We arrived in Broome on Saturday around lunchtime after 4 days of sailing up from Exmouth. Nic and I were both a bit buggered so we decided to rest and relax on the boat and watch the footy plus enjoy the spoils of our fishing adventure. Monica and Paul were at the races and in no rush to get on board, and Arnhem had a gig on that evening so everyone was happy.

Sunday morn and we launched the dinghy and arranged with Arnhem to come and pick us up. Cable beach at Gantheame point is the local boat launching ramp, and on this Sunday there were over 100 vehicles parked on the beach, as well as people just BBQ'ing and relaxing, a very unique sight as the tide goes out leaving hundreds of metres of hard pindan sand that lets you drive to the waters edge.

Arnhem took us to their lovely house and Maxine kindly lent us her car so we could start the mammoth task of restocking the boat for 6 weeks and 4 people. That took us all Sunday and all Monday with numerous trips back and forth to the boat and into town. The "horror stories" of mooring at Broome did not eventuate, and we were lucky with flat calm conditions. 

A strong wind warning for Tuesday gave us a day off and we lazed around Broome enjoying some of the local Cafe's and picking up any last minute bits and pieces we could think of. Wednesday morn we set off heading up to Cape Baskerville about 50miles up the coast. Paul had a line in as soon as we left the mooring, and had caught a Blue Fin Tuna within 20minutes. Shortly after we had a nice Mackerel…lunch and dinner sorted!  My fishing prowess was being totally shown up, with the final nail in the coffin when Paul was simply pulling in one of his lures and a 1.5m Spanish Mackerel decided to jump out of the water and try to land in the cockpit! 

We had another day of fishing on Thursday as we left Cape Baskerville and headed about 30miles up to Pender Bay. Stopping on some special spots on the way to get some snapper. The girls combined showing their "girl power" and caught the bulk of the fish, while Paul and me were relegated to baiting the hooks and taking the fish off as they were reeled in. We arrived in Pender Bay just on dark. Today we are heading up to Cape Leveque which is considered the start of the Kimberley. Some strong wind warnings for Sat and Sunday so we may get stuck at Leveque for a day or so with a chance to watch the Derby. Mon and Paul have settled in, Nic is adjusting to not being able to swim due to crocs, but all the crew are very happy and content!! How could you not be?

We left Exmouth at 9.30am on Tuesday morning with about 530 miles in front of us and hoping to get to Broome by the weekend. The weather looked about as good as it was going to get. We had to tack our way up through the Dampier Archipelago, motoring and sailing into North Easterlies at 10 up to 15plus knots.  There were oil/gas rigs everywhere (not surprising really) and many many islands - looking forward to exploring this area on our way back down.But for now just pushing through.

We cleared Legendre Island (tip of the Archipelago) late on Wednesday night with the next target Port Hedland. We got across to PH on about 4pm the next day, lots of big ships here with PH being the busiest harbour in the Southern Hemisphere. I was glad of our Automatic Identification System (AIS) which shows us what ships are around, how fast and where they are going. But more importantly they can see us. 

With days of sailing ahead of us the focus turned to fishing again. I had limited time left to prove my manhood before our friends Monica and Paul get on the boat at Broome. Paul is a world champion fisher person, and for me to have travelled 1200 odd miles up the WA coast without catching a fish would be a failure I could never live down.

I put out a line with a beautiful bright squid rig on it. If I was a fish, I could not resist. A few hours later and Bang, something took the line, but Ping. Lure was gone. I said to Nic, we need a wire trace, some piano wire or something. Unfortunately we didn't have any wire fishing trace on board. Nic said how about using my old G-string? I had a bit of a double take, but then realised she was talking about a spare G-string on her guitar. Perfect!

I set it up with a nice shiny lure, and started trolling. Unfortunately no luck. Finally on Saturday morning on our final run to Broome - I said to Nic lets have one more go - I have to get a fish. Lo and Behold  - Bang, we got a fish on! I slowed the boat, started reeling it in, it was hooked - no getting off this time - Nic's G-string was doing the trick. As I pulled it closer to the boat I was saying to Nic, gee this is a good fish. It feels big, and then looking up saw a shark on the end of the line - oh no. Then it was gone, but there was still a bit of a fish. A half a spanish Mackerel to be exact - chomped in half.

So there you have it. The unluckiest fish in the world, caught by me and then chomped by a shark before it could suffer the disgrace of me landing it. I pulled the remains on board, and we still got 4 nice big fillets. My manhood is intact, and we are having fish for dinner tonight! Safely moored now in Gantheame Bay and looking forward to catching up with our Broome friends and picking up our crew over the next few days.

I think I have been underestimating Nic's life skills. We arrived at the Exmouth Marina on a Saturday, I rang the Dept of Transport (DoT) person to let them know we were coming, and he was great, telling us where to pull up etc and said he would catch up with us on Monday. When we got here, there is a locked gate at the end of the jetty, you can get out OK and you can latch it so it doesn't lock, but all the other people with boats on the jetty probably want it locked. I rang our DoT man to see if we could get a key, but he said just leave it unlocked - "this is Exmouth". Cool I said. 

After our first excursion the gate was locked and we couldn't get back in. Nic piped up, no problems, I can get out of handcuffs with a safety pin! I'll unlock the gate. My mind started spinning a bit - how on earth would my girlfriend know how to get out of handcuffs, was there a side to her I was unaware of? But true to form she used a piece of string and a stick and we unlocked the gate - clever girlfriend. 

Next thing she did, while on a roll, was said lets get a piece of wire and see if there are any spare keys in the lock box on the jetty. Sure enough there was. Well done girlfriend! I said while patting my trouser pocket to check my wallet was still there.

Finally she suggested we change our plans so instead of going all the way to Darwin, we simply turn around at Hunter River which is the drop off and pick up point for our friends and family. That will knock off about 7 weeks and give us a relaxed return journey to visit all the spots we have missed on the way up. Clever girlfriend.

We are planning now on leaving tomorrow (Tuesday morn). The weather and winds are looking a bit more favourable. We have about 500 litres of diesel on board, after filling up the flexi tanks. Finally we are going to go all out and see if we can land a fish as we travel over to Broome in the next four or five .. or six days??!!

We departed Mauds Landing (Coral Bay) at 2pm on Friday arvo. After days of carefully watching the weather predictions to try to get a nice window to get around NW Cape, I decided this was it. I knew we would still get some pretty strong easterlies getting around the top, but I had tried to plan it so they would be waning by  the time we got there (about sunriseish on Sat).

The sail was nice and smooth to start with nice 15kn ESE winds pushing us along at about 5-5.5kns. Another beautiful full moon rose early as the sun was setting. Very spectacular again. I dropped the mainsail just before sunset as the breezes were predicted to strengthen during the evening and especially in the early hours (2am ish) As the evening wore on the winds behaved themselves peaking at about 20kns at times and then dying again. We made good progress up the Cape. Then about 3-4am we started to gradually turn north as we got towards the top of the Cape. This coincided with the predicted strengthening of the winds. It was also my off watch!

I could start to hear the boat begin to pound a bit into the waves, so I came up early and started to furl the heady and trim the sails a bit better to take advantage of and adjust to the conditions. The breeze steadily strengthened to the point that when we were trying to get around the Cape and tack into the Easterly it was probably blowing about 25 and peaking in the high 20's. This combined with the currents made for very confused seas. It brought to mind a cartoon I vaguely recall with Mickey Mouse as the "Sourcerer's Apprentice" with waves jumping up willy nilly seemingly all around the boat. Downstairs Nic was entertaining herself with trampoline tricks in bed - except she was an unwitting participant! There was also a bit of restowing going on with things that had been resting comfortably on the table finding far more comfortable spots on the floor! Anyone who has done a bit of offshore sailing will know this is all pretty normal, but for Nic it was a bit of an eye opener - she handled it all very well, with a good sense of humour!

Now arrived safely in Exmouth. We are planning to head off probably late Monday evening as the weather is predicted to become a bit more favourable (read Bloody Howling Easterlies are expected to stop!). Our plan is to cruise along pretty closely to the coast up to Broome stopping if possible if we start to get too bashed up. That is the plan - but of course Huey may have other plans. We hope to get to Broome by the weekend - but what will be will be - with just over 500NM to get there we have a bit of sailing to do! As I write this the crew is disco dancing around the cabin to "Lady Marmalade"  - so spirits are pretty good and ready to take on the challenge.

The prop parts didn't arrive until Tuesday. Australia Post "Express Post" took 4 days to get here - but I sort of expected that. Coral Bay is a bit out of the way in the scheme of things. I have been reading that 900 jobs are going to go in Aust Post, but the CEO is getting about $5m a year as a wage. Given that people are what make a business work, over estimating how many workers you need, and then having to get rid of 900 of them seems a bit of a failure by management at some stage? I'm guessing the last CEO employed them and this one has to fire them. I wonder what the average wage of an average Aust Post worker is and how it divides into $5m?

I did ponder during our waiting days that I could probably have sailed a boat from Fremantle to Coral Bay in less than 4 days in non-stop sailing time. Maybe there is a spin off business in an exclusive cruising delivery service for AP - might not make a lot of money, but it would be cool to get your bits delivered by a fellow yacthie.

Anyway we got our bits. After various calls to the CB post office it was confirmed at 1300hrs on Tuesday that our bits had arrived. However don't be fooled readers! It is not as simple or easy as it sounds. The breeze had been blowing North East at about 20kns all night, so we couldn't just get off the boat whenever we wanted. Luckily at about 1pm (1300hrs) the breeze died down, we took the dinghy towing the SUPs to the edge of the "no go" boat area, then SUPed into CB. We picked up the bits and also wandered up to the Pub to get a 6 pack. Nic has been drinking an awful lot and I am a bit worried about her.

We SUPed back to the dinghy with black clouds gathering all around. We got back to the boat, quickly hooked up the Hookah and got all the necessary tools ready (big crescent, hammer, allen keys, bigger hammer) to put the prop back on. Everything went according to plan. Nic was a great TA (technical assistant) as we both worked underwater refitting the prop. She even took a break to scrub some barnacles off the bottom of the keel as I was attaching a new sacrificial lead anode on the prop shaft.

Job done, we clambered back up onto the back "duck board". I looked around and said to Nic, "we are going to get wet soon". Within 15 mins a SW change came through and it was blowing 25-30kns. We'd packed everything that moved away and snuggled up below with a glass of champers to celebrate (hopefully) the prop being reinstated.

Today (wednesday), awoke thinking we would get away around lunchtime to go to Exmouth. Some small pressure to keep moving. But a nagging feeling, the weather forecasts are not great. They have 30kns in them. Seas and waves are going to be 3.8m, I don't really want to head off in a strong wind warning. I think we will have to wait until Friday before the winds start to line up. I know that sounds strange, but it is about working with nature and not against her. That is what cruising is all about.

Nic's having fun doing her own website at www.nicatsea.weebly.com  

Well it is Sunday now and we are still in Coral Bay. We expect to get the lock nut for the prop tomorrow, hopefully and maybe get on our way late tomorrow or early Tuesday. The wind has been consistently blowing 15-25kns from the east to north east and further up past NW Cape this has been reaching 30kns east-NE so we probably would have parked up in Exmouth anyway. A southerly change is coming through on Tuesday evening so we may have to make like we have a porpoise and get our passage making shoes on to get up to Broome taking advantage of those winds while they last. We still have about 600 odd miles to cover and only about a week and a half left to do it (on a good 24 hrs sailing we can do about 140miles so some serious sailing ahead of us) We will still need to make a stopover in Exmouth to resupply. So if we can get away on Monday and do our Exmouth stopover on Tuesday that would be ideal - but of course requires Aus Post to come to the party.

While stuck here we have done a bit of supping and fishing and snorkelling, but the constant wind and waves has made it a bit uncomfortable on the boat - we have definitely got our sea-legs! Still no luck fishing, Nic did catch a snook when we were trolling from the dinghy a few days back but we put it back because I wasn't sure if it was size (it was we discovered). The next evening we fished using baited lines, but with no real bait we used salami and bread. Not a single bite and we ended up eating the salami and bread as we motored back to the boat - we haven't tried fishing again, although there are some rather large squid hanging around the boat taunting us that they are in a no fishing zone - very very tempting!!

The wind does tend to ease a bit in the evening for a short while, but last night the tide against wind pushed us side on to the waves and drifted us over the mooring lines right in the middle of cooking dinner. Very annoying! I used the dinghy to pull us away from the mooring lines and then put out a stern anchor to hold us into the waves and off the mooring  - problem solved and a reasonably comfortable night.

Today we are going for a long walk on dry land to get over cabin fever, and then will watch the Dockers game this arvo on the iPad - I downloaded the AFL app as the tele has no reception (I know it is tough this cruising life!) Go Dockers!

The title to this blog is a Bob Dylan song. And a vague tangential reference to the fact we have found ourselves stuck in Coral Bay on the boat - but maybe not really down about that!

We were all ready to head off to Exmouth from here at about midday. Nic was on the helm and I was up the front letting off as I normally do. I spent a lot longer than normal letting off - because the large mooring line was stuck under the bow cleat. Finally I got it free, but in the mean time the boat had sort of drifted up and over mooring ball. I told Nic a few minutes earlier to make sure we were in neutral to avoid any chance of wrapping the prop. 

I came to the back of the boat and decided to jump in with a mask and snorkel to make sure we weren't caught up. No probs except there was no propeller on the prop shaft.  I quickly grabbed the mooring line and passed it back up to Nic so we could hook back up again. I then went in search of the prop. It was easily found on a clear sand bottom, along with the key way pin. 

I thought we must have reversed over the line and this is what has knocked the prop off. So I went in search of the locknut and washer that should be lying around. 1/2hr on snorkel Nic and me combined - 1/2hr on power dive hookah - lunch - 1/2 hr on snorkel again and Nic and me combined 1/2 hr on hookah in an under water systematic search using a set rope from the mooring. No luck.

We'll never know, but it is possible the lock nut came off a while back, and we were just very lucky that the prop decided to drop off here and now. I have taken some measurements and underwater  pics to send back to my propeller man in Perth, so he can send us a nut and washer. We will have to stay put for a while, perfecting our fishing techniques.

We had a great dive yesterday over at Asho's Gap - totally awesome coral and not a bad place to get stuck - so we don't have the Memphis Blues again!

We made our way out of "Gnarly" Gnaraloo Bay just after 8am on Sunday morning. I found out what a cable was, but we stuck to our pre sounded track which was close into the beach at about 2.5-3m depth. This was fine until we got about half way along the bay to the line out that we had come in on, then it started getting a bit shallow. I edged the boat out into deeper water with Nic keeping a watch, but we gently bumped the bottom at one stage. Full steam in reverse, a bit of heart pumping, and very very carefully picked our way back to the track we had on the chart plotter from the other day. Some very nervous moments, but as the depth started getting up to much nicer 5's 10's and then Phew 20m I began to relax. On restudying again Google Earth and the charts and the Freo cruising guide, I think I finally worked out we had probably gone in a lot further than the guide intended. In fact on close inspection of Google Earth you can see a boat anchored in a lovely sand patch about a cable off the beach - probably where we should a been all the time - oh well.

Had a light south easter in the morning to push us up to Mauds Landing near Coral Bay, but we had to motor sail to make the speed we needed to arrive in daylight. It was easy conditions and we finally decided to try our luck at fishing. I dropped a line out on the rod and tightened the brake on the reel enough to make sure it ran if a big fish got on. After the nervous moments of getting out of Gnarly Gnaraloo, I decided to take a nap. About an hour later I was rudely awakened from a deep slumber with Nic yelling "Fish, fish!!". I jumped up on deck and immediately put the motor into neutral, and then dived for the rod that had the reel screaming out at a rate of knots. Just as I was about to tighten the brake the line ran out, pinged off the reel, and that was that! Bye bye fishy.

Not to be dissuaded, I rewound some new line onto the reel, set up another lure and started again. Getting a bit greedy we also put out the whale shark catching indestructible hand reel.  About an hour later the rod started whirring again. I got to it this time and eased the brake on, but no good, the line went slack again. As I reeled in the line, it started feeling heavy, and I thought, oh maybe I have got something. But the harsh reality became clear as we saw the hand reel line coming in at the same time. 

I am amazed how twisted two fishing lines can become in a few short minutes. I have been told there is an algorithm that can be used to resolve any tangle or knot ever. I don't think even Steven Hawkins could have worked this one out. I'm sure he would have said, just as I did after about an hour of trying to untangle the lines - "some things in this Universe can not be resolved in our lifetime - cut the line Nic". Any fish that gets caught by us is going to be the unluckiest fish in the world!

The rest of the afternoon was spent listening to the Dockers beat the Bulldogs and slowly trucking closer to Mauds landing. We arrived at about 5pm and pulled up on one of the DoT courtesy moorings about 2miles north of the Coral Bay township. We played around in the evening on the HF radio trying to make contact with Deb and Andrew Hill on their boat down at Rotto. We could hear them faintly, but apparently they could hear us loud and clear. The simpler solution while Andrew and I were playing on the radio was Nic rang Deb on the mobile and the girls had a good catch up chat.

This morning we had an early visit from the DoE guys who were very friendly and helpful. We then jumped in the dinghy and headed down towards CB. There is a vessel exclusion zone that starts about a mile and a half out of town, so we parked the dinghy there and walked into the settlement. I have a little safety grab bag I take in the dinghy, which is water proof. I carry a hand held VHF radio, a personal EPIRB and some flares. On this occasion, I also put in my mobile phone, my wallet and a water bottle. Nic suggested just as we were leaving that we put soda water in our water bottles as it was a nice refreshing sparkly drink and already cold in the fridge. Good idea I thought.

When we were walking along the beach into town, Nic noticed that her water bottle was leaking because of the soda, it was fizzing out the top. I paid no heed. When we got to the shops and went to pay for all the replacement fishing lures I reached into my safety dry bag only to find about a litre of water in the bottom. My water bottle seal had blown out under the pressure of the soda. Flares were OK, VHF radio water proof and fine, EPIRB water proof and fine. Wallet - OK a bit wet. Finally in the bottom of the bag - my iPhone - Oh dear!!! So people will need to contact Nic on her iPhone from now on as I am incommunicado for a bit!