To Pearl Bay

Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Fri 20 May 2016 22:57
To Pearl Bay
 
 
 
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We set off this morning at ten to seven for the fifty three mile journey to Pearl Bay, if we were running out of daylight we had the bolthole of ducking in to Port Clinton. The Coral Coast far to our left.
 
 
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Newly shorn skipper enjoying reading Kiss the Girls – great film.
 
 
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I’m loving the colour of the water. I left the Hydrovane cover in to show I hadn’t ‘fiddled’ with the colours.
 
 
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Passing tiny islands.
 
 
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The book said: The whole area here is very pretty with rugged mountains fringed by white beaches. Pearl Bay can be approached from the south by holding the coast close, then cutting in between the headland and the closest island to its north where 3.3 metres will be found in the channel. It quickly shoals into the bay and a vessel may have to wear off a little towards the west in search of anchorage. A safer approach is to round north of the island group immediately north of the headland, then move into the bay from the north-north-west, being careful not to hit the fringing reefs which extend to the west from the two major islands of the group. Use lead-line and care and an excellent anchorage can be found. The book is a few years old, well quite old, but we chose the latter path in. We passed the first passage and headed in past the island with a great hair-do.
 
 
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Hair-do had a cheeky reef, we were in eleven metres of water and it dropped to five as we must have gone over the tippy edge, seconds later back in to deep water that ever so slowly shelved over the sandy bottom.
 
 
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Edge of hair-do and the next island.
 
 
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We basically turned left at the furthest sandy beach. We had a good laugh, Bear wanted me to find two metres below to anchor in. We began our countdown at three, no sooner than we got to three it went slowly up to three point four. Back again to three and so on for ages.
 
 
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The sunny side of hair-do, a gaggle of seabirds sheltering from the wind which had picked up somewhat.
 
 
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The plan was to head to the far catamarans but the depth dropped to one point two, a quick u-turn and I found the ordered two. In hindsight, had we have come in the first channel we would have been able to have the depth to anchor next to the monohull on the far left. I wasn’t too sorry about where we were when we watched his mast rock from side to side.
 
 
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Once settled this was our view to the left.
 
 
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Tucked in. Opposite our own private beach on our right.
 
 
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I was badly beaten at backgammon so felt no guilt at a sneaky win at Mexican train dominoes. Just as well the scenery is lovely. Indeed sir, indeed, don’t know what you’re moaning about I had the first loss. Yes, but, never mind with the buts.
 
 
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Sunset tonight was a ‘now you see the sun, now you don’t’. Looking out to sea there was a big, bright moon.
 
 
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ALL IN ALL SO PLEASED TO BE BACK IN SUCH BLUE WATER
                    A COMFORTABLE, FAST MOTOR-SAIL