Monkey Mia to Carnarvon

Hi everyone,
We departed Monkey Mia this morning at 0010.  The tide was low but rising and the (half) moon was up.  We had a nice 12 hour passage to Carnarvon and are now on a DoT mooring in the fascine at  24 53.25S 113 39.28E.  Here are our overall track and speed plots...

Zen Again track

Zen Again speed

Our departure from Monkey Mia was a little exciting.  We had thought we could pass behind several yachts to the first port marker.  Turns out the one monohull in the bunch is either a bilge keeler or right on the edge of the bar.  We backed off the sand bank without drama and leaving the boats to starboard (instead of port) gave us plenty of water to cross the bar.

Once over the bar we set the main and set course for Carnarvon.  Unfortunately the wind was right behind us so we had a few hours of rolly, uncomfortable sailing before the wind moved around to the SE and strengthened.  With the wind off the stern we could unroll the jib.  As the speed plot shows we ended up with a very nice breeze for much of the passage.  The wind only faded as we approached Carnarvon, which was perfect for finding our way up river to the fascine.

The channel up river starts near the end of Teggs Channel.  There are a set of port/starboard markers which show the way.  We entered the channel with 1.0m of tide above chart datum and had perhaps 0.5 knot of current with us.  We just maintained steerage way and let the current take us up.

The shallowest part of the channel is about 200m from Teggs Channel.  We stayed close to the starboard markers but the deepest water is on the port side, close to the seaward sandbank.  As close inspection of our track (below) shows, we ran aground in one spot.  This was where we passed a larger boat hard aground to port.  After getting past him we grounded briefly before finding the deeper water.  It was weird passing people out for a walk along the beach only 20m from us!

After this initial trouble we always had at least 2.5m of water (or 1.5m above datum), and mostly over 3.0m.

Turning into the channel from Teggs Channel

Deepest water is initially very close to the seaward sandbank

Keep the leads in line!

Passing the yacht club marina

On the mooring

Finally, here are two plots of our track up to the fascine.  Hope they're useful to someone!

Southern Part - Teggs Channel to Pelican Point

Northern Part - Pelican Point to the Fascine

It's great to be back in Carnarvon and on a good mooring.  We were last here in 2002 with the Splash event.  Strong winds are forecast for the next few days so we're pleased to be here.  We have a few jobs to do on the boat, including final provisioning before clearing out for Cocos-Keeling next week.  Our friends on US yacht Apogee have been here for a while and are on the next mooring.  We expect our friends on UK yacht Vulcan Spirit to arrive later this week.