Back in the UK

Carnarvon Airport

After several, hectic weeks, lots of bread making and many meals out of tins, we are home. To be precise, we arrived on our doorstep just after dark on Saturday 10^th October. Our journey started the previous Wednesday, when we locked up Sal Darago, said a sad good-bye to our home of the last 10 months and drove down the road to our first hotel. The next morning we returned our hire car to Avis at Carnarvon Airport, donned face masks and boarded our first flight to Perth.

International departures Perth Airport

A shuttle bus took us to our airport hotel in Perth. On Friday morning, we walked to a retail park and bought face shields. Our second flight left Perth in the evening for Singapore. Here we had a glitch. Australian Border Force cleared us to travel but Scoot Airlines said our carry on bags were too heavy. Unknown to us, they’d changed the weight limit from 7kg to 3kg. We scrambled around on the floor in front of the check-in desk, opening our hold luggage and transferring all we could from our carry on bags. 

Changi Airport

After an anxious wait while officials consulted with each other, they gave us our boarding passes. There was one cafe open serving a limited menu of pies, sausage rolls and quiches. No worries; better than nothing before our 6 hour flight. Our temperatures were taken before we boarded the plane.

Enterprise hire car

It was about 3.00am on Saturday morning when we touched down at Changi Airport. There were about 30 people on the international flight. We were all socially distanced. A tedious five and a half hours passed slowly as we waited in the eerily quiet terminal building trying to sleep in chairs. 

 

Keeping safe!

At last we boarded the flight to London Heathrow with about 20 other people and remained in our socially distanced seats for the next 13 hours, continuing to wear our face masks and shields. 

Zuytdorp Cliffs

Once we were through Immigration we picked up our hold bags, found the bus stop for the shuttle bus to the car hire area and collected our previously booked hire car from Enterprise. At no point were we asked where we had come from and whether we had Covid, a temperature or even a sniffle. Jeremy drove home in the rain. Hello Britain. Thanks for the welcoming rainbow.

Steep Point lighthouse

I’ll briefly run through our final weeks on Sal Darago. Once Jeremy felt better and had the all clear from his test results, we returned to Shark Bay. We spent a couple of days in Denham bouncing on a mooring in strong winds. When the wind eased, we motored south to Shelter Bay near the southern entrance to Shark Bay. More strong southerlies were forecast, so we knew the anchorage would be protected. Here we met Jonathan and Helen on board their trailer sailer called Jacana. We spent two enjoyable evenings having sundowners on each other’s boats. 

WA wildflowers

In the daytime we went hiking, visiting Steep Point and the Zuytdorp Cliffs. Several vessels have been washed on to the cliffs over the years. The Dutch trading ship called Zuytdorp was wrecked there in 1771. There is a monument to the trawler, Nord 6, that was washed on to the rocks below the cliffs in the 1960’s. There was one survivor. We had sailed past those cliffs a few months before giving them a good offing as the locals advised.

Don't jump!

We had hoped to walk on Dirk Hartog Island, which is famous as a place where a Dutch vessel, Eendracht, landed in the 1600’s and left an inscription on a pewter plate. Dirk Hartog was the Captain. This was a long time before Captain Cook “discovered” Australia as he sailed up the east coast and claimed the land for Britain in 1770. The strong SE winds meant we could only have a brief stop at the south end of the island and a quick recce ashore in the dinghy, before we returned to Shelter Bay.

Nord 6 monument

When the wind eventually calmed down, we motored to Tumbledown Bay off Dirk Hartog Island, where the holding for the anchor was poor. It was too late to go ashore so we took turns swimming and snorkelling instead. I was swimming near SD when Jeremy shouted, “Shark! Get out of the water now!” I kept close to SD’s hull and clambered up the steps as fast as I could.

Walking back to Shelter Bay. Dirk Hartog Island in the distance.

After a stop over in Denham for laundry and shopping, we set off for Carnarvon, anchoring for the night in rolly Gregories. We saw many humpback whales with some groups putting on a show for us breeching and slapping the water with their enormous flippers. We anchored in our usual place at Teggs. There were three catamarans in the anchorage and the big tug, MacLeod.

Drying the genoa

Bruce at Pickle Point Seafoods and Boatyard had made a special jinker for Sal Darago. We had supplied the measurements for our keels. Jeremy motored on to the jinker and tied up to it. Just to be sure everything was in the right place, Bruce waded into the water up to his chest to make sure. A small adjustment was needed and then we were out and in the yard again for the second time in just over a month.

Sal Darago on her jinker

There followed eight days of hard work putting Sal Darago to bed. Here are a few examples: anchor and chain removed and washed; anchor locker cleaned out and anchor and chain replaced; genoa washed, dried, removed, bagged and stowed; mainsail taken down and stowed (washed previously in the rain); all canvas washed, taken off and stowed; most halyards moused, washed, dried and stowed; all lifejackets cleaned, gas bottles removed; engine winterised; outboard motor serviced and flushed through with fresh water; solar panels, horseshoe lifebelts cleaned and stowed; boat batteries disconnected; food tins sorted and taken to HOPE charity (Help Other People Eat) etc.

Bye bye Sal Darago

Finally, we packed our bags, stowed the dinghy, the spinnaker poles and boom, locked up and descended the ladders for the last time. When will we return to Sal Darago? Who knows? When the pandemic ends or a vaccine is found? When Australia opens up it’s borders to international travellers? When the hurlyburlys done..?

Thank you Ellie and Sophie

We wish all of our readers good health through these uncertain times. Thank you for your support through your comments and emails. We will update the blog from time to time as we return to our land based life.