To Pearl Bay
Beez Neez now Chy Whella
Big Bear and Pepe Millard
Fri 20 May 2016 22:57
|
To Pearl
Bay
 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.
  Newly shorn
skipper enjoying reading Kiss the Girls – great film.
  I’m loving the colour of the water. I left the Hydrovane cover in to show
I hadn’t ‘fiddled’ with the colours.
 Passing tiny islands.
 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.
 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.
 Edge of hair-do and the next
island.
 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.
 The sunny side of hair-do, a gaggle
of seabirds sheltering from the wind which had picked up
somewhat.
 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.
 Once settled this was our view to the left.
  Tucked in. Opposite our own private beach on our right.
 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.
  Sunset
tonight was a ‘now you see the sun, now you don’t’. Looking out to sea
there was a big, bright
moon.
 ALL IN ALL SO PLEASED TO BE
BACK IN SUCH BLUE WATER
A COMFORTABLE, FAST
MOTOR-SAIL |