Shark Bay - true to its name It was 5 am, the wind was howling and the sky was pitch black. I carefully motored up to the mooring ball in Turtle Bay, on which we had taken refuge during the night's 30 knot winds. S2ee freed us from the giant mooring line (think 20 cm diameter rope) and I turned the boat around, carefully following our previous day's incoming track on the chart plotter to avoid the coral bombies that surrounded us. Once free of the Island, I motoring into the wind and bumpy seas, raising the main sail from the safety of the back deck. On the front deck, S2ee, firmly harnessed and tied on to the boat, set up the reefing lines before we turned to sail north. That was the stressful and very uncomfortable (and a tad dangerous) start of our 32 hour passage from the Abrolhos Islands to Shark Bay. We vowed we would never do that again! Our early morning start was necessitated by the need to enter the passage into Shark Bay, betwee...
