Just back from 4 days of cruising around the bottom of the Western Gulfs in the Reefrunner. We usually camp somewhere on Tamala once a year, but decided to make this a shakedown cruise to see just how  well we could really live aboard , as a prelude to going further afield. I badly screwed it up, in a way, as I booked for the week BEFORE the snapper ban came off. just too much going on, too little time. anyway, it just meant we had to listen to the qualifying final on the radio as we drove up, and we'll get to see the grand final on TV. As well, the weather forecast was pretty good for this time of year.

So we drove up on the Saturday, didn't leave Kalbarri until 10am. Weather was warm, variable winds. got to tent landing, tide was up and wind was down. talked to some young blokes just came back in an old tinny, said they were up to their *rses in pinkys out in the channel near Salutation, 580-800mm jobs. we were planning on camping at Salutation, so we had a quick flick with sp's on the way over, but, never having visited the iland before, thought we'd better get there well before dark to pick somewhere to anchor for the night. Ended up between the two headlands pictured below--no wind, light and variables forecast.

Had some meals heating up in the Travel Buddy oven, as we perched up on the bow to toast the sunset I woke up in the early hours, and couldn't hear a thing. Anyone who has slept on board an ali boat knows it's like sleeping in a rainwater tank with someone throwing rocks at it, and fibreglass is much better in that respect, but, nothing? Utter silence. It was so totally glass there wasn't a ripple. A light easterly came up in the morning. Bacon and egg sangers and proper coffee (courtesy of 12v Handpresso machine) for breakfast, then off towards the Guano Islands, with a short stop in the channel on the way. Couldn't see any big showings, but we drifted for a bit over the weed, hoping for a black snapper. All we could get was this 75cm Pink We wandered around for the day, tossing sp's in the shallows on light gear, found a patch of undersize pinks going off, and pulled a nice black snapper from among them, so there was dinner. Sou'west came up a bit in the afternoon, so we chose Three Bays island for our camp for the night. Cooked up the fish and some pasta, and toasted another sunset sitting just off the beach . Good little spot, best in south to sou'east. Left in the morning to look further north, headed up to Baudin island first.  Had a poke around there, didn't look a good overnight anchor, then headed off for Freycinet Island, off the top of the peninsula. It went off to absolute glass, and was quite warm. We poked around Freycinet, and found a tiny bay in the north end, which contained at least 3 dozen little whalers just cruising hard against the beach. We anchored, the odd one came out to look at us, then went back in. One of the little gems you find up here when you are not absolutely focused on fishing. The breeze eventually came up a little, so we anchored up and had another session where we hoped to catch a baldy, couldn't get past the masses of mostly undersized pinks, with just one 55cm fish among them. Breeze really freshened from the south, so we steamed down to Tea Tree Camp and anchored between the point and the camps for the night. It blew hard, but we were comfortable tucked in there. The wind went sou'east after dark, then dropped out at sunrise. As we were pulling out that afternoon we headed back around the peninsula to the west side, and island hopped down killing time, waiting for the high tide due at 4 in the afternoon. Spent some time at baudin, then anchored up on the north side of Three bays island again, this time going ashore for a walk around. Terrific variety of life on these islands, no camping allowed ashore. Rocks are sculpted into fantastic shapes by the wind and salt. The osprey wasn't happy about me being on the island. https://photos.smugmug.com/Shark-Bay-cruising/i-GZFmqsZ/0/a63e09fb/XL/20180925_111550-XL.jpg We left for Tent Landing into a strong southerly pushing into a strongly rising tide, Reefie just ate it up. Got to the ramp, way too shallow, wind howling, so we went down to a beach with the wind blowing off it, and anchored up waiting for the tide. Water was ok, wind was not, but with some help from a camper we got it on the trailer no worries, and packed up and left. Certainly beats packing up a camp :-) Dinner at the Billabong, home after 10. Not really a full fishing trip, but we both really enjoyed it, learnt a bit, even found some new coral lumps around areas I thought I knew. And there is now 19 k's of bitumen at the start of the road in, just gets better every year.