Hanse 400e

Hanse 400e

Sunday, July 5, 2015

Tongue Bay

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


Once back on our boats, after experiencing patchy rain, we settled in to the rocking motion of the boat, and Mark and Janet joined us for dinner, lamb shanks and apple shortcake for desert. Carole has now mastered the gas oven on board.



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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