About a third of the way along, Maryanne asked if I was planning to anchor under sail. I hadn't really thought about it since our last dozen or so anchorages had required careful maneuvering to get the hook down on just the right spot and it has been windy as hell. Lagoon, on the other hand, was a big, wide bay with uniform depths across its whole width. We were unlikely to find the anchorage crowded with other boats and we had three hundred miles of open sea behind us in which to recover if we dragged. I knew she must have regretted suggesting it as soon as she opened her mouth, because anchoring under sail requires more work at the very end when we have to deal with furling the sails and dropping the anchor simultaneously. In the end, she let me do it, though. It was fun working as a team to short-tack our way to our chosen spot; once there I ran around furling the sails while Maryanne paid out the anchor and chain. Our night of light winds would be more comfortable without the recently shut down engine heating our bunk from below.
The forecast for the next couple of days was for winds of less than five knots. I was settling in to enjoy the calm when I had a thought, that once thought, I couldn't get myself to unthink. The foil on our roller furler (which attaches the jib to the forestay) is made up of several sections screwed together through connector pieces. With use, particularly when reefed, the cycles of torsion on the unit gradually work the joints loose. I like to go aloft every few weeks to inspect and tighten everything up as part of our maintenance routine, but I need flat conditions to keep from being whipped around up there. We haven't had perfectly calm anchorages for a while, so I've been just keeping an eye on it. Now I realized Lagoon Bay was going to be the ideal opportunity to tick the job off of the list.
That was fine. As long as nothing unexpected turns up, the job only takes fifteen minutes or so. Then I had another thought I really, really wished I hadn't thought: Over the last months, our bottom paint has taken on a thin layer of slime at the waterline. So have our propellers. We had no hard growth yet – it doesn't like our anti-fouling paint, but in time, it will be happy to grow on the increasingly thick layer of slime covering the outer layer of paint. The solution is usually pretty easy – go for a swim with a rag and re-expose the paint's biocide by wiping the slime off.
The problem of course, is that we are in waters inhabited by crocodiles. Swimmers are sitting ducks for crocs. The advice generally given for those who must swim is to find a big, shallow sandy spot over clear sand, so a lookout on deck can see them coming in time to warn the swimmer.
Our water was nice and blue, but we can only see down two or three meters, not all of the way to the seabed, so there was still ample opportunity for an ambush from down there. Swimming was still definitely out. That's where my unwelcome thought came in: We could careen the boat.
Between the calm weather and the three meter spring tides, I figured out we could dry out for a few hours – more than long enough to clean the paint. We just had to select a spot.
After carefully inspecting the beach at the afternoon low tide, which would be slightly higher than the one the following day, we found a nice, flat piece of sand upon which to rest. Then it was just a matter of backing up the calculations to figure out just exactly when on the falling tide to head over there. When the time came, we pulled up anchor and headed for the beach. Our engine-free streak had to be broken.
This was our first careening and I must say, it was a little disconcerting to deliberately drive the boat onto the beach. We took it very slowly until Begonia mushed to a stop as her keels hit the sand. Within minutes, the water outside was sitting three inches below its usual level and falling. Begonia's motion gradually ceased and soon we were rock steady.
Kyle cleans the boat while we both keep an eye open for crocs!
The water fell until the tops of the rudders and props were out of the water and then it seemed to stabilize, even though the tide should still have been falling. We were between tide stations. Perhaps I had interpolated incorrectly.
When I had decided I could wait no longer to start the job (Maryanne was staying on deck to act as Croc Watch), I jumped off of the bows into the ankle-deep water. That's when I figured out our depth problem. The sand was soft. Begonia's keels had sunk half a meter into it.
Our spot didn't dry out completely. I was left with just a few inches of water, which I could use to rinse my just-cleaned patches. It was less than a croc could hide in by staying completely submerged. The visibility of the water under the boat was pretty terrible because of all of the churned-up sand in the breaking wavelets, but the water behind was clear to the seabed for a good hundred meters or so.
I had this fantasy that I would be able to stay mostly dry during the procedure. That was quickly dispelled when I had to get on by hands and knees to get between the hulls. When I got to the props and rudders, I realized it was easiest to just sit or lie down in the water while the occasional wave doused me on its way to the shore at the bows.
I was two-thirds of the way through my last prop when Maryanne spotted a croc. She tried to get a photo of it, but realized the batteries were charging, so she would have to figure out which one was most charged and put it in the camera. She decided to skip the photo and tell me about it.
I'm kidding about this part. As soon as she saw a suspicious shape, she was singing like a canary. The picture thing didn't even occur to either of us until the whole thing had been over for a while.
”Kyle, crocodile!”
I hate it when Maryanne calls me Kyle. She usually calls me “Darling” or, “Honey” or some such thing. “Kyle” seems to be reserved for emergencies. By the time the second word came out, I was already halfway up. Most people don't know this, but every single muscle in the body can get involved in standing up. Even my wiggle-the-ears muscles helped out by doing a little jump to assist the team. I was back on board in one, maybe one and a half seconds. She later shared that it was just a small little thing – maybe a 4' long – the kind you could scare away by yelling, “Scoot, you big brute!” Still, better safe than sorry.
After ten minutes, we were comfortable that it had moved on and was not stalking me, so I went back in to finish the job. I still had enough adrenaline going through me to get done in less than two minutes.
Now that the bottom was clean, we had an hour or so before we really needed to be back aboard for the rising tide. I helped Maryanne down and we had a little walk on the beach. Begonia looked great because she was all slime-free, but also looked very much like she had been wrecked instead of purposely careened. Even though we knew that was not the case, it was hard to shake the subconscious feeling that something was very wrong every time we looked at her from afar.
Walking around the exposed rocks and beach while waiting for the tide to come up
Well, there was nothing we could do anyway until the tide came back up, so we might as well put it out of our minds and enjoy ourselves.
The beach was incredible. Like at Guluwuru, we found loads of rock, which was sculpted by erosion into the most magnificently picturesque shapes. We also saw glimpses a few of what Maryanne dubbed, “Hoppy Things”. She later determined that these were Rock-Wallabies, but the original moniker stuck. Rock-wallabies are adorable, but also extremely skittish. As soon as they saw us, they invariably took off at full speed away from us. I was finally able to get one close enough to her for her to photograph by flanking it and driving it towards her. They must be hunted by Aboriginals. {Maryanne: I'm pretty certain we also saw a quokka (a dark red-brown, rabbit-size marsupial - another "hoppy thing"), but the critters move fast and hide readily, so no photos to prove it! Update: Our wonderful sailing friend Justine told us that it's "Likely your other critter was a northern quoll, they were threatened on mainland and an extensive programme was done on Wessels to help them breed back up - it was very successful."}
Once we made it back aboard, we had another hour or so before the tide lifted Begonia out of the sand. We started the engines and put them in reverse. Nothing happened until the water came up another ten centimeters or so. Then we started slowly backing away from the beach. That was a huge relief to both of us. Neither one of us fancied the idea of being marooned way out here. We headed to our old spot and dropped the anchor just as the sun set.
We are getting quite used to the lovely sunsets from the boat
In the morning, I finally climbed the mast to service the furler. Then we headed ashore again for a long walk the other direction. We went for miles, past dry rivers, billabongs and lots of rock sculptures. We also found a few hoppy things, who looked surprised by our approach.
Sail and rigging checks involve climbing the mast
We got to enjoy some lovely walks ashore, including a rather large river crossing
I finally managed to photograph one of the very skittish rock-wallabies
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