Day 19: Hexham Island – Curlew Island - Flingtime

Saturday, 1st June 2013.

It had been vey windy through the night, with some anxiety about the anchor holding but it was fine.
We were up early at 05:30 and were expecting the ESE 20-25 kts winds to continue. Had breakfast and listened to the 06:33 weather report. The skipper decided to set off with the main sail on the second reef although the reefs are quite deep on the new sails. The swells were around 2 metres but the ebb tide interacting with the wind once again produced some 'interesting' turbulence.

We had logged on to CG Thirsty Sound but could not contact VMR Mackay and let CG TS know about that. The main VHF radio definitely was underperforming.
08:20 we shook out one reef as the wind was around 21 knots and we were looking for a bit more speed. On the first reef we were making 5 knots SOG. For the next couple of hours we were running against the edd tide which slowed us by an estimated 2 knots. The paddle wheel log calibration efforts were still not working so doing maths on the difference between the speed through the water and SOG was futile.

Eddies off Glasgow Rock pushed the boat around and the waves were standing up and breaking but Flingtime was riding the lumpy seas very well.
The jib was flopping around and not providing enoug power so John experimented with the shape by attaching the mainsail downhaul gear. This did noticably improve matters.
By late morning the rain set in and the wind and seas subsided so we motor sailed to help charge the batteries and to maintain speed.

12:40 The wind was astern and down to a TWS of 18 knots. The swell had settled so we raised the outboard, furled the jib, lowered the main and hoisted the spinnaker.SOG was a good 7.8 knots. Depth 24metres.
The spinnaker sheets were eased to keep the foot high for good visibility and to keep the power down by spilling some wind.

In the Washing Machine - a quick Spinnaker run through tidal eddies.

Youtube viewing tip. Use the tools to reset resolution to 720 dpi for a better picture.
The default is very low-res.

Navigatrix was on the helm as we sailed through the passage between Curlew Is. and Treble Islet. The seas churned, the auto pilot was useless, and we named this section 'the washing machine'. Once committed to entering the channel there was no way we could snuff the spinnaker even if we wanted to as it was just too dynamic. Navigatorix had an adrenalin rush and we have the video clip to prove it. The eddies pointed the boat at one island and then the other as we tended to surf the following seas. The rocky cliffs and headlands were throwing up spray from the crashing waves. The channel was not exactly tight but swift action would have been necessary if anything went wrong.
It was a relief to sudddenly be through all this into the relative calm of picturesque Davidson Bay. We sailed around the second headland to anchor in the sandy cove on the north of the island at 15:45.

We successfully logged on to VMR Mackay and then took the dinghy ashore to climb a hill and see if we could get any Telstra mobile signal. We had been in a mobile phone shadow since entering Pearl Bay and had not contacted any family during that time.

Dinner was snapper from the Rosslyn Bay fish market with roasted potato, zucchini, garlic, tomato. Yummy.