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We decided it was time to leave Neville, Katrina and Sue's house today and to set up at a caravan park, nearer to the water, with the aim of windsurfing for a few days. Neville and Katrina weren't too sure what they were doing for New Year's Eve but we said they should contact us if they were able to get tickets to a concert or live band. We had heard of an open-air concert in Fremantle that would have been suitable but Neville and Katrina didn't seem too keen as it would be difficult for them to get back home. It had been recommended to us that we stay at the Woodman Point Caravan Park on Coogee Beach where we could windsurf from the park. But first, we had to find David's Xmas present from Santa.
A phonecall to my friend Ian, who owns Sails and Windsurfing Centre in O'Connor revealed that he had found a suitable board for David but it was in SOS (another windsurfing shop) that burned down over the weekend. It seemed unreal but the story was on the news. We hadn't paid for the board so we were not at a loss, thankfully.
We spent the next four hours at Broadway, negotiating the purchase of a brand new Bombora 295 board and other necessary bits of equipment to put it all together. I've allowed him to share my 2 sails so between us we now have 4 sails ranging from 4.0m - 6.0m. Our next stop was to collect our mail from the Perth GPO which included a parcel of warm clothes requested from home and my repaired camera strobe. Finally, we were ready to settle in at the caravan park by about 4pm. We were really disappointed to be turned away due to a "no vacancy". This was the very first time we'd had this happen to us so we had no choice but to drive further south, out of the Perth area.
Some of the people we'd met in Cervantes had spoken about a good sailing place called Safety Bay and after a few phone calls I found a caravan park in nearby Rockingham that could accommodate us. Being concerned about the holiday period we booked-in for a week. We were now too far south of Neville and Katrina's place for New Year's Eve but we hadn't heard from them anyway.
After we had set up the tent and unpacked our things we went for a drive around the area and to our great delight found at least 50 people windsurfing from a number of different locations (Shoalhaven and Safety Bay). We got talking to some of the locals and met old Ted who told us we needed a "weed fin" to sail here because of the shocking seaweed in the water. A weed fin is a long racked-back fin that doesn't allow the seaweed to clump up under it. We said to one another that we'd try sailing first with our existing fins and see how bad it really was before spending any MORE money.
On our way back to the camping ground we picked up some basic food supplies for cooking a chicken satay for dinner.
We couldn't believe the weather had turned calm this morning. For the last few days we've been unable to sail and its been blowing a gale and now we're finally set up and there isn't even a puff of wind! I can tell you that David is not happy. We decided to go shopping instead and found 2 dive shops and learned of a wreck trail shore dive just off the main beach.
We went back to the windsurfing beach at Safety Bay, only 5 minutes drive from the caravan park on the other side of the bay from Rockingham. There wasn't enough wind for us to sail but we watched 3 burly guys teaching themselves to windsurf on quite a small board with a poorly rigged sail. After they were exhausted from frustration, they came up the beach to ask us what they were doing wrong. We suggested that they could improve things by rigging the sail better and showed them how. We sold them an old mast extension we were not using and then looked at their board. It had a split from the tail to the fin box that was taking in water and after a bit of discussion we convinced the owner to take it back to the shop where he'd bought it cheaply only yesterday and get another. Half an hour later he returned with a more suitable board and $230 credit in his pocket. We spent a few hours with them sorting things out and in return they bought us fish and chips and drinks for lunch which was greatly appreciated.
After lunch the wind still hadn't picked up so we did the shore dive, which was fairly easy, to 16m and found 5 small wrecks of various ages and constructions tied together along a chain. The vizibility was very low, around 5 metres but the dive was fun and we saw a few seahorses (my favourite!!).
When we got back to our camp site we had to wash all our diving equipment (which always attracts a bit of attention). A couple, about our age, had set up their tiny tent in the site besides ours and came over for a chat. They were German and Dutch and travelling in a hire car in Australia for 5 weeks. They asked about the diving here and told us they had just learnt to dive at South Solitary Islands in Coffs Harbour (one of our favourite diving locations in NSW).
We were so tired after our shore dive that we barely had time to finish our dinner of beef stroganoff before falling asleep without doing the dishes which was NOT a good plan because it created a swarm of ants that ate a hole through the floor of our tent!
The wind blew all through the night and kept us awake with visions of being able to go windsurfing in the morning. Sure enough, at 10am when we made it to Safety Bay we found at least 30 people rigging up and about 10 others who were already out on the water. I rigged my new 4.0m sail and because it was so windy we took turns using it on our respective boards. David adapted to his shorter, lighter board quite quickly and neither of us had any trouble with the weed. We did however, stick a few WEED FINS WANTED signs on the car windows.
Our WANTED signs attracted a lot of attention and every Joe-Blow tried to sell us one of their second-hand fins. Unfortunately, none offered were the right size or fit for my board but David ended up being "loaned" a perfect fin from our mate old Ted for the duration of our stay.
We were cold and tired when we arrived back to our camp site after a full day of sailing but we were keen to get motivated to go out to celebrate New Year's Eve. Our German/Dutch neighbors couldn't believe their eyes when we started to wash our sails and windsurfing equipment, after yesterday seeing how much diving equipment we had. The four of us stood around discussing things and then thought we may as well do something together for New Year's Eve. We were happy to do this as they seemed very nice. The girl's name was Ninka (?) and her boyfriend's name was Fife (?). They both had accents and being as unfamiliar with Rockingham as us, we had some laughs about the pronunciation of some place names. We had some trouble getting a taxi and when it came we asked to be taken to the "Stinking Pig", instead of the "Swinging Pig" (the correct name of the pub). During the night I introduced Fife and Ninka to a drink called "Lemon Ruski", a mix of Vodka, lemon and wine. Later in the night Ninka ordered water for me but the waitress thought she said Vodka and there was I drinking straight vodka and not realising it. We had quite a fun night and by the time we walked back to the caravan park it was 3.30am. Urrgghhh.
After a breakfast of berroca and strawberries we went to Safety Bay to windsurf. We were the first sailors to arrive but the wind was definitely blowing hard. We both had a greasy hangover hamburger to gain some energy before sailing and rigged up the 5.2m sail for David. I spent some time instructing him in the ways of short board sailing and using the harness and in a while he was up and planning. It was a fantastic day on the water and quite pretty too as there were about 60 sailors out with all kinds of equipment - some new and some very old. Towards the end of the day David had an incredible catapault (going over the handle-bars) and pulled the mast-track out of the brand new board! Disaster, panic, frustration…swearing too. But a phonecall to Perth and a 2 hour round trip back to the shop to have it replaced and fitted under warranty had the problem resolved.
After yesterday's catapault we went to the Safety Bay windsufing shop (Seabreeze) and bought David a set of harness lines that were his length. He had been using a spare set of mine, which were probably a bit short, making it harder to get in and out of the lines quickly. We rigged up the 4.0m and the 4.5m today which was perfect for us. The wind was about 22 - 25knots, and quite steady. David really got his board moving today and was in and out of his harness a lot. It's time to teach him to get into the footstraps.
We've been wanting to go to Rottnest Island but with the wind being so strong conditions are not favourable for the trip over on the ferry. It looks like we won't get to dive their but we're not really too concerned as we've been told that we've probably done better dives elsewhere. We're getting a bit discerning now that we're 6 mths into our trip - every cent counts and we're already over budget with 2 mths to go! Instead we spent our money on a little treat - a trip to the movies to see the Star Trek movie Insurrection. We loved it.
We helped Ninka and Fife purchase snorkel and mask sets this morning and then went in search of a calm place to go snorkelling. We took them to Pt Peron but there was too much weed and the wind was too annoying for snorkelling. We did however, have an enjoyable walk around the headland and found an enormous turtle washed up on the rocks. On closer inspection we found he was very dead and very smelly. His shell had been removed and his insides were hanging out. It was not a pleasant find.
Later in the day David and I went windsurfing back at Safety Bay - we've met all the locals now and we have our regular car park site that backs right up onto the rigging area. From there it's just a few metres walk to the water.