PORT LINCOLN TO WALLAROO

We have now been away from home for 4 months.

Saturday 4th July. Today we finally set sail from Port Lincoln and headed out to the Sir Joseph Banks group of Islands, a 4 hr sail from Pt Lincoln. We spent 4 days anchored off Reevesby Island which has an old abandoned homestead dating back to around 1911 . We saw lots of Cape Barron Geese and a large lovely old white owl living in the barn.

Our friends Rob & Lorraine from Songlines, sailed back to Reevesby Is. from Pt Augusta and joined us for what was to be a lovely day catching up on each others sailing plans, going ashore and with an evening meal on Songlines , before they departed for Pt Lincoln the next morning.

We set sail to Tumby Bay on the 8th July timing our entry into the channel to reach the marina on a high tide. We needed at least 1m under Finesse We spent 6 days in Tumby Bay, met lots of locals who also took us on interesting drives in the area. . Naturally we also had to exit on a high tide so we come out and of the marina into the bay and hooked onto a mooring with the owner’s approval on 12 July.

Monday 13th July. We set sail at 7.30am bound for Arno Bay, and because of good winds of 15-20 kts we reached Arno Bay mid morning but decided to keep sailing up to Cowell, a much safer harbour, otherwise know as Franklin Harbour where we tied up to the local jetty.

Cowell is famous for its oyster production and whilst there we sampled plenty of cheap oysters and also their famous oyster pies. After 3 days of exploring the town we decided to head further north towards Whyalla.

Thursday 16th July. We departed Franklin Harbour which took us about 1 hour, as you have to navigate your way out through a long entry channel on high tide before reaching open seas. We decided to only go as far as Plank Point (Murininnie), which is a long sand spit. It was like anchoring in wide open waters, but in 3m at low tide, you are protected from seas because of the spit.

This was our first every anchorage of this type and even though we anchored securely with both anchor alarms on, neither of us slept very well.

We weighed anchor at 8am, and motored into northerly headwinds all the way to Whyalla, which took us about 4 hours. We kept out of the shipping channel as there were some very large vessels anchored in the gulf and loading from a huge barge, as they were too big to get into Whyalla.

We spent 6 days in Whyalla at the local marina, next to the Yacht Club. We again met lots of locals who came down to inspect Finesse. We did quite a lot of walking in Whyalla exploring this “red dust” town. In fairness the red dust is now under control and a wash- off grey soot has replaced the indelible red. Their maritime museum houses on land, the first steel vessel produced in the Whyalla shipbuilding yards. This was a Corvette warship used as a minesweeper in WWII called HMAS Whyalla. We had a very interesting guided tour through this vessel.

We did the usual pub lunches and caught the local bus to the other side of town, as it is split in two and too far to walk. We had dinner with a local couple Andrew and Leanne one evening which gave us an opportunity to see Whyalla at night from the local lookout at Hummock Hill plus the lights of Port Pirie across the other side of the gulf. We even had the local paper come down and do an interview with us about our travels, calling us “Gypsies of the Sea”.

Thursday 23rd July. We departed at 7am for Port Augusta. Had a glorious run but no winds only tides up to the top end of the gulf. It was beautiful scenery with the channel narrowing and the Flinders ranges on one side and another range the other side. We reached Port Augusta, after navigating our way through 50 spit posts and tied up to the “city” pontoon at 2pm. This was adjacent to the very long and tall wharf where old sailing schooners used to tie up.

Port Augusta is a very tidy and clean city, and again we met lots of locals. Did the usual Friday night drinks at the yacht club where we were also able to use their facilities for showering and storage of our dinghy. We put Finesse onto a mooring for two days, when we took a trip up to Maree for a flight over Lake Eyre. This was a local tour run by Gulf Tours which incorporated visits to local towns and ruins along the way up and back to Maree. A fun evening was spent around a large “sleeper” camp fire, including a roast dinner with singing and dancing into the night.

We were scheduled the next morning for a 7.30am flight over Lake Eyre in a 6 seater Cessna, which would take 1 hour 30 minutes, flying up to 4000ft before dropping down to 500 ft for most of the flight over the lake. It was fascinating to see the vast expanse of water even though it was quite shallow and wide areas of salt and mineral deposits giving both colour and patterns over the lake. We also saw the Maree Man a 4km long outline of a native person etched into the ground by a cultivator, illegally done back in 1998.

The long drive back to Pt Augusta was uneventful apart from historic towns and ruins. We rowed back to the boat on the mooring in the dark, after being dropped off around 5.30pm.

We took Finesse back to the pontoon in the morning so we could do local chores, washing/shopping etc, before our departure from Pt Augusta. One of the fond memories is the valued time we spent with John & Marina, whom we shared a few dinners with and also gave us a lot of local information in relation to safe anchorages.

Thursday 30th July. Departed Pt Augusta at 7.00am for the long trip back down the channel, our destination was Port Pirie on the top end of the Yorke Peninsula. Again we had little wind so motored all the way with just one sail up. Port Pirie also had about 50 spits posts to navigate through taking us past the lead smelter before coming to the long wharf and jetty area where we tied up at 5pm. We had to be careful of tide movement with regard to our ropes tension and we noted that there was not much water under Finesse.

The next morning we explored Port Pirie on foot and saw some really beautiful old buildings, but without a vehicle the surrounding country side was out of our reach.
Met a few locals at the usual Friday night drinks at the Yacht Club and by this time had decided to set sail the next morning at 5.30am as we expected it to be a 10 hr trip down the Gulf to Wallaroo.

We rang ahead and organized a marina berth. On this leg we were able to put up sails and we tied up around 4 pm in the designated berth which was about ½ the size of Finesse.

Whilst in Wallaroo we met a local yachtie/car dealership owner who lent us a vehicle for the duration of our stay. We took advantage of this and drove to the 3 towns that make up the copper coast triangle. i.e.Kadina, Moonta and Wallaroo. We also drove up the coast to Port Broughton. We met a lovely couple Bob & Denise who welcomed us into their beautiful canal home and a fun night was had by all.

We have been in Wallaroo now for nearly a week because of weather the outlook. We intend to depart on Saturday 7th August for our trip down and around the bottom of the York Peninsula. We are heading to Port Vincent in the Gulf of St Vincent and will take our time by calling in at various places.