Happy in Herald Bight

Life has assumed a lovely regular rhythm over the past few weeks and the days just peel by. The weather seems to have a cycle which hovers above all of our other routines in an appropriate god-like way.

We get a week or ten days of strong southerly winds which tend to keep us indoors a lot doing the little jobs of life. You know, the fixing of small things, making the bread and goodies, a bit of sewing for Jenni a few electrical repairs for Chris.

 

Lovely day for a spinnaker run

Captain Chris

Then comes a few days, in the current instance a week of lovely gentle warm weather and we feel and behave like we are on holiday. After late mornings over breakfast and coffee we go to new places in the beautiful Upstart, swim, sail in Wanda the dinghy, play frisbee on the beach, stroll and explore.

Frisbee fun!

We have been making good use of our “up and down” keel and spending lots of time with it fully up exploring the many shallow areas around here in Shark Bay. We love just drifting along in either of the boats through clear water over shallow sand and sea grass meadows watching turtles, dolphins, sharks and even the occasional shy dugong. We tend to anchor in places where the low tide depth is not much more than a meter and we are close to the action.

Anchor down - keel up!  These are the big bolts that hold it all together.

Hello turtle

We see you shovel nose shark

Over the last few weeks we have ventured once more back to Dirk Hartog Island and the very pretty Louisa Bay where we saw the dugongs. Then back to Denham again with the forecast of strong easterly winds which passed after a few days last weekend.

The Denham fleet

The bright lights of Denham

Denham slipway

We are now in the magnificent Herald Bight. Having ventured around Cape Peron to the eastern side of the peninsular Upstart is snug in the south east corner of the bay. Sandy beaches and mangroves on-shore and nice flat water out here on anchor. The rocks are bright red and the clear water is every different colour of blue you can imagine.  Glassy afternoons lazily watching little fish under the boat and saying hello to the turtles that pop their heads up to see who this big creature is. It’s idyllic.

Red dirt Cape Peron

Herald Bight anchorage

Exploring the shallows under sail

Expedition to the mangrove shores in Wanda the Walker Bay dinghy

 We watch the stunning skies at dawn, dusk and in the night. Spectacular sunsets signal the end of another beautiful day and in Jen’s case often enjoyed with a glass of wine in hand!

Late afternoon wine on the beach

 

Stunning sunset skies

Bread is rising, yoghurt is being made and all is well on our good little ship.

In the sewing cabin

Repairing the dinghy oar

Making Lavosh crackers

Ready to eat

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