Sailing with a flexible schedule has always been our goal. When strict timelines are placed on a sailing trip you open yourself up to decisions that are based on need rather than truly the right time to sail. It leads to disappointment and sometimes bad decision making.
We gave ourselves a window of 2-3 months to get up to Indonesia. It seemed reasonable to us before we left.
HA!
The thoughts we had while in the marina in Fremantle seem like a lifetime ago. The Western Australian Coast is vast, over 2500 nautical miles to explore. Naturally we want to see and explore as much of this coastline as we can. That means it isn’t easy for us to just by pass a nice anchorage or keep going when we know how much we will miss checking out.
We are one month into the trip and we made to Shark Bay. (Not half way there by a long shot.)
The weather held us up in Port Denison for a week and Abrolhos islands for an extra 5-6 days. Sailing in winter means timing the sailing window in between fronts and making the best decisions around those windows on when to sail.
We are now in Shark Bay and we have the decision to make. Do we explore this amazing area or keep moving North?
It’s not such an easy decision. Our first couple of days here we needed some recovery time after doing the Zuytdorp cliffs passage and (night sail-read about it here).
We also saw the first glimpses of the amazing beauty of the area and the desire to explore took over.
We spent a day in Shelter Bay and while my plan was to just chill, Base had other ideas – like walking to the edge of the world ( read about that here!)
After debating over a cup of tea… we both wanted to get to warmer waters, and we were both dreaming about surfing. So we had to make the choice to skip a World Heritage Listed area to keep going. Would we get to come back and see it another time? Who knows?
We had the right winds to sail 10 hours North to Turtle Bay at the top of Dirk Hartog Island before heading into Carnarvon to re-provision. So we made the decision on we go.
2 to 3 months to sail this whole coast …. Ha! Learning as we go!
x
Jamie
1 Comment
Hard life making decisions on when to sail or stay on a gorgeous beach. I was wondering today of all the fish and mammals that you have seen – you need to make a catalog. When you said ‘I didn’t have time’ – I thought you had all the time in the world. Enjoy you two.