All good things must come to an end, and so did our stay at Wineglass Bay. It was time to head north to St Helens to get fuel and provisions, and of course, enjoy a meal out.
Previously, we contacted St Helens Marina Rescue and arranged an escort across the bar. This time, I contacted them to find out if conditions had changed, and they indicated no. They suggested we use the same track to cross the bar and navigate the shallow areas that we had followed before. Since I tend to keep all my tracks, we were very comfortable with coming in again.
This short video shows our route from Wineglass Bay, with a few points highlighted in the video.
A note about our anchoring technique!
I often watch people just drop their anchor into the water and seemingly do nothing more. Sometimes I think, why does it seem so much more complicated for us!!
When we set the anchor, we use headsets. I let Robert know the depth we’re in, and then he lets me know when the anchor is on the bottom. I quickly put an anchor waypoint on our chart plotter to mark this spot. Then if there’s no wind/current pushing us back, he asks me to nudge into reverse as he lays out chain. He watches for the chain to lift and I monitor the chart plotter to see whether we’re moving away from the waypoint. Often we feel the boat jerk, indicating the anchor has set. Mostly, this happens on our first go, but there are times when we must lift the anchor and try somewhere else. After leaving Wilson’s Prom, the islands and much of Tasmania has a lot of weed on the bottom and you need to look for a sand patch, although some people recommend a different type of anchor that grips through the weed. Most times our Manson Supreme did the job. Once we think the anchor is set Robert puts out a 7m long bridle, which helps to keep the anchor chain lower in the water, and helps in conditions where the boat is pitching, where the bow (and stern) is lifting and dropping. It also takes the tension off the windlass because the bridle attaches through catholes to boat cleats.
Then I set the anchor drag alarm on our Garmin chart plotter. I estimate the radius based on how much chain we put out and centre the alarm over the anchor waypoint. I also set the radius to zero to ‘force’ the alarm to sound to make sure it’s working! Then we watch as the boat swings around to see how close we are to the radius, whether we’re making a good track, or if we are dragging.
In one of the photos below, the radius is indicated by the green circle. If you zoom in, you can also see a green pin and an anchor symbol. The latter is roughly where we dropped the anchor during our stay at Wineglass Bay. The green pin is where we anchored the previous time we visited. The black lines show the track we’re making as we move around.
When the wind is blowing hard, our boat is pushed back to the limit of the anchor chain. This accounts for the grouping of black line closer to the anchor radius. But when there’s no wind, we tend to float around all over the place (within the circle).
Sometimes we move the bridle to one or other side of the bow, which can help reposition the boat to reduce beam on swell.
It’s fair to say that while it takes us longer to anchor, our technique has stood us in good stead, so we’ll stick with it!
Wineglass Bay to St Helens slideshow
As usual, I couldn’t decide which photos to include in this blog. I’ve found that creating slideshow is a good way to share lots of them!
Five days in St Helens
We enjoy St Helens, with services such as supermarkets, specialty shops, cafes and restaurants, laundromat and post office all within walking distance.
Unlike our last visit here, this time we were amazed to see so many birds flocking to the bay in the afternoon to feast on what we believe were bait fish. This “Feeding Frenzy” video gives you an idea of what we saw.
Yes, you could set your clock to their descent on the bay. And I can honestly say, I haven’t seen pelicans – my favourite bird – in such numbers during our whole time cruising.
Refueling
The fuel dock at St Helens is one of only two fuel docks we’ve been to where we had to contact someone to get fuel. The other fuel docks we used in Tasmania were self-serve and you pay at the pump using a credit card.
During our stay I contacted Clyde only to find out he was away on holidays for a few more days. I’m not sure what happens if someone urgently needs fuel if he’s away. Anyway, he was due back the day before we were due to leave, so we arranged to meet him at the fuel dock as we were going out.
A few days before leaving, we wandered over to check out the fuel dock and confirm our approach, bow in, starboard side tie off, fender boards ready since it was not a floating dock. It’s a long dock as you can see from the photo, so no problems.
The night before we were due to leave, we checked the fuel dock only to find a fishing boat there. Apparently they’re not supposed to sit on this dock, but they do! Anyway, the captain was at the pub and we decided to check again the next morning before our departure. The boat was still there and the captain said he was waiting to get fuel too. He figured since we’d arranged it with Clyde, he’d just stay on the dock and wait. This is just a summary of the conversation, as it got a bit confusing and I think he might have been celebrating hard the night before!!
Anyway, we agreed to wait for him to finish and move out of the way before we went in. He did offer to put a few fenders out and we could raft up against his boat, but having never done this manoeuvre ourselves, we thanked him but said we were happy to wait! (OK, maybe it’s something we should practise, but we never intend to raft up against another boat, despite having had smaller boats raft up next to us.)
Also, while the dock is long the fuel hose would not reach us had we come in, in front of the fishing boat.
But he got his 2000l of fuel and moved forward and we came in behind, no problems. Since this would be our last fuel stop before getting to Melbourne, we filled both tanks and also our fuel bladder, which holds about 250l and sits on the foredeck.
By the way, the fuel business is up for sale!
Where to next?
We’ll be making our way back across Bass Strait!
5 Responses
You guys are so thorough. Well done.
I’m always impressed by the procedures that you and Robert follow, such as your anchoring technique.
What did sailors do before technology I wonder. There’s a lot to learn.
Thanks Pam, always a good read. You are very accomplished mariners!
So where will you be on Christmas Day. Melbourne? Enjoyed the videos. Cheers. Malcsx