Perth and Fremantle

Shades of Mexico

Fremantle Sailing Club has about 500 pens or wet berths and plenty of hard standing. The Clubhouse has a bar, restaurant and upstairs function room. There is a Junior Clubhouse and lots of competitive dinghy and keel boat sailing as well as a cruising section. There are also many power boats and sports fishing boats. It’s a friendly place and in 2020, they were celebrating 100 years. We were made very welcome. There are toilets, showers and a laundry. Each pen has water and electricity nearby. We recommend that cruising sailors should stopover here.

New cradle for liferaft

New liferaft

Most of Sal Darago’s safety equipment had reached its use by date and needed to be replaced. It was always our intention to do this in Fremantle, where there are three chandleries: Wilson’s (on site), Yacht Grot (in town) and Whitworths (a short train ride away towards Perth). Jeremy sent an email to them all with a list of items asking for prices and availability. We bought a new Rocna anchor from Wilsons and just about everything else from Yacht Grot. This included liferaft, flares, EPIRB and Vetus mushroom ventilator.

New Rocna anchor

New EPIRB

New ventilator

We had a day out in Perth. It was strange to go on buses and trains again. We kept social distance and used plenty of hand sanitiser. We spent the morning in the vast King’s Park, walking through the botanical gardens, visiting the Peace Monument and traversing the glass bridge over the treetops. We had lunch in Zamia’s, which had only recently started serving food indoors with the tables placed two square metres apart.

Kings Park, Perth

Swan River, Perth

We caught two buses into town and found the Museum of Western Australia. Unfortunately, it was closed while undergoing extensive renovations. Next door the art gallery was open so we had a long browse in there. We were particularly impressed by a display of final year art students’ work.

Peace Monument

Perth CBD

Back in Freo, Jeremy went to the Bosuns on the Fremantle Sailing Club site. He needed a small piece of stainless steel to fix to SD’s bow to prevent the new anchor from damaging the fibre glass. This was curved and cut for no charge by Arthur (AJ). Jeremy gave the Bosuns some beers. Another day, he needed some wood to make a new cradle for the new liferaft. Andrew, from Bosuns, took him to Bunnings (like B&Q in the UK) in his vehicle. Then Andrew took Jeremy to his own house. In the garage, Andrew cut and drilled the wood before returning Jeremy to FSC. Once again there was no charge, so Jeremy took a bottle of wine up to his house. The generosity we found in Albany obviously extends to Freo. Long may it continue.

Glass bridge

Name this flower?

We couldn’t leave without a proper look around Freo. We went to the amazing Maritime Museum, walked along the harbour and admired the Victorian buildings, which the people had fought to save from demolition in the 1970’s.

Queensland Bottle Tree

Walking in Kings Park

On another day, Jason and Pauline from Albany came to see us on their way to Perth. It was great to catch up with their news and take note of Jason’s tips for sailing up the west coast.

Bronzed off immigrants

Fremantle Fishing Boat Harbour

The next day we visited the Shipwreck Museum in Freo. Four Dutch ships were wrecked on the west coast, the most well-known being the Batavia, which was on its way to the Dutch East Indies or Spice Islands (now Indonesia). We were going to follow its route northwards and hopefully arrive safely in Geraldton. It was just a pity that we were not carrying 12 wooden chests each containing approximately 8,000 silver coins. That would’ve paid for lunch!

The Roundhouse, the oldest stone building in WA

Fremantle Customs House

We left FSC on Friday 19^th June. A cold front had blown through and the swell was still big, although the wind had died away. The two nights at sea passed without incident giving us a mix of beam reach motorsailing and calm motoring under a canopy of stars. At dawn we saw a number of humpback whales blowing and diving. We anchored off Geraldton Yacht Club on Sunday 21^st June at 0930.

Scary Fremantle Shipwreck Museum

Greetings from Fremantle

Yes, we have left lovely Albany and the Southern Ocean and now we are tied up at Fremantle Sailing Club on the Indian Ocean.

View over King George Sound

I set up an online enquiry with Australia Post and three days later my long-awaited parcel arrived from the UK. We were anchored off the town and about to go food shopping when the message arrived that my parcel was ready for collection. All of a sudden our plans changed. We knew the weather was going to be settled for a few days with northerlies and easterlies, so we needed to start our journey west as soon as possible. After three months of comparative inactivity, we sprang into action, moving into the marina, provisioning, doing laundry and preparing Sal Darago for the ocean. The next day, Wednesday 3^rd June, we left Albany.

 

The marina in Oyster Harbour

There was no wind so we motorsailed. Perhaps it was a bad idea to be preparing and eating lunch as we rounded Bald Head in the swell and backwash. It was too late to remind ourselves that usually we pre-prepare lunch before setting out on an ocean trip. All went well as we headed west. We even had a beautiful sunset and the full moon to light our way at night.

We saw several humpback whales blowing and diving as we started a second lovely day. In the afternoon, the wind turned easterly and increased enough to allow us to switch off the engine and sail with the full main and almost full genoa goosewinged. Our Hydrovane was steering. The sun set on another pleasant day.

Sailing into the sunset

I was on nightwatch and Jeremy was asleep down below. I heard a noise as something hit the stern quarter of the boat. Jeremy shouted from his bed, “Is everything OK?” I assured him everything was fine. It was just a breaking wave hitting us. Moments later, our speed dropped to almost zero and SD began to slew. “No it’s not!” I yelled. “Come up, quickly!” I grabbed the wheel, which was very heavy, and tried to keep the boat straight.

Jeremy dressed as quickly as he could and went to look over the stern. We had picked up a crayfish pot line and floats set in 45 metres of water. The line was wrapped round our rudder anchoring us by our stern. The swell was lifting us by about 3 metres with each wave. Jeremy furled the genoa to reduce sail. He was frantically working out what to do next and worrying about the damage the line might be doing to our rudder and propeller. He was not looking forward to diving into the cold sea to cut the line loose. Fortunately, he did not have to as the line freed itself and we drifted away. Our location at the time was abeam the lighthouse on Cape Leeuwin, where the Southern and Indian Oceans meet.

Shipping channel, Fremantle

Everything was OK after this. There was no water in the bilges and the prop shaft was still attached. We turned the corner and sailed on a beam reach with an increasing wind. Jeremy put a reef in the mainsail. As we approached Cape Naturaliste, we were close hauled and motorsailing. A dolphin came by to check us out. The weather forecast predicted northerly winds for the next day, so we decided to put into Mandurah instead of continuing to bash northwards. Jeremy called Mandurah Offshore Fishing and Sailing Club (MOFSC) and arranged a place on their Collectors’ Berth.

Approaching Fremantle Sailing Club

As we approached in the dark, the seas became smoother and the wind eased. The approach and the channel into the river were well marked and we had no problems following our chart plotter and GPS to the entrance into the marina. The Collectors’ Berth was a long floating pontoon. We tied up at 2310.

The VIP berth at FSC

Mandurah is certainly worth a visit. The clubhouse was serving meals for the first time since lockdown began and lots of sailing activities were starting up again after the enforced shutdown. A well-stocked chandlery was situated next door.

SD alongside the lawn

We left Mandurah on Sunday 7^th June for the 35 mile motor to Fremantle. The spring tide was running into the river as we left making steering against it quite a challenge. There are many sandbanks and shallows on both sides of the channel, so we were careful to keep to our course. We made a note to ourselves to check the tides before entering and exiting coastal channels and harbours.

 

Buying items for the boat

We tied up to the berth just north of the VIP berth at Fremantle Sailing Club at 1530. We called Andrew, the Deputy Harbourmaster, to make sure we were in the right place. We were. We have a lawn alongside us and the clubhouse just a few strides away.