It’s red dust time!

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.

The Old Girl is Still Cruising…..

And by that I don’t mean Jean! We sailed into Onslow yesterday and anchored next to our old boat Tigress. Yes, we were really imaginative when it came to naming Tigress Too! Tigress was purchased by Jerry in 1979 and fitted out by Jerry in Sydney. I can remember when I first met up with Jerry back in ’81 and we would spend every weekend working on the boat. It’s been like that ever since, or so it seems! Anyway we set sail from Sydney in 1983 and had an absolute ball sailing her over 4½ years from Sydney around the top of Australia to Perth. She was then sold and Tigress Too was built. It was such a surprise to see her here and even though she is in need of some TLC she has a very nice new owner Scott. Scott and his dog Tali are sailing to Darwin shortly and then hauling the old girl out for sandblasting & painting before the two of them head off to New Guinea. It is really great to see that she is still loved and at a grand old age of 41 years still afloat and cruising! We set sail from Carnarvon in the perfect weather forecast for sailing North but it didn’t last long. We had westerly winds, then northerly anything but what BOM forecast. But then maybe that’s what they mean when they say variables? The swell was up & the waves choppy so for two nights we hung in there just hoping that as we rounded NW Cape the swell would disappear and things would change for the better.
We got to the top of the Cape just as dawn was breaking so we could see our way around as we heading into “Oil Rig Straits”. Just as we had been told, within 5nm of rounding the Cape the swell died out and we had a great morning sail to Serrurier Island where we dropped the pick and fell into bed for much needed sleep. We stayed there for a couple of nights, the anchorage was a bit rolly but we had a whole island to just the 2 boats and a lovely beach to walk.                             
From there we had an even better sail into Onslow where we are now. We were even able to put the cockpit table up and eat a very pleasant lunch as we sailed along. It is extremely busy up here with offshore platforms and tender rigs and capped oil wells sticking out of the ocean so you have to keep a good watch. But that is no hardship when the weather is perfect and you can just sit back and enjoy the view or read a book in your new chair! We have been ashore and had a look at Onslow, even had a Sunday roast but it wasn’t as good as I had imagined. Onslow is full of workers building the new gas hub. Two hotel ships from the Barrier Reef sit in Beadon Creek, accommodation for the workers up here. Lots of developing going on, more accommodation blocks we here. It will take about 10 years to build the gas plant and once built the man power required to run it will not be the same as what it is taking to build it so there will be a lot of empty housing units when it’s all up & running. “It’s ruining the town” so a local told us. It looks like we have perfect weather for the next week so plan to leave tomorrow and day sail to Dampier.