Broome to Dampier

Posted by Gavin

I write this as we sail out of Dampier. We had no intentions of visiting Dampier when we left Broome, but that’s sailing for you….

Leaving Broome put us back in a continuation of the weather we suffered when approaching Broome. Strong SW winds (don’t forget..we want to go SW) and swelly seas. Bollocks.

We tacked north west by night and south by day. Not close to the wind at all, but as close as we could sail with the steep waves and subsequent ‘hobby horsing’ spilling the wind from the sails. We got too complacent at times about the Genoa. The full genoa was needed to drive us through these conditions, and sometimes it was still flying in well over 20 kts, which made it extremely difficult to furl. The tension was so great that when we did furl it, fully or partially, it wound very tight and made either a bad shape or left a triangle out that caused mild turbulence over the staysail.

The lesson was finally and painfully learned when one of the flogging sheets whipcracked one of the very nice ‘clears’ in the doghouse and shattered the polycarbonate. We covered the hole with sailcloth, and now the beautiful ‘Anyway’ looks like a pirate with an eye patch. After five nights of this nonsense I decided to sail down the west side of the Dampier archipelago and stop in Hampton harbour for three nights.

What a weird place. A friendly boating club, but what boats! Squat/ugly/huge/strange pieces of floating industrial usefulness. Boats? Bagwhan Marine should pay a fine for crimes against aesthetics.  The few recreational vessels around were pretty flash powerboats (three axles for the trailers with these toys). The place is a huge industrial export centre. Stockpiles of salt wait to be shipped out, but far more extensive is the mullock heaps of iron ore, all being conveyor belted direct into the hold of dozens of huge cargo carriers. And there’s more… permanent flares from huge chimneys where the liquid natural gas is also being pumped into very specialised bulk carriers. Australia exports!  Defecates? Your superannuation at work!

The approaches to this (privately operated) port are spectacular. Many dredged channels, all marked by beacons that flash extremely brightly at night. For some reason all the green ones flash at the same time, then all of the red ones. Christmas on LSD!

And speaking of red….the halyards are all orange coloured from blowing iron ore dust. A bit like North Africa again, where the Haboob winds covered us with fine red dust/sand. I hope this stuff does’nt stain….

Blair and Greg hitchhiked to Karratha one day. That was one of the only two shore-forays. The wild conditions made shore trips in the tiny tinnie quite hazardous. I could not relax ashore, knowing that we had the return soaking (sinking?) to endure. I wish I hadn’t bought the thing. I’ll try and sell it in Exmouth.

Off to Exmouth, again!

And today, right now, we have a lovely sailing respite. Full sails, only 10kts of wind, we are making 4.5kts almost in the right direction. The plan is to anchor tonight behind Stewart Island, then overnight to Exmouth, probably to arrive about Midday on Wednesday. Only five days behind the original plan, though it feels like more than that.

Catch a fish, Greg, I’m ready for mackerel again!

Yeah Yeah…. Eventually anchored behind the new breakwater jetty at Cape Preston. Useful, if ugly. Winds still from the SW, we talked to a tugboat skipper on the radio who said he was anchored in 35kts last night. The forecast was for 20 kts, so I decided that the large industrial wharf was preferable to the diminutive  Stewart Island. We could also have an earlier beer.

This trip is becoming one of those ‘character forming’ exercises.

A good night, however. Dinner a la Greg. Turtles huffing in the night. Some swell rounding the breakwater and rolling us gently and regularly.  The next morning, as we sailed off, a huge snorting and roaring workboat appeared and told us that we had to go north (we wanted to go south west) as “port operations” were under way. No options here, they literally shepherded us for a while. Lots of big blokes with hard hats and day-glow jackets standing on the rear deck and laughing. There was a massive port operation indeed. A huge dumb barge, full of magnetite, was being towed out to the cargo ship three miles to the north. Another tug was towing six ‘fenders’, each as big as a bus, to place between the ship and the barge when it eventually got there. After a while the skipper of the tugboat realised that there was plenty of room for us to pass behind him and suggested we do so. We turned west and then were again called by the slightly more belligerent workboat that had shepherded us before going ahead to the cargo ship, they also then gave us permission to cut through the convoy. I guess they had to by then. They did, however, point out that they were supposed to ‘move us on’ last night, but decided to let us shelter, undisturbed, instead. That was good.

It is interesting to see how much of this WA coast has been claimed, (occupied?) by industry. First the vast acreage of waters that “may” have unlit and unmarked buoys and pearl leases, now the extensive “port operations” associated with the huge resource export industries of iron ore and gas. I am reminded of the way that the military took control of vast tracts of airspace in the Northern Territory in the seventies and eighties. They took what they wanted (and more than they needed) because there was no-one else using the place at the time. This could not have happened in places such as Europe or the UK because ‘customary’ usage would have been affected. At least there would have been public awareness/consultation/interest.

OK, so everybody benefits, theoretically. But at the same time so much of these waters are “unsurveyed”.  I am sure that the pearlers at least have done their own surveys, but it does not seem to be that the knowledge they have is passed on into the public domain. Would this not be an acceptable social contribution for these industries to offer?  They are using (and selling) finite natural resources, and they are creating restrictions to the movement of an admittedly small number  of private vessels.  It seems to me that more could be asked of them.

Good sailing by day, followed by tight navigation at night. Another large Spanish Mackrel onboard. The tidal current opposed us with 3kts of adversity, the relatively tight Mary-Anne Passaage was further constricted by two tugs towing (how did they stay in control?) the biggest dumb-barges I have seen, and then the waters just outside Onslow were inhabited by shoals, reefs, dredgers and gas installations. We wove through the shallows, using engine and sails, to get out of that area and nearer to Exmouth before the strong SW winds predicted could give us further trouble. We got to Exmouth at @ 11am, were waved into the marina by a whale tail, and tied up to a deserted but extremely modern dock.

Then the phone call and the world collapsed. Maggies son, Robbie, had taken his own life.

Greg and Blair are left on the boat to tidy up before leaving. I am flying back to Wanaka to get there as soon as I can.

Right now I never want to see WA again. Huge, brash, ugly and full of fear and sorrow. I don’t know when I will get back to “Anyway”, and right now I don’t know that I ever want to. This is the most devastating piece of news that I have ever experienced. I think I must be in shock.