10/18/2014 1 Comment Argos has a new friend!The day we first anchored out the front of the town of Airlie Beach we spotted a large black-hulled schooner anchored a little away from us. We had heard of a big black schooner, called the Joshua C, from some friends and guessed this was it, but we had barely dropped our anchor when her owner and builder, Robin came over to welcome us to Airlie, say g’day to us and tell us what a great boat we had!
We chatted then, and later that day and the next morning Robin and his wife Annie came over to visit us and have a cuppa. We had a great time hearing about The Joshua C and looked forward to our next visit to Airlie to catch up with them again. Last weekend we sailed back across to Airlie after our visit to the reef and spent a lovely evening on board, with both Robin and Annie and a heap of other local sailors. It was simply magic and we were quite captivated by the yacht and its owners! This is one big schooner! She makes Argos look like the baby sister! She is 80 ft in length and 18 ft wide with room on board to sleep up to 12. She has a good sized galley and two bathrooms plus more storage than you could poke a stick at! But it’s not just her size that delighted us – she is such a nautical boat! We have visited big boats before – big cats and mono’s but there is something entirely different about a boat that is intentionally old school – everywhere we looked there were things you would have seen on ships a hundred years ago – from the rat lines to the rope worked fenders, from the pennant flag flying from atop the mast to the storage nets above many of her interior surfaces - from the turks-heads and rope braids that were worked on poles and posts everywhere to the baggy wrinkles on the stays to prevent chafing of the sails – a saltier ship you are unlikely ever to see! This week we have had the fun of cruising a little with The Joshua C, and Robin and Annie! We left Airlie on Tuesday and set off for Dugong Inlet on Whitsunday Island where they had tucked in behind a hill to prepare for an expected northerly wind shift. We anchored alongside them – the first time Argos and The Joshua C were anchored together. That evening was spent on The Joshua C and then the next day, as we prepared for a strong southerly change that was due to arrive during the night, we moved across to the other side of Dugong Inlet and anchored alongside each other in Sawmill Bay. It must be quite a sight to see these two yachts together – with our tall ship rigging, rat lines and pennants flying! To say we have been having fun would be quite a serious understatement – apart from the weather conditions of course which have mostly been horrible! Still despite that it has been awesome! We have talked and learned and been encouraged about things we were doing on board and benefited heaps from Robins boat building knowledge to deal with a couple of issues with our anchor winch. The kids too have been having a ball – using the spare ‘dory’ from Joshua, and Annie’s stand-up paddle board – and being inspired by the rope work on board the Joshua C. It’s been awesome to have people to talk to who love the old ways as much as we have come to! It really has been a lot of fun! Just before we met these guys Peter had been researching baggy wrinkles – rope-worked cushions to protect sails from chafing by rigging. Peter had made some and hoisted them and while the rest of us could see the value, we were a little stuck on their unusual appearance. They did, I must say, look a little like dead sheep hanging from the rat lines! However, when we met the Joshua C we noticed that they too had baggy wrinkles – not quite as bushie looking as ours – more like thinner and well shorn sheep by comparison to our shaggy offerings, but they were there all the same and we began to feel less animosity to Peter’s creations! That’s the thing that we have always loved about sailing – the people you get to meet who, like us, are doing life a little differently and who we can relate to. Over meals (thanks to our awesome chef Erina!) and languid sundowners we have talked at length about our lives, our boats and our dreams. We feel quite inspired, if not a little envious of all the space on board the Joshua C – and a little conscious of the things we could do if we had a little more room – but mostly we just feel affirmed in our choices. We always saw something special in Argos – and after spending time on board the Joshua C we are reminded of those things that really are so special about her! We have a few more little ‘projects’ we might try out with ropes and old ideas, enhancing our lovely girl as we begin to make our way south over the next month or so. On a practical note, yes we have been having trouble with our anchor winch but hope this might soon begin to be resolved with thanks to Robin’s construction of a roller to keep the anchor chain more stable, and we are sadly needing to say goodbye to our fridge which has decided to abandon us up here as we head towards summer in Queensland! Not appreciating that very much but what can you do! Hopefully we will be able to keep food fresh for long enough to eat it on our way south, and until we are able to replace it. It’s probably a blessing in disguise, the fridge is very old and a pretty antiquated design, uses a great deal of power and is hard to keep tidy. A new decent sized fridge will set us back close to $1500 but we can’t really contemplate life on board without one! Luckily we do have a freezer and a small bar size fridge which we can keep milk cold in and for now that will have to do! Our southerly journey will begin in the next few days depending on weather. We have had the best of times up here in The Whitsundays and look forward to the end of the cyclone season when we plan to make our way north again, to return to places and people that have begun to feel like ‘home’!
1 Comment
10/2/2014 2 Comments Cruising in CoralAfter more than three years on board Argos and sailing more than half way around Australia we have, over the last few weeks, been developing a whole new skill set - cruising around reefs!
Our first encounter with a coral reef was at Lady Musgrave Island – an incredibly beautiful coral Cay with a navigable lagoon that we were able to enter and anchor in. Lady Musgrave gave us a sweet taste of what might be ahead and an opportunity to begin to develop our much needed new skills! We entered the lagoon via a narrow but well-marked passage and had the children out front spotting coral before we attempted to anchor, but we were very lucky the day we arrived – we had entered at low-ish tide and on a magnificent day. The water was pretty still and the bottom very visible. The following day when we set off to leave it was a totally different story. The conditions, had we entered then, would have made it so much harder for us to be confident of what was on the bottom and we would have run the risk of anchoring on or near coral. Some conditions make seeing coral harder – windy days of course where there may be white caps and chop, but it can be hard to spot when the sun is reflecting off the water! We had heard and were mindful that seeing coral later in the day was harder and we would add to this, that it is preferable to look for an anchorage towards low tide rather than when water is at its greatest depth! Tidal range of course is another factor that makes anchoring up here interesting with tidal range in some places being as much as 9 meters! However back to coral! After Lady Musgrave it was coral all the way. ‘Fringing reef’ is now a term we are very familiar with and watching for it our most noted activity when coming in to anchor. We have so far had only one incident where we unfortunately anchored just near the edge of a reef - near Keswick island. It was late afternoon when we arrived and the wind was up, and we were tired after a long day sailing. We had been unsure of where the best place to anchor would be and we had been without internet for some time and had picked up a little signal in some places as we approached this island. So naturally we looked for a spot to anchor that gave us internet! We had come in close to a couple of spots but as we got in closer the signal dropped out so by the time we reached the place we ended up anchoring we were quite over it all! Into the setting sun and at high tide we approached an anchorage on the north of the island where another yacht had already settled for the night and dropped the anchor in what had looked like a clear sandy patch. It was the lurch that alerted us! It felt as though unseen hands had yanked the anchor from us as it dropped. Instantly we knew that we had snagged coral and not dropped clean into sand. It was a tense few minutes of gently pulling the anchor back, manoeuvring the boat so as to try to dislodge it and then as fast as it had been stuck it was free. What a relief. In the go-to book about cruising the Whitsundays, 100 Magic Miles ( by David and Carolyn Colfelt) we learned that we were not alone. And that we have the most suitable anchor for the coral conditions – locals totally favour the CQR with all-chain cable and that, happily is what we were using – though we do carry other anchors for other conditions. Locals say that the CQR, unlike the popular Danforth, cannot be jammed with coral and of course all-chain means there is no risk of coral severing rope cords. Happily our incident was very minor and I do always feel that having an ‘incident’ alerts us to be cautious way more than if everything had gone completely smoothly. We re-anchored slightly further out after this, where we were confident there could be no fringing reef and despite not being able to see the coral we knew we would be safe. Anchoring up here is amazing. The wind has a behaviour all of its own! The geographic conditions of lots of sharp, steep peaks so close to the shore line makes for lots of strong and powerful wind ‘bullets’ that are shot at you, putting pressure on the anchor and being a great test of its resilience. We had encountered this unusual phenomenon before, in Refuge Cove at Wilsons Prom. The wind can seem quite low and benign and then suddenly you hear this ‘whoosh’ and the wind is whistling in the rigging and the boat pushed about and then it is gone, the wind just disappears! It’s crazy! In these kinds of conditions we like to put out a lot of chain (scope) and not be too close to other boats but up here with so many charter-boats it can be interesting to try and explain in yell to a boat operator that that’s a little too close! We have, now, quite lost track of where we have been and what day it is…….happily I keep a log of our movements and it amazes me that the only way we usually can remind ourselves of where we are and how long we have been here is to consult it! Finally we have found the sweet spot where life has slowed down to cruising pace! According to the log we have visited and anchored at (since leaving Burnett Heads on 4 September: Lady Musgrave Island; Hummocky Island; Great Keppel Island (several spots); Middle Percy Island; Digby Island; Keswick Island; Brampton Island; Thomas Island; Whitsunday Island (Mays Bay); Hook Island (Nara Inlet a couple of times); Airlie Beach on the mainland; Fitzalan Passage near Hamilton/Whitsunday Islands; And Whitehaven Beach on Whitsunday Island. We have completely circumnavigated Whitsunday Island. Coral has abounded and happily we have had no more issues with it! We are relaxing now around Airlie waiting for suitable weather to head out towards the outer reef to enjoy some snorkelling. We need low-ish wind for this as there is no shelter out there. After that we will begin our slow journey back down south. The trade winds tend to abate from late September onwards providing the best time to meander south visiting some of the places we have loved and other places we didn’t stop at. At Burnett Heads we will take on board a new crew member, Capt’n Jack – a gorgeous Burmese kitten who we hope will learn to love this life with us! |
Archives
September 2017
Our life aboard Argos has been seriously challenged this year with the surprise departure of our skipper. As a writer, diesel mechanics and the complexities of many aspects of Argos’ on-going maintenance are way beyond me! We would like to see Argos continue to sail and eventually hope to use her to offer support, encouragement and a break to people who are struggling in their lives. Any on-going help towards maintaining Argos would be greatly appreciated and enable us to achieve this goal.
|