January 2021
After leaving Maria Island we sailed to Orford to wait out the bad weather before continuing onto the Freycinet Peninsula. We actually spent the better part of two weeks in Orford however having thoroughly explored the area the last time we were here we spent most of that time completing jobs on board Allagai and taking walks along the beach. So when we finally waved good-bye to Orford we were excited to get moving again and explore new places. The sail from Orford to the Freycinet Peninsula was only about 30nm but it was the longest 30 I’ve ever sailed. That day we had the perfect forecast of mild southerlies which should have given us an enjoyable and fast downwind sail. However the forecast was completely wrong, we had northerlies all day which meant all day we sailed hard on the wind. As mentioned before Allagai has very poor upwind capabilities which meant that even though we were heading in the right direction we were only going 2kts, so it was a very long day. We sailed out of Orford at just after 8 that morning and originally we were aiming for Coles Bay however as the day dragged on we had to reduce our expectations. It was nearly 8 in the evening and we were both ready to stop so we decided that instead of Coles Bay we would anchor in Hazards Bay cutting our trip short by an hour or two.
After such a frustrating sail the following day we decided to go ashore for our first walk on the Freycinet Peninsula, an 11km hike around the northern end of the peninsula. We started the walk on Hazards beach but we quickly left the beach behind and began walking along the edge of the coast heading north. The walk took us along the top of the cliffs and although for the most part we were walking in the trees occasionally the trail opened up on a rocky ledge and we were rewarded with an amazing view of Great Oyster Bay and Coles Bay.
The second part of the walk took us inland cutting through a valley between Mt Mayson and Mt Dove to the Wineglass Bay lookout. We had climbed to this lookout back when we had stayed in Wineglass Bay in 2019, so this brought back the vivid memory of watching Allagai drift towards the beach when she had dragged anchor in a wind change. However this time we got to enjoy the view, that day we had beautiful clear skies and amazing blue water which contrasted perfectly against the white sandy beach below and green mountains above. Finally though after a much needed rest we pulled ourselves away from the view and finished the last part of the walk. We descended down into Wineglass Bay, via the 1000 steps, and then crossed the isthmus back to Hazards Bay, arriving back on Allagai just in time for lunch.
We spent the rest of that afternoon recovering from our walk on the boat. However that evening we didn’t hang around in Hazards Bay but instead with an impending wind change decided to weigh anchor and head to Coles Bay where we would get better shelter. With only 4nm to go it didn’t take long for us to arrive and instead of anchoring we decided to pick up one of the public moorings. The view from Allagia in Coles Bay was truly spectacular as the whole bay lies beneath a small mountain range.
The following day ended up being quite interesting, in the morning we rowed ashore to check out the town which was followed by a quick snorkel after lunch. However things went downhill quickly from there when the wind changed to a moderate south westerly. Coles Bay is completely exposed from the south west with 10nm of fetch and so quite quickly we had large wind waves rolling into the bay and it didn’t take long for Allagai to become very uncomfortable bouncing and rolling with vigour. With such intense motion and strong winds there was nothing we could do but hold on tight and ride it out. The wind was only forecast for the afternoon but it brought back vivid memories of our overnight stay in Southend in SA on our way to Tasmania. Thankfully by the time we went to sleep that night the wind had died off and the waves had calmed down allowing us a comfortable nights sleep. As the next morning we were set to go on a mission to climb one of the mountains that we were moored under, Mt Amos.
To get to Mt Amos we had to take the dingy two miles to a small bay known as the Fisheries which was right at the base of the mountain. Since we had to go such a long way we decided to use our folding dingy instead of our little everyday dingy. Once ashore it was then a short walk to the trail head. Mt Amos is 450m tall and was reached by a 3km track which meant that it was quite an intense and vertical climb. The track started in a sparse forest however we quickly left that behind scrambling over boulders and climbing up sloped cliff faces. This was probably the hardest mountain climb I had done taking many breaks on our journey to the top but we weren’t the only ones feeling the need to rest. We started the walk at the same time as about half a dozen other groups and spent the entire climb leap frogging each other, encouraging others when they stopped and being encouraged to continue when they passed us. However eventually we made it to the top and were rewarded with an amazing view of Wineglass Bay, Hazards Bay and Great Oyster Bay. We spent about half and hour at the top admiring the view and resting for the trip down. Climbing to the top was intense and we knew that the journey down would be even harder as we tried not to slip and fall. On the way down we passed many walkers on their way up and thankfully had no serious falls, only a couple of minor slips. It felt like we had reached the bottom in no time but with legs feeling like jelly we knew we had completed quite an intense walk.
Back on Allagai that afternoon I wanted nothing more then to rest however it just wasn’t meant to be. That morning we had ran out of gas in our large main gas bottle and as Coles Bay was our last town for a while this meant we had to change it here but the only problem was that it was a Saturday. This meant that the local provider on the waterfront was closed and instead we had to go up to the service station on the opposite side of town, about a kilometre away. Feeling tired we decided to try an easier alternative by taking the dingy around the corner to a beach which was across the road from the service station. In theory this sounded like a great idea however no sooner had we left Allagia our little outboard decided to die. With Hugo trying to troubleshoot the problem and get it working again I was left trying to row us to the beach. But after having hiked up Mt Amos just that morning this was not my idea of a relaxing afternoon. However thankfully this only lasted about 10minutes before Hugo managed to get the outboard going and we were able to speed off to the beach. But that day the odds really weren’t in our favour as the beach was crowded and had breaking surf. So not wanting to run over any small children in the only surf free spot we decided to bail on that plan resigning ourselves to the 2km walk to the service station. I couldn’t really complain though as I was only morale support, Hugo was the one that had to carry the 10kg gas bottle. After that mornings walk neither of us were really feeling like walking any more but we really didn’t have a choice as we were leaving the following morning. We decided to walk along the coastal road to avoid the hills and so it didn’t take us long to walk to and from the service station swapping our empty gas bottle for one of their last of their full ones.
The next day it was time to get out of Coles Bay we had some more southerly weather approaching and really didn’t want to repeat our last experience. So after a leisurely morning, we were more then a little stiff from the previous days walk, we cast off the mooring and sailed off, heading for Schouten Passage. That afternoon we wanted to anchor at Passage Beach which was only about 10nm away however as usual we were becalmed. We spent a great deal of time drifting occasionally receiving a good wind to get us sailing at 5 or 6kts before it dropped out again. When finally Passage Beach was in sight and we were yet again becalmed we decide to start the engine for the last mile. It was while in this process we had a small puff of wind from the leeward side and did a very slow, crash jibe. I was standing in the companion way trapped while Hugo started the engine and saw the main boom swing over but wasn’t fast enough to do anything. By the time I had made it outside the damage had been done, I looked up to see a piece of timber hanging down. At first my brain was a little slow to process what I was seeing, I had thought it was the top of the mast hanging down. However when my brain caught up I quickly realised that it was only the gaff hanging down, having at first thought snapped the dyneema strop around the mast. With this turn of events I quickly lowered the main sail and upon further inspection we realised that the dyneema hadn’t actually snapped but instead the spice had worked itself loose over the last two years and obviously that last jibe was the final straw. Thankfully repairing this wasn’t too difficult instead of a splice Hugo redid the strop with a knot and then climbed the mast to reattach everything once we were at anchor. Both of us were quite relieved that we didn’t take more damage and were reawakened to the dangers of crash jibing, even at very low speeds.
That day, or maybe even that week, it really did seem like Allagai just wanted to break everything, first the outboard then the gaff and it didn’t end there. No sooner was Hugo down from aloft we decided to start the water maker up but quickly realised that something was wrong, it wasn’t pumping out any reject water. About two days ago we had burnt out the on/off switch and at the time we had thought one of us had bumped it and broken it however now we were having second thoughts. Hugo decided to start pulling the water maker apart hoping to find some minor blockage however the 10minute job quickly turned into a 5 hour marathon. It turned out that somehow sediment and sand had managed to get past our pre-filter and had blocked up the valves. The easy job of cleaning the sediment out become much more difficult when some of the sand started jamming pieces together. In the process of removing and cleaning the sand out of one of the valves a piece of the water maker was damaged beyond recognition. Luckily it turned out that this was an easily replaceable part found in a seal repair kit. The only problem was that this had to be purchased from a place in Queensland and posted to us. Which meant that we hadn’t said our final good-bye to Coles Bay after all as they had the closest post office to us.
With that it mind it was time to put the problems with the water maker behind us for a few days and enjoy the area as it seemed we would be here for a few more days. The following day we had absolutely amazing weather and a forecast temperature of 32 degrees. We relocated from Passage Beach to Bryans Beach, about one mile north of us. With very little wind and hot temperatures it was the perfect day to go for a snorkel along the rocky headland we were anchored next to, however the water was still cold enough to need wetsuits. We spent about an hour in the water lazily swimming past kelp reefs and watching the fish dart about to get away from us. It seemed like our little swim ended all to soon and I was quite keen to come back for another snorkel after lunch. However it wasn’t meant to be as not long after finishing our lunch we noticed a wind line approaching from behind us. So after a quick cooling off swim off of Allagai we weighed anchor and headed across the other side of Schouten Passage to anchor off Schouten Islands Moreys Beach. That day we probably should have weighed anchor as soon as we saw the wind instead of having our quick swim as we were about half way across the bay when the wind reached us. Allagai suddenly went from doing 5kts under engine to 2kts and the wind was straight off the bow, so there was nothing for us to do but just keep going. Eventually we made it to the anchorage, after being overtaken by every other boat from the previous spot, so when we finally arrived we were left with limited anchoring opportunities. But our shallow draft came in handy as we were able to get in right close to the beach and had perfect shelter from the wind.
We spent the rest of that afternoon on Allagai going ashore for a walk the following morning. It was just our luck though that as soon as we landed on the beach it started to rain, a light mist but enough to still be annoying. Undeterred we decided to continue with our walk along the beach and then across the headland to the adjacent beach known as Gravelly Beach. Along the way we met two hikers which told us about all the walks on the island, which was a pleasant surprise as I hadn’t been able to uncover any walking tracks in my Google searching. After waving good-bye to the hikers we decided to return to Allagai as we were getting quite soaked from the rain. It was actually quite miraculous how that day turned out as no sooner had we got back onto the boat the clouds broke apart to reveal a blue sky. Within about 10 minutes the rain was gone and all the cloud covering the nearby hills and mountains dispersed. This left me keen to do one of the walks the hikers had told us about.
Therefore without waiting to see if the weather would turn back around we packed some water in a bag and headed back to the beach. We decided on one of the shorter walks to a nearby waterfall, passing through the care takers hut along the way. It was while passing the hut we met the temporary care takers, two girls similar age to us. It seemed for once our luck was changing as no sooner had we introduced ourselves they were showing us around and then offered us about 40 litres of fresh rainwater. Apparently a few days ago one of the rainwater tanks had sprung a leak and they had caught as much water as they could in some storage containers. As it turned out this was their last day on the island before the next set of caretakers arrived and they needed there storage crates back to pack and so if someone didn’t take the water they would probably have to dump it. This couldn’t have been more perfect for us considering that our water maker was broken and we had found out that we couldn’t get freshwater in Coles Bay. With that in mind we waved farewell promising to come back after our walk with some jerry cans to take the water.
The walk to the waterfall was a lot more intense then either of us were expecting however well worth the effort in the end. It took about 45 minutes to reach but was up a very steep incline to get to the top. At the top we were rewarded with an amazing view of Schouten Passage and had a perfectly framed view of Allagai anchored seemingly at the end of the waterfall. We spent about half and hour at the top enjoying the view after a refreshing dip in the waterfall. But we couldn’t stay too long and so with one last look at the view returned back to Allagai to get the water jerrys and collect the rainwater from the care takers.
Following the water collection we spent the rest of the afternoon relaxing on Allagia preparing ourselves for some incoming bad weather due to hit that night and the following morning. However it seemed the forecast over estimated the wind strength as other then a few strong gusts every so often we wouldn’t have even known there was a storm. Even the next day we were expecting strong to moderate winds but we were blessed with a relatively calm day. Although just to be safe we still spent the two days on board just waiting for the wind to pick-up and only going ashore for a quick walk along the beach after lunch.
Following our hide-out on Schouten Island it was time to return back to Coles Bay to pick up the post containing our water maker repair kit. However as soon as that was done and the water maker fixed we were ready to head off to our next destination. We were aiming for Flinders Island hoping to spend a few weeks exploring to places we hadn’t had time to see on the way down.