Our son Gareth Evans has been living overseas for over 10 years, working as a geologist in the iron ore industry in Western Australia (WA), and is in the process of sailing his yacht back to NZ.
He’s become a fine yachtsman, brought up on our family yachts cruising/racing out of Devonport and the Northland coast.
He bought his boat Seawolf, a 1980s Beneteau First 42, 4 years ago in Pittwater, NSW.
He got her shipshape and then took leave to sail anticlockwise over the top to Australia to WA with his cousin Peter Deverell. They had an exciting voyage; inside the Great Barrier Reef, round Cape York, across Gulf of Carpentaria, exploring the Kimberley’s, Montebello’s, Abrolhos Islands to Perth, a trip of over four months. Seawolf has since been based at Fremantle (Fremantle Sailing Club).
Gareth had decided to sail home to Devonport. He and Steve, a fellow kiwi as crew, stranded in WA set off from WA in early February, aiming to dodge the MIQ restrictions by sailing to NZ. Jane and I followed their progress with much interest, battling persistent headwinds round Cape Leeuwin, along the south WA coast then choosing their weather to cross the Great Australian Bight to Port Lincoln, South Australia (SA). Then a sudden change of circumstance; Steve’s Kiwi wife had health concerns and he had to return to his family (inc 4 kids) in Whangarei. Gareth was thinking of heading on solo, but with some persuasion from Jane, dad Geoff flew into Port Lincoln 12 March to join ship. What follows are some brief impressions and pics to bring us up to date. We’ll hope (!) to write Part 2 for next month’s newsletter.
Great flights: I stayed the night with my brother Howard in Sydney then off to Adelaide and Port Lincoln (PLO). I had a moment of panic thinking there wouldn’t be enough time to board the flight to PLO, until I realised the SA time zone is half an hour later than Sydney. I had arranged for a small hire car at the airport. Great to join ship and lend a hand with the preparations, with numerous repair jobs including sorting (!) the steering, the Perkins’ exhaust manifold, sail repair, provisioning, etc. However, we had time for exploring the area and even fitting in a twilight ‘race’ on a Falmouth Workboat (a traditional gaff cutter) and making some special friends.