WIIN The Montebello’s

We only stayed the one night at anchorage at Onslow, the boat rolled all night, so was uncomfortable and difficult to sleep. We are now heading for the Montebello Islands, and day-sail over the next five days to reach them.
First we head along the coast and anchored at the creek entrance at Yammadery Island. The creeks were lined with mangrove trees and very muddy, so we tried our luck at mud-crabbing, but only managed to catch a small shark, which was untangled from the crab net and released back into the creek.
The next day we headed for Weld Island, skipped over a sandbar, depth down to 1.5 metres, oops! Managed to keep moving and the rest of the trip was incident free. We are sailing in company with Vin and Rachel on Sail Away Too, and we tried our luck crabbing again at Weld Island, and ended up with several tasty blue swimmer crabs for our entrée that night.
The winds are light and we sail under MPS to Pasco Island at the southern end of Barrow Island. A lot of the waters in this area are uncharted, so we are extra vigilant, and one of us keeps watch on the bow as we near the island. We enjoy some great snorkelling, and the next day head for Flacourt Bay at Barrow Island, were we meet up with Quattro again and catch a feed of fresh crayfish for tea. A petroleum company has tenure of Barrow Island and landing is prohibited. The anchorage is rollie and we leave the next morning for the Montebello’s.
Steve try his luck at fishing with a new squid lure that Vin has given him, he gets a few quick big hits but they get away, very strange? Oops the protective plastic sheaf was still on the hook, and once removed, he soon had a nice mackerel on the line. We saw whales today, and they put on a good show, breaching, with the resulting splash huge! Luckily we were a fair distance away. Also several large sea snakes slithered past, and turtles stuck their heads up for a look as we sailed past.
We spend the next nine days at the Montebellos’ first anchored at Brooke, then Alpha, then Trimouille Islands, exploring these and many more of the islands.
The Montebello’s comprise of around 70 islands and cover approximately 10 nautical miles from north to south. The islands are reasonably flat (highest point 37 metres), predominantly limestone and coral, with no trees to be seen anywhere. Three nuclear weapon tests were carried out on the islands in the 1950’s by the British and there are signs ashore on Trimouille Island warning people of possible radiation, advising not to spend more than an hour ashore. There are pearl farms everywhere and some of the bays have been taken over completely, so boats can no longer anchor or transit in these areas, which is disappointing.
We spent our time exploring the islands, snorkelling, and fishing. We are living off our catch – fish, squid, and chickens of the sea (crayfish), the freezer is still stocked with meat from Perth. The snorkelling was fantastic – very warm water, and lots of good places to go. We saw all the usual coral and fish, including moon ras, lionfish, nudibranks, crays, leopard and reef sharks, and even a family of “nemos”.
While we were at Alpha Island there was a gas pipe explosion on Varanus Island (part of the Lowendal Island Group). This was about 13nm from us, so we could see the black smoke, and after dark the red glow in the sky. We listened to the ABC news to find out what had happened. It is having a huge effect in WA with the reduced gas available as a result .
The last few days we had strong winds while anchored at Main Bay at Trimouille. Also in the bay was Quattro, Sail Away Too, Fremantle Doctor (on the way to Cocos), a rig safety tender from the drilling rig, and a large luxury boat. The last night a front came through with rain and strong wind – everything got drenched and we checked regularly through the night to make sure we didn’t drag anchor.
The next morning we leave early for a 70nm journey to Dampier, passing close by one of the offshore drill platforms as we leave. We start with 18 to25 knots of wind but end up motoring the last 6 hours as the wind dies out and we have glassy smooth seas, we catch a nice size mackerel to share around the other yachts that are at Dampier. It was a new experience coming in to port after dark, so many lights around making it hard to follow the right channel makers, but with Cmap, radar and Selena on the bow with a spotlight we arrived safely at the anchorage with a bit of help from Hanuman over the VHF.

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WIIN Leaving Canarvon

We waved goodbye to Carnarvon, and headed up the coast. First up was an overnight sail to Mauds landing – lumpy and windy (consistently up around 25-30 knots) - but we made good time and arrived at Coral Bay mid-morning the following day. Another yacht “Nowa Days” travelled at the same time and having arrived ahead of us invited us over for a big brekkie which was fantastic after the long night sail. Fully recharged we started to explore the area, taking the dinghies to Coral Bay, soon realising why it had been so named as we weaved our way through the many bommies. Coral Bay is also in the middle of a fish sanctuary zone and the fish seemed to know it with Spangled Emperors swimming along the shore and around the dinghy, so close you could reach out and touch them. There were a couple of tourist shops and cafes, and we saw a large lizard (bung arrow) ambling across the path. At the Calm office we were told about a shark nursery in the next bay, so we kept an eye out on the return trip, but no luck, didn’t see any. We celebrated Stephen’s birthday the following day with chocolate cake (baked onboard), a nice meal and a lazy day relaxing (just like most other days).

Our next stop was Norwegian Bay, a day sail up the coast. It was the site of a whaling station which closed in 1957. We wandered amongst the ruins, which are now all rusting away. Other than this the coast is very baron with sand dunes and low scrub. The water was really warm and there was great snorkelling near the reef, we saw dozens of turtles, reef fish, and coral. A highlight (in an odd sort of way) is the first shark sighting while snorkelling (for Selena) – first a black tipped reef shark, and then a lemon shark nestled amongst the reef (disconcertingly, these become a common sight!). Sail Away Too caught up with us here and we spent a few days’ snorkelling, fishing, swimming and exploring the area, and then moved on to Yardie Creek.
We had a great sail under spinnaker (MPS) with light winds and calm seas, while reading and fishing (one tuna found its way on board).
Yardie Creek was a great place to stop for a couple of days, lots of good snorkelling , more turtles, small sharks and even a few crayfish, fish ing was okay but most of the Ningaloo reef is a fishing reserve so limited where we could fish. Yardie Creek Gorge is spectacular, and we walked along the track at the top of the gorge.
Yardie Creek to Tantabiddi was another sail under spinnaker (MPS) 8 to 21 knots from the south east and 1.5 metre swell made for a great day. It was also the day that we passed the 1000 nautical mile mark since leaving Fremantle. Then just before arriving at the gap in the reef, we had a fantastic hook up, which caused mayhem, drop the MPS, turn out to sea and fight a nice 2 metre sail fish. After about 30 minutes and some great tail walking we had him at Westward’s side, now what to do, too big to bring aboard for a photo and how do we release him while keeping him alive and retrieve our last large squid lure. The decision was made for us as 2 large sharks darted around the yacht, so Selena leant as close as she could and cut the trace. Vin (Sail Away Too) caught a nice mackerel not long after so we had some edible fish for tea.
Tantabiddi was a rollie uncomfortable anchorage and getting into Exmouth was a hassle, so while the winds were favourable we made an early start the next day, heading for Serrurier (Long) Island around 60Nm north of us, making a quick stop at the Lighthouse caravan park to get some more petrol for the outboards. This was one of the best sails we have had since leaving Freo, 18 to 25 knots from south east, which gave a great reach, we averaged 7Kns for 6 hours, resulting in a great days sailing.
At Serrurier Island we finally caught up with Eloise again, also Quattro, who we had been speaking to on VHF over the last few days. Serrurier Island was a seafood paradise with lots of nice big fighting fish and crayfish just walking around the sea floor at a small island next door. We eat like Kings! Also, one of the few times this year that the eagle flag has flown high on the mast!
After spending a few days there we headed for Onslow, to replenish our fresh fruit and veg, do some washing, the caravan park laundry didn’t have a drier so WestwardII looked like a Chinese laundry, welcome to the cruising world. The caravan park was very hospitable allowing us to use the washing machines and showers. Going to Onslow also gave us a better angle to sail out to Pasco Island on the south end of Barrow Island (more about that next WIIN).

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