TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

Woke up on Saturday morning and it was 36.5 degrees with 60% humidity at 8am, with not a breath of wind. We quickly had breakfast and then went ashore to see the inscription in the Boab Tree, which read “HMC Mermaid 1820”. Phillip Parker King who was leading an exploratory expedition was instructed to leave an inscription, which he dutily did. Mermaid spent 16 days being repaired at Careening Bay as a result of using Iron Nails in her construction. The Boab Tree is easy to find, as there was a marker and a clear track up off a creek. There’s a couple of DEC signs there explaining the Tree and Philip Parker King’s expedition. We went looking for water in the creek behind the tree but it looked like we were a month or two late.

Back on Camelot the wind picked up and we motor sailed south, passing at Bat Island and Bat Bay which were impressive enough to once again pull out the cameras.  Most of the rest of the day was spent motor sailing  South, heading towards our anchorage at Deception Bay. We had an interesting time getting through the narrow passageways near Augustus Island, where we struck 6nm of tide going the other way. We had both engines going and we were barely doing 1.5 knots. The sea was alive with whirlpools and wind waves hitting the current and Eric the Autopilot didn’t cope very well when he hit a whirlpool. Even Royce got caught from time to time as Camelot was pulled around by various whirlpools. We evidentially made it through into Camden Bay, turned off the motors and had a great sail for a couple of hours. As the sun began to set, we saw our first whales on the West Coast, a mother and calf heading South. We’d just got over our excitement when we saw another vessel on the horizon. We called them up and found out they were Paspaley 4 on their way to Kuri Bay. Should have asked them for some off cuts. We finally sailed into Deception Bay in the dark at 8.30pm and went to bed in anticipation of a big day tomorrow.