Those of you who have cruised through Dampier will understand my title. For those who haven’t well its very dusty here! Very fine red dust that doesn’t really show up at first but gets into everything and sticks like glue! By the time we leave here the boat will be quite pinkish looking! But that’s the penalty you pay if you stop off at Dampier. On the brighter side the reception we have received from the Yacht Club and locals has been very pleasant. Everyone is very friendly and helpful. We are able to anchor in the very safe anchorage with good holding – free of charge. We can use the yacht club facilities – free of charge. There is a community bus into Karratha twice a week and while it is not free the bus driver only charges us concession rates so we pay $4.80 return each instead of $11.00. I never realised cruising would age us so much! Plus he drops us off outside the yacht club gates with our shopping which means we can really load up on supplies and more important things…Hic!
We took 3 days to sail here from Onslow stopping off at some quite remote anchorages. The weather behaved a little better than on past passages but now we have to learn to work the tides and currents. We spent a while trying to pass Flinders Shoals where the log told us we were doing 6.5 knots but on the GPS our speed over ground was only 3 knots.
Fishing has been good, we have been catching school mackerel which are enough for 2 good meals but then I caught a whopper!
This Spanish Mackerel weighed in at 7kgs. Thank goodness for the cryovac machine and if I place the fish against the plate in the fridge it freezes. We have been eating this fish for the last 10 days.
Our passports have arrived so we now have our cruising permit (CAIT) and our visas for Indonesia. The CAIT does not start until 19th Aug so we will be here a few weeks yet before we set sail again.
As always, there is plenty to do while we wait.
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