Sunday 5th July 2015
Nara inlet settled down to be a very
comfortable anchorage overnight, however, the heavens opened at around 2 am,
with some very heavy rainfall. Fortunately, we reacted quickly and all open
hatches were closed in time.
The usual 6am howling wind did not come
this morning, and when I poked my head outside at 6.30am, it was dead calm. I
quickly took the opportunity to try to sort out my headsail furling problem.
With Carole’s help, we manually “unwrapped” the sail from the forestay and then
attempted to pull the sail down. The
halyard was jammed and it did not want to come down. After a bit of fiddling
around increasing and reducing the tension on the halyard, the sail started
sliding down.
The swivel was operating fine, if not a
little stiff, so I gave it a spray of silicone lubricant, and noticed that the
knot on the shackle attaching the halyard looked like it had been rubbing on
something. After I was convinced that
both ends of the furling system were running freely, I hoisted the sail,
tightened up the halyard and furled it in and out a few times to make sure all
ran freely. Let’s hope that the jammed halyard as the problem.
Within half an hour of us getting
everything tidied up, the wind came in, with some rain.
Janet paddling over to make arrangements for the shore walk
Before leaving Nara, we did the quick walk
up to the aboriginal paintings cave and then headed back to our boats to
prepare for departure to Tongue Bay. The weather is overcast, and some rain
seems a certainty.
Our boats at anchor at Nara
Aboriginal cave paintings
Mark listening intently to some recordings by local elders
At 10 am, anchors are up and we motor out
of Nara Inlet, with only a light SE breeze at this stage. The tide is still
coming in and should peak at around midday (it is hard to get accurate times
for each location here and the variation from place to place is bigger than you
would expect).
Motoring across the entrance to Hook Passage, it rained again and the sea was choppy.
Carole was on the helm most of the way, enjoying a bit of rain in this shot
Once inside the passage it was
quite pleasant, with sunshine and flat water. In huge contrast, coming out the
Northern end of the passage was wild. There was a strong SE breeze and overfalls
caused by wind against tide as we left the passage. We headed North to avoid
the worst of the rough water, and watched with great amusement, a bareboat
charterer fight his was through the worst of it slamming and bucking his way
through it.
Once we cleared the confused water (about
30 mins,) we continued motoring to Tongue Bay, in improving conditions. The wind
was dead on our nose and the seas not pleasant enough to want to put up a sail
and tack backwards and forwards to get there.
Hopefully the rain is now behind us
The anchorage is sheltered from the wind,
but a bit rolly. Not long after we
dropped our anchor, a large sea turtle came to visit, quite close to our boat.
We put our dinghy in the water and go
ashore with Mark and Janet to walk to the lookout that looks over Hill Inlet.
We had more showers, but the view was worth it. We also had a limited time, as
the tide was going out and the beach access deteriorates as the tide drops. The
thought of being stranded there had little appeal to any of us.
Safely ashore and dressed for rain, the tide is already going out exposing some rocks
The entrance to Hill Inlet
The beach on the Southern side of Tongue Point
Esk Island
The late afternoon sky was hardly encouraging
The rain continued through the night and the rocking abated, but never stopped entirely. Let's hope for a sunny day tomorrow (the forecast says so !)
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