We have seen a lot of the West Australian Coast by Car… we have taken many surf road trips up North, however what you see from land, isn’t the whole picture. A lesson learnt from our first season sailing up the West Australian coast and experiencing it from the water.
Carnarvon to me was a rural town that had great fruit and veggies.
The fruit bowl of our State… Bananas and Mangoes anyone? It is also a great provision stop on the way to Great surf breaks.
Whenever we stopped in Carnarvon it was to stock up before a couple weeks camping remotely. I guess we never gave Carnarvon the time that it deserved, but when we sailed into Carnarvon we saw a whole new side of this rural seaside town.
Our entry into the inner fascine (natural marina) of Carnarvon lead to us having our first grounding (hitting the bottom) of the trip. The entrance into Carnarvon is a narrow winding channel into a small bay.
We worked our way in a low tide (not advisable). We were nearly to the other boats on moorings and then the cardinal markers stopped on our starboard side… the town side had floating jetties that lead us to feel like it might be the right side of the channel to stick to. Suddenly… we stopped dead in our tracks. We were stuck in the mud.
We tried to get out of it, we used our motor, our dingy, our friends came over and we added their dingy … and nothing moved us. We were Suctioned in.
What do you do when you’re stuck in the mud of the Carnarvon Fascine on a Friday at sunset?
Throw an anchor down, and head to the Carnarvon Yacht Club for a couple cold ones and a few chats with other yachties and wait for the tide to come up. So that’s what we did.
And of course, most of the people at the club, saw or heard of our grand entrance to Carnarvon Fascine. We were told it was a right of passage when you come aground in Carnarvon.
It was really lovely to meet the fellow sailors and share yarns while having a couple cold beers. For one, we haven’t talked to many other people besides each other since leaving Fremantle and we love hearing others sailing stories, lots of lessons can be learnt when a sailor tells you a tale.
After a few drinks and dinner, we headed back to see if we were floating yet and we were! Woohoo! but moving around in the Fascine in the dark after beers, wasn’t too appealing, so we waited until first light and then moved onto a courtesy Mooring.
From this point onwards it was all up and up in Carnarvon. It was great!
We could row ashore ( no need for the outboard) and walk 5 mins and be at the grocery store! A few things are a bit of walk outside of town, but the other liveaboard sailors we met offered us cars to help us get our jerry cans filled and month’s load of laundry done at the laundry mat.
Sunday we got to take part in the yacht club dingy races and while I watched the first round Base gave it a go… It was light winds and unfortunately the skinnier you were the faster you could go. Not saying Base is overweight… he just had more weight than a few of the others!
Besides the fun Sunday races we also attended pizza night on Tuesday in the yacht club shed. Bring your own drinks and get cheap delivered pizza. Another great chance to chat with fellow sailors both local and visiting.
Besides ticking the provisioning boxes, the social boxes, the fascine also was a calm and still place were no matter how strong the wind was we could rest and relax on board Charade and get ready for the next leg of our trip.
Carnarvon was a perfect stop for us. We will definitely be back at some point. T
Thanks to everyone we met there and for all the assistance!
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