Exploring new water

I'm in the final stages of planning for the most challenging cruise I've done so far. Adelaide to Port Lincoln and various islands in between. We plan on departing at the end of the month.

Two old high school buddies from Canada are joining me for the trip. I'm so much looking forward to it. Here is a very rough plan of routing but it's all very much dependant on weather.
Chart Plotter
We plan on taking 12 -14 days for the trip. The challenging part will be finding a protected anchorage each night, as there are no marinas in the majority of these cruising grounds other than Port Lincoln.

If the weather is good and the boat is behaving, we may add on a trip down to Neptune island. (where the movie Jaws was filmed) The swimming isn't so good there, but the fishing is great!

Only 16 more sleeps.

Greetings,
Mr. AC. AWSOME! Hmmm....High school buddies eh? Hmmm...

Yes RT, there may be a few ales consumed. I'll have to be the fun police and ensure it is art appropriate times. (like after 11am)

It is always 11AM somewhere!

Sounds like a great trip. Keep us posted please.

Yeah, please do keep a log on here of your trip including things that went well and any that you didn't plan for that kinda messed things up.


That way we can all learn from your experience.

GFC said:

Yeah, please do keep a log on here of your trip including things that went well and any that you didn't plan for that kinda messed things up.


That way we can all learn from your experience.

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Yeah like how many booze per day and at what time in the day

Is the "big" island, Kangaroo Island? Hope so, a beautiful place, lots of native animals, birds, and responsible agriculture. Last night I saw a TV program about feral cat eradication there.

Feral cats? Get a Redbone hound...

Our feral cats are domestic moggies gone wild, they get bigger, but not that big. They can do terrible damage to wildlife populations, eg Kangaroo Isl. has little blue penguins which live in burrows and are vulnerable to predators.

The wildest and biggest hound I ever saw... I married her

BruceK said:

Is the "big" island, Kangaroo Island? Hope so, a beautiful place, lots of native animals, birds, and responsible agriculture. Last night I saw a TV program about feral cat eradication there.

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KI is the "big" island, a similar size to Vancouver Island, but with a total population of less than 5000. Unlike most of Australia, there are no feral foxes, but they do have cats. Still, they have an incredible array of wildlife.

Below is one of the more crowded anchorages I plan on stopping at:

I know parts of KI fairly well, having visited it about 20 times, but I've never been to the smaller islands in the Spencer Gulf.

Cruising over there is a bit more challenging, with strong tidal streams, and variable depths of water exposed to a big SW swell. The big, long swell can get tripped up on the uneven bottom, causing breaking waves with little notice.


Larry/GFC/Lou -I will keep you posted, guys - whenever the access to comms allows.

I still have the final 1% of the last 5 boat projects to finish off before I go. The most important is re-mounting my VHF antenna on the new hardtop. Then I plan to reducing weight on the boat by getting rid of specialized project tools and supplies. (I tend to hoard if I'm not careful). After that I'll probably add even more weight with cruising gear (beer and meat)

I'll be reloading the boat to ensure the load is packed as densely as possible in the lower centre of the boat. Reminder to self: Do an inventory as I repack.

Good luck and enjoy!

We had 4 days on KI, took the car on the catamaran ferry, great place. Breakfast on the ferry seemed a good idea, but later...it does get rough.
Have a great cruise, look forward to following it.

RT Firefly said:

Feral cats? Get a Redbone hound...

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Yep, get a hound or two (I'm not breed specific,I just like the deep
baying voice), .22 caliber rifle and have fun.

Ted

hey Auscan,
Nice cruise coming up, Good weather to you.
Noticed this 'cuddles' in the Jan. 'Afloat' mag.
You could have her for spares at that price.

The Hound

Lou_tribal said:

The wildest and biggest hound I ever saw... I married her

Click to expand...

Does she read this forum? Oh Oh!

You've been away from home too long. Kangaroo Island is one-seventh the size of Vancouver Island. Similar sized, but bigger, than Texada Island.

Looks like a great trip. Have fun!

bilge53 said:

Does she read this forum? Oh Oh!

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No she is not but she won't mind me. I am very lucky, she likes when I tease her and she is very patient. better be like that to handle me

We'll we made it to port Lincoln safely without any issues. We spent about a week cruising down to Kangaroo Island and along the full length of the north coast. No marinas after the first night but some great anchorages. The best was the aptly named Snug Cove.
From there we did the open water crossing, to Wedge Island then Thistle Island taking about 12 hours. Almost perfect conditions, with a 2 to 3 metre long duration swell and little chop. We just ran with the mainsail reefed, which steadied out any roll completely.

Some real trawlers here in port Lincoln making our boat seem fairly small. There were 2 local boats of the same builder as mine but a 35 ft fly ridge version.

I expected ALL of the photos to be inverted...

Looks like lovely country, we have very unusual snow conditions here now, sucks big time. I wish I was there, any cruising on a boat called a Cuddles has got to be good.

Back home again after the big adventure.

We spent 2 nights at the Port Lincoln marina waiting for the winds to calm down then begun the journey back to Adelaide. On the way home we explored Wedge Island with its great rock formations, sea lions and bird life. There are caves carved into the limestone shore which are big enough to fit the boat into, but I wasn't game enough to try. The surf pounded into the south coast of the island, even though it was a calm day.

Some interesting anchorages including West Cape Bay, a beautiful protected bay and sandy beaches visited by kangaroos at dusk. Leaving West Cape Bay, we crossed the south coast of the Yorke Peninsula where we encountered the most challenging conditions of the trip. 20-25 knot winds and 2-3 metre (6-10 foot) short interval wind waves, 45 degrees off the bow made it very interesting. I discovered that the sliding window in the saloon are not really rated for offshore. They held up but were certainly not waterproof.

The reefed mainsail kept rolling to a minimum and the autopilot held its heading under all the the worst of the waves. The biggest wave hit us just when I stepped into the cockpit, drenching me from head to toe, and depositing about a foot of water in the cockpit.
It was a relief making it to to the heel of the peninsula (it is shaped like an inverse of Italy) but us we proceeded into more shallow water the waves were breaking. We managed to get into the Sultana Point channel without getting pooped, but while manouevering to drop the mainsail, we accidentally jibed in the 20knot winds and tore the mainsheet block off the boom. Luckily no one was in its path when the boom swung, as it would have been ugly.

We made it to our planned anchorage in the dark. The wind was still howling but shallow water surrounded us so there was little swell. The next morning we did some temporary repairs on the boom and it was a relatively straight forward cruise across the St Vincent gulf back to Adelaide.

Overall, we cruised about 400 nm in the two weeks averaging just over 5 knots. The majority of the time we motorsailed just with a reefed mainsail, and ran the 42 hp Vetus at about 1600 -1800 rpm. We averaged just under 3 litres (0.75 US gallons) per hour fuel usage.

The only mechanical issue we had was the damage to the boom fitting but this was easily remedied. The only electrical issue was to my lock remote control shorting out due to water coming in the saloon windows. We managed to borrow another to get into the home marina.

I'll post more photo's once we get them sorted out.

Greetings,
Mr. AC. Sounds like a great trip. So, how much beer did you go through?

RT, We stocked up well for the entire trip before we left with plenty of Cooper's Ale loaded down low for ballast. (safety is always a top priority). During the two days in port we must have developed a leak in the hold as the ballast decreased dramatically, and we had to top it up with gin & tonic, Maker's Mark, and a few bottles of assorted rum.

The boat arrived back in Adelaide with the boot stripe well above the water line.

Beauty. Canadians eh?

Here's another example of the extra safety precautions taken.

There was a potential burn situation while cooking at a rolly anchorage. Notice the risk management steps taken to ensure a secure cooking surface.

As you can see, the extra beer was required for stabilization purposes. (We didn't bother filming the next day when it was significantly rougher with a lighter ballast.)