25 September
Middle Percy Island to Port Clinton
Swell got into West Bay last night and, in the
absence of any wind to keep us pointed in the right direction, the boat rolled
pretty unpleasantly. Sleep was in short
supply and we were both awake by 5am - we could see no reason to stay beyond
sunrise so we were off shortly after 5.30.
Our plan was to sail to High Peak Island, about 35
miles to the south east of the Percys.
It’s sufficiently far to the east that I’d thought it would set us up
for largely southerly passages for the next few days. In the event our early start combined with a
great 12 knot nor-easterly wind had us approaching High Peak Island soon after
10am. It became clear that we could turn
south and make a run for Island Head Creek, a further 23 miles to the
south. We maintained over 7 knots of
speed and ate up that extra distance in three more hours, so changed our minds
again and went another 14 miles to Port Clinton. We ended up covering 65 miles in a bit under
12 hours – a long but very good day of fast sailing and largely without engine
assist. Two hours spent fighting against
a 2 knot counter current late in the day was the only thing preventing us from
posting a better running time.
Port Clinton is an excellent anchorage. It’s a massive body of water, most of which
isn’t navigable, but there’s room inside for many boats in very safe and
comfortable conditions. This is inside the Shoalwater military area, which we had to push through quickly three months ago on our way north to avoid a large live firing exercise. Fortunately, no such problems this time.
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| A breaching whale not too far off the boat today |
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