Cruising Log—11...Keppel Bay to Port Clinton

20/09/2006 Fourth Epistle from Masala:Keppel Bay (Yeppoon / Rockhampton area) to Mackay

Dear Friends,

This epistle covers the period from Tuesday 25 July to Sunday 27 August.

You might remember that at the end of the Third Epistle we were in Keppel Bay Marina, waiting for the waters to the north in the Shoalwater Bay military training area to be reopened. Two days before they were reopened we left the marina and sailed back out to Svendsen’s Beach, our favourite anchorage at Great Keppel Island. It is a good place from which to commence the 44 mile leg to Port Clinton, our next stop.

Over the next day and a half at Svendsen’s, all the yachts that had been trapped by the closure started pouring into Svendsen’s ready for the reopening. The night before the reopening the tally reached 25. There were yachts anchored everywhere, it was a great sight.

In order to reach Port Clinton in daylight hours, it is necessary to leave at dawn. “This will be fun”, we said. “Rather than always sailing on our own, we’ll have a fleet of 25 yachts to race to Port Clinton, all leaving at about the same time.”

We were up at 5 a.m. and pulling the anchor just after 6 a.m., along with everyone else in the bay. Sails mushroomed all around as the fleet headed north. We were soon well towards the back of the fleet. The winds were less than 10 knots and the sea very lumpy. “We’ll catch them later if the wind picks up, which it usually does during the day,” we consoled ourselves.

Over the next hour we stumbled along while all of the yachts except for a few disappeared over the horizon. By the end of the second hour most of the fleet had disappeared, partly due to distance and partly due to incessant rain. The winds were still light, and we scratched our heads over how they were able to get so far in front.

Mid morning the wind picked up and became quite strong, especially under the murky squall clouds that were now rolling over us. Broad reaching in these conditions is exhilarating, as there is enough wind to get all 14 tons of Masala up and surfing on the 2-3 metre waves. Although our course was 20 degrees off the direction we should have been going, at least we were now making excellent speed. In fact, we set a new maximum speed record for us at 9.3 knots.

Two other yachts of similar size were sailing in similar fashion to us, and we crossed and recrossed each other’s paths over the nine hours it took to reach the entrance to Port Clinton. We started 100m behind our main rival at Great Keppel and after all that time ended up 100m in front at the end.

Later we discovered the reason for the disappearance of the bulk of the fleet. They had all been motor sailing as they didn’t like the difficulty of the sailing conditions. Despite this, and despite the extra distance we covered in the zig zags, the motorers only beat us into harbour by an hour or so. Now we felt a lot better.

Port Clinton is a vast natural harbour in the Shoalwater Bay military training area. Despite its name, it is a huge wilderness and totally undeveloped. I supposed it is best described as a drowned river valley, a bit like Pancake Creek but very much bigger. There are lots of sand banks and shoals but the water in the main channel is very deep, at 20 to 30 metres or more in places. The entrance is broad but a bar reduces the depth to around 3 to 4 metres. With the squalls streaming over us, blinding rain in the face, and a big easterly swell humping up steeply over the bar, it felt pretty intimidating.

An hour’s motor into a strong ebb tide and driving rain saw us finally drop anchor to the south of Mt Flinders, next to our friends Dave and Karen on the lovely ferro ketch “Warneta”.