Down the West Coast - An Australian adventure

Down the West Coast - An Australian adventure © Peter Utber

We had dallied too long in Darwin, the port city that always lays her more than welcome mat out to sailors in transit. The season was well advanced and the south-east trade winds all but a memory of their former sail filling glory.

Thus we had flapped and slopped our way across the confused Joseph Bonaparte Gulf (which is always as trying on ones sanity as it is on the ships canvas), and raised Cape Rulheirs on the third day out. This tall bluff guards the entrance to the majestic King George river where we repaired our sails and ourselves, and toasted the fact that we were back once more in Western Australian waters.

'Leah' rounded the Cape of Londonderry and seemed to know she was back in the Kimberley. We worked south west for a few days, dodging whales, anchoring each night off islands and shores that carry the names of the French explorers from another age. It was mid September when we reached Silver Gull Creek in the Yampi sound. Phil., as usual, extended his every courtesy to us (as he and Marion do to all wayward sailors), and a week was quickly lost in this remarkable paradise that knows no roads.

From the 'Yampi' we sailed across the mouth of the King Sound, steering a course twenty five degrees off our intended track to counteract the massive tide that roars out from Derby, anchored for the night at Cape Leveque, then pressed on for Port Headland, four hundred miles further down the coast. We passed Broome a couple of days later but did not pull in, the tide ridden anchorages there held no attraction for us, tired as we were.

South from Broome we beat down the Eighty Mile beach where the bones of drowned sailors can still be found in the sand dunes. This area was (and still is) fished for the fabulous mother of pearl shell back in the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. The luggers of those days had no engines, and would be caught like sitting ducks with nowhere to hide when a cyclone came howling down the coast.

We had a different problem. Because the season was late, and the south-east tradewinds had packed it in for the year, the wind pattern had developed into a land breeze/sea breeze regularity. The wind would come off the Western Australian deserts in the early hours of the morning, sometimes reaching twenty five knots. Our little ketch would be pushed out to sea, close hauled on a port tack until noon, when the wind would drop completely away for a couple of hours. At around 1400, in would come the afternoon sea breeze from the south-west, bang on the nose. We would tack ship and close the coast again on a starboard board, working into a choppy head sea. This was the infamous 'West Coast Doctor' that blew all summer long, bringing welcome relief to the hot coastal communities in the Nor-west, but was making life miserable on board 'Leah' for Di. and myself. This sea breeze would blow quite strongly until around 2200 hours, then fizzle out at midnight.

Port Headland slowly drew closer. Because the ever present sea breeze was dictating our heading, I charted a course that would take us through the Bedout channel which runs between Bedout Island and the Amphinome Shoals. The flooding tide was with us, but the seas were standing up against it and our going was slow and wet. We entered the channel before dark, and by 2030 hours 'Leah' was pitching and heaving her way through the waves, her bowsprit one moment pointing at the heavens, then plunging deeply into the three metre seas. We had the motor running to help us lay North Turtle island fourteen miles ahead in the blackness. Once past this island we could pull away for the final sixty miles to Port Headland.

Di. was on watch, not that there was much to look at. The sea breeze howled through the rig and great waves of green water would come hurtling back over the deck, hit the wheelhouse windows and run off the cockpit dodger. We were close hauled on a starboard tack, and making slow headway. The Bedout Island light winked away on our starboard beam, whilst the great shoal bank that runs fifteen miles out from the old Condon settlement was under our port lee. I stood in the companionway, looking aft and watched two gulls holding station with us, the masthead light reflecting off their outspread wings.

The engine stopped dead, too quickly for it to be a fuel problem. 'Leah' fell away to leeward, leaned over and steadied onto a new heading that would see us aground if we carried on for too long. I raised the engine hatch, put the gearbox into neutral and tried to turn the propellor shaft. It was seized solid. Oh happy days! I did a tour of the decks, hanging on as 'Leah' rode up and down on the swells that passed under her keel. Everything seemed normal. I was looking for a rope over the side that may have fouled the prop. Nothing. The spare water and fuel drums were still lashed down tightly, the spinnaker bag nestled in its usual spot between the drums, also lashed. I made my way back to the cockpit. "I think the gearbox is seized".

Di. said nothing, her knuckles gleaming white on the wheel as she concentrated on steering the best course she could make. I took note of our new heading and went below to the navigation station. Out of the wind, the main saloon warm and snug with the brass bell and galley tap reflecting the soft light from the nav. instruments, my heart went out for our brave little ship as she rose and dipped over the steep seas.

At the speed and heading we were making, we were going towards a bad lee shore, and needed to tack away. I climbed back out into the cockpit. "Ready about". I readied the sheets while Di. judged the wave patterns.

"Lee ho" she called, spinning the wheel to starboard as I released then winched the jib in again. Leah settled down onto the port tack and began slowly drawing away from the coast. The motion was nowhere as violent with the sails full and the wind coming over the port side for'rard of the beam. I took note of the heading and speed made good over the ground and went below again to plot our new heading.

Our speed was nothing to write home about, 2.5 knots, which surprised me for we had the tide with us and the sails full and drawing. On the present heading we would be lucky to clear the shoal that extends south a fair way from Bedout Island. Further to that, the tide was due to change in three hours and would be then running north against us, setting us even closer to peril.

Di. called from the cockpit and I climbed up the companionway steps again, leaving the calm sanctity of the main saloon once more. Her lovely hair hung down each side of her face in wet ringlets. "What's that behind us, in the water?". I stared!

Waving and dancing deep under our stern, swathed in a beautiful halo of phosphorence was our spinnaker.

I groaned! No wonder we were making such poor speed. I could see the sheets which we always left attached trailing out far behind, the whole shebang obviously wrapped around the propellor.

But how? I made my way up to the fore deck once more and stared at the spinnaker bag. The bottom had been blown clean out of it by the seas we had been taking over the fore deck. I was very angry with myself for not having stowed the sail below. We hadn't used it for quite a while, and to leave it on the deck, albeit securely lashed, it was bad seamanship on my behalf that had put us into this tight predicament.

There was nothing we could do about it now, other than to raise the mizzensail and shake the reef out of the main. We sailed on through the night, hard pressed, towing the kite, slowly making way. Fortunately the wind held in and we cleared the reef strewn shoal by oneand a half miles. The tide changed, but in the changing seemed to sweep us away from the danger and dawn found us becalmed in a heaving sea left over from the night winds.

I dived into the still dark water and hacked the great knot of spinnaker and sheets from the propellor, while the boat tried its best to brain me as it rose and fell ten feet. Bits of gaily coloured sailcloth floated around me like fifty dollar notes. The sheets were tightly wound along the shaft and I was exhausted by the time it was all cut away.

I clambered back on board and caught my breath We ate a hearty breakfast, then hoisted sail and set a course for the still distant Port Headland, pushing into the morning south east breeze that came howling off the deserts.

"Welcome back to the west coast", Di. grinned at me and I pulled a face. We dodged whales later that afternoon, and entered Port Headland harbour just before dark, seeking shelter from the seabreeze behind Finucane Island. The harbour authorities ordered us out, threatening police action and we reanchored off the yacht club sand spit that offers scant protection from the wind and rocked and rolled all night. "Welcome indeed"!

We were to spend four years back on that coast with its wild weather and beautiful isolation before succumbing to the sirens that called from the Great Barrier Reef once again. During that time we fell in love with the historical little town of Onslow, survived the onslaught of tropical cyclone Vance and were married on a lovely beach by the Dampier Archipeligo.

"So I must draw my canvas tight, and set my helm a'lee, to slowly sail on through my life, because you're calling me." — Yotti Pete | Ketch 'Leah'