Cape Upstart

[Kyle]By the time the sun rose for the leg from Cape Bowling Green, we had already been underway for almost an hour and were in the open sea. Once we came around the cape, we started the long business of tacking every few miles. The influence of the land was such that each time we tacked, our course would look pretty good for about five minutes before the wind would start bending us away from our destination. Measuring the distance between the points of the zigzags, it looked like our average speed in the direction we were trying to go was around two knots.

An early start to head down the coast

There aren't a lot of places to pull in to get out of the trade winds along this section of coast and we still needed to get thirty-five miles to windward by dark. We only had twelve and a half hours until the end of civil twilight. We just had to keep sailing and hope. Fortunately, the anchorage in Shark Bay at Cape Upstart looked free of hazards and seemed safe to approach in darkness. We started planning for that.

In the end, it didn't end up being necessary. In the afternoon, the wind bent enough to one side for us to be able to get there with a few short tacks alternated with long, productive ones. We made it to Shark Bay with an hour to go. As we were tidying up, a monohull came screaming in behind us with the rail down under full sail. They rounded up and dropped their anchor about ten seconds after the sun was gone for the day.

Since we hadn't gone ashore at Cape Bowling Green, we were keen to have a walk along the shore. It was nearing low tide when we landed the dinghy at the bottom of a very wide beach, being mindful that crocs are reputedly a problem here. All of the foreshore property is private, so there is no way to legally access the interior without trespassing. The beach is public, though, so we decided to get as far as we could before the dinghy started floating again.

Exploring ashore at low tide

The heat of the day was a real killer. The high peninsula, which was keeping the water in the anchorage nice and flat, was also blocking any cooling breezes. It wasn't long before our pleasant amble was transformed into a trudge. The heat sapped all of our strength and enthusiasm for the outing.

Being goal-oriented as we are, we still pushed on as far as we could until a wall of boulders put a halt to any further progress. Then it was with relief that we turned for home. This gave us a second pass by a long series of ramshackle holiday homes along the shore. These could only be accessed by landing a boat on the nearby beach. All building materials and provisions then needed to be carried up to the property. From Begonia the previous day, they looked idyllic. Now, each one seemed like it must be far too much trouble to access and stock for a little bit of privacy. No wonder most of them were vacant.

By the time we made it back to the dinghy, it was all I could do to muster the energy to row home. Sheesh! I used to run marathons. Now I can't handle a three-hour beach walk with no elevation change. It's just the heat. I'd be fine on a cooler day, I'm sure.