Thursday 16th September
The plan is to head off to Curlew Island. The forecast looks favourable but the wind appears to be building from the SE, which is not what has been forecast.
Nevertheless, Cooinda headed off to the fuel wharf, and we left left our berth soon after (around 8.45am) and headed out to wait for them. It transpired that they were going to be delayed as Rod had left his credit card at the Yacht Club last night , so we decided to go ahead.
After about 30 mins the wind was passing through 15 knots on its way to 20 knots, from the SE. As always dead on our nose. It wasn't long before we had a radio call from Cooinda, suggesting we head back to the marina. We didn't need much convincing, as bashing into this for 10 hours had a low level of attraction.
A tug pulling an oil rig created a bit of an obstacle as we headed back as it occupied most of the space around the entrance leads, but there is deep water everywhere so it was not such a big issue.
By now my depth sounder had given up completely, and after a few phone calls, I have a new transponder on its way to Rosslyn Bay, which will be our next stop. I have also had a long discussion with Navico about a few issues with the wind instruments and auto pilot, hopefully I can rectify them when we are next under way, based on some suggestions from one of their engineers. Tomorrows forecast is worse than today, so we book in for 2 nights and now hope to leave on Saturday. When we went up to pay for the extra night we were told 4 boats, including us, had turned back and there were probably a few more later.
“Mee Too” arrived in the afternoon from a nearby island.
We had a lazy lunch of seafood at a cafe on the marina, and had a BBQ on Mica for dinner.
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