Passage to Perth

We thought we were never going to get back into the water at Carnarvon. After what felt like a very long wait, we were finally dropped back in on June 27 and we have just arrived at Two Rocks, a northern suburb of Perth, on July 11. Two Rocks is a small community which is currently being redeveloped. A huge housing subdivision is being built along with a rebuild of the marina. Its main claim to fame right now is this rather tacky statue of King Neptune which dominates the seafront.

There is another smaller version at Neptune's Cafe overlooking the attractive waterfront area. In this picture you can just see Gjoa behind Neptune's head (burgundy sail cover).

It was only about five hundred miles, 4-5 days, to Perth, but, it doesn't matter whether it's a five, or fifty, day passage, the amount of preparation to go to sea is the same. In addition to all the usual departure preparations, Gjoa had been sitting on the hard for seven months and we'd made a lot of changes, so, there was a bit more effort required than normal. The shaft had been out to install a new cutless bearing, replace anodes and install our Variprop feathering propellor that we had sent off to Germany for servicing and carried back in our luggage. All the sails, including the newly refurbished main, were off and had to be bent on. Bilge pumps needed testing. Electronics needed to be reinstalled and tested. A new Racor fuel filtering system had been installed. The hydraulic steering pump and cylinder had been out for servicing and now were reinstalled. The nav lights and a deck leak had been fixed. Would it all ever work together again?

It didn't go that smoothly. First, the engine wouldn't start. After trying everything we could think of, we had to get a mechanic in, who found a stuck open fuel actuator. A deft movement with a screwdriver and it started like a charm. It's just one of those things that we don't know how it happened and it will probably never happen again. We'd also done so much work on the steering system that we were a bit nervous if we'd put everything back together properly. We wanted to make sure that our emergency tiller worked in case we had no steering. This turned into a full day job as the bolt on its deck cap was seized and then broke necessitating a major excavation.

We tested forward and reverse gear only to find, as we had suspected, that they were reversed. We had to make our way over to the mooring very slowly and carefully. Once tied up, we switched the gear cable over to the other side and it was fixed. This had become a problem when the new engine was installed by the previous owner. The old Volvo required a left-handed prop. The new Yanmar requires a right-handed prop. They took a shortcut and didn't change the prop, just swapped the cable over. So, effectively, we had been driving 'forward' with the transmission, shaft and prop in reverse and vice-versa. When we sent the prop to Germany, they were able to adjust the pitch and change from left to right-handed. Now everything is moving in the same direction and we found a noticeable increase in forward power once underway.

We were almost ready and the weather was looking fantastic. First day when we had to cross Shark Bay was supposed to be a South wind, followed by four days of East 20. This was as good as it would ever get. As usual though, the forecast was just that, a forecast. The reality was much different. We left Carnarvon straight into 25-30 knots from the SW, the direction we needed to go in. It was rough and we were corkscrewing around, it was really miserable. We hadn't had time to get our sealegs and I was feeling sick. We hadn't sailed in seven months and wanted a gentle reintroduction, but, it wasn't to be. We were questioning our sanity.

But then, then, after two days, things flattened out, the wind did go East for most of the time and it was great! The days looked like this.

And the nights like this.

We saw dozens of whales, spouting and surfacing all around us, heading north to their calving grounds. We sailed over half the passage and it was very good, a mostly effortless 5- 7 knots. Traffic was very light overnight, not even any fishing boats and the stars were stupendous. We never heard anybody on the vhf except for one night at 3 a.m. when a voice boomed out into the silence: "what are you doing! turn on your lights!". Panic ensued, but, there was nobody in sight, or, on the radar, so who knows what that was all about, but, it had nothing to do with us!

It took five days to do the five hundred or so miles. The marina was being demolished, so, we had to immediately come out onto the hard as there was nowhere to stay in the water.

 As we won't be sailing again until December, Gjoa will only have been in the water for two weeks and sailed for five days in 2018. Let's hope 2019 will have a better return for all our efforts.

This is our new view from Gjoa's forward deck, not too shabby!