggled the shot) and it shows the track we followed during our cruise.
Once I obtain the datacard I’ll be able to download this info & more to my computer and this may provide interesting illustrations of our endeavours
