Sailing Coffin Bay

23-29 January – Sailing Coffin Bay

We spent 6 nights on the waters of Coffin Bay and its many inlets. In reality, the area that is really Coffin Bay is a wide bay first sighted and named by Mathew Flinders, after Sir Isaac Coffin who was so helpful to Flinders in outfitting the Investigator. The area broadly referred to as Coffin Bay is really Port Douglas, Mount Dutton Bay and Kellidie Bay.

The waters of the almost enclosed waters are brimming with sea life and rich in nutrients, hence the hugely successful oyster industry. A native Coffin Bay oyster was dredged to near extinction in the late 1800s to supply the Adelaide market but in the 1980s, the Pacific Oyster (originally from Japan) was introduced and Coffin Bay oysters soon established itself as the premier oysters amongst the restaurants of the East coast.

Unfortunately, the growing number of wild Pacific Oysters began to concern authorities, as they were seen to be taking too much nutrient, so a cull of over 200,000 was taken in 2010. Fortunately, we found a lovely area that they had missed, and delighted in the fact that the wild ones are much larger than their farmed cousins but just as tasty. We gorged ourselves on natural oysters and Oysters Kilpatrick.

Oysters and nibbles

Another wonderful discovery was the presence of huge black mussels. Again, these only seemed to be  present in one location (that we found) and were also probably the wild offspring of imported farmed mussels. We didn’t care. We had two wonderful meals of chilli mussels, accompanied by Christine’s crusty bread rolls that she somehow managed to cook at sea.

Getting stuck in to chilli mussels and home baked crusty bread.

For fish, we had access to plenty of herring and King George Whiting, as well as a really big flounder I caught. We had hoped to feed on squid, which are said to be plentiful in SA waters, but we failed to sight on inside Coffin Bay. While snorkelling, I came across a few scallops and thought we were in real luck, but in the end only managed to find four live ones. We also tried to catch some “sand crabs”, a strange looking species that is supposed to be in these waters. We failed to see any in our drop nets.

Herring, King George Whiting and flounder.

The weather was a mixed bag, we had a couple of days of very cool temperatures, and a couple of days of calm balmy days when the temperature shot up. We managed a few swims, although even the enclosed waters of Coffin Bay have a reputation when it comes to the Great Whites. Like the weather on WA’s south coast, things can change very quickly. We relied heavily on “Willyweather” from the Internet and its forecasts proved very accurate. Our last couple of nights on the water were particularly windy, with a SE screamer that must have topped 35 knots at times. On advice from a local contact, we bought a new anchor, one suited to the conditions here in SA. It is called a Marsh Anchor and we have dubbed it Rodney, because it catches and keeps us in one spot.

A feature of sailing Coffin Bay is the magnificent scenery, with wonderful views of Mount Dutton, Mena Hill and the Marble Range. The coastline itself changes from rolling pasture land, to dense mallee woodlands  and patches of spectacular sand hills. We never seemed to be far from a settlement of some sort. Besides the small township of Coffin Bay, there was the even smaller hamlet of Mount Dutton and a caravan park with associated shacks at Farm Beach, near the entrance to the ocean.

Mount Dutton Town

Peaceful Yangie Bay

The bird life of the area was all familiar, yet smaller. In Yangie Bay, we even saw black swans feeding in ocean waters, something I’ve not seen before. However, they were much smaller than the ones in the west. The pelicans too are a smaller version of ours, as are the dolphins.

We had a couple of dramas along the way. Our first was when we were sailing north in Mount Dutton Bay towing our new folding Porta-bote. Our previous Porta-bote was the 11’6” model and we thought that we would do well to sell it and buy a smaller 10’ job to facilitate storage and handling issues. What we didn’t factor into the thinking was that the smaller model wouldn’t tow as well as the old one. We were both watching the little boat gyrate in the following seas and surf down waves when we both realised at the same time that it was surfing nose down and not coming up to breathe. We both leaped at the tow line at the same time and hauled in, saving the now half drowned boat. The seas were big enough to rule out any thought of bailing out the dinghy so we carried on, the tow line shortened and holding the little bow high.

The second drama was the next morning, when we motored out of a very protected anchorage Mount Dutton Bay West to find that the wind was a lot stronger than anticipated. We motored across the bay to the lee where a couple of small boats were fishing and proceeded to set sail. We made an absolute dog’s breakfast of the whole operation and must have looked really bad in front of an audience. After several aborted attempts, we finally got sailing and reminded ourselves that one can never have too much experience.

The third and most disastrous drama occurred the morning we hauled out. The wind was up. We knew it would be because it had been all the previous afternoon and night. We didn’t know the tidal flow at the jetties would be so strong. The motor had been playing up somewhat, behaving well until it was powered down, when it often decided to cut out. As we approach the jetty area, we found three out of four jetties were taken with oyster boats, full of young bucks eager to get out and earn their quids. We chose the one vacant jetty, lined up in the 20 knot breeze and committed. Then the motor cut out. With wind and tide combined, we skated across the front of the jetties, entered the last opening, narrowly missed one oyster boat and hit the jetty bow on at a good 4 knots, taking a sizeable chunk out of Sandpiper.  The skipper of one oyster boat just looked at me and said, “Shit, you hit that pretty hard!”

The Coffin Bay launch ramp, nearly the scene of our undoing.

All the oyster boat guys were very good about the whole thing and helped us get the boat alongside an empty jetty. They headed off in their over-powered oyster boats to do their oyster thing and we prepared to bring Sandpiper on to the trailer. Even this operation needed the assistance of a local out for his morning walk because the tide and wind was more than Christine could handle on the stern end. We were both shaken and stirred.

At the Coffin Bay Yacht Club Jetty

Since we were in the area over the Australia Day weekend and the weather was good, the numbers on the water certainly increased. We proudly flew the flag on January 26th and politely waved to others as they passed by. Unfortunately, it is hard to maintain the godd old Aussie spirit when some cashed up bogan is hurtling past you in his new super cruiser that creates a wake to equal the best of tsunamis. Some even deviated course by hundreds of metres to come over to us, wave cheerfully, then look perplexed as we gave them the finger in return. It is also a worry when you ease into a lovely anchorage at 10:30 to join a couple of other boats and they greet you by toasting you with their wine and beer. A bit early for us and we are hardly wowsers.

Coffin Bay is one of the great small boat cruising locations we have visited, having all the elements; scenery, protected anchorages, plentiful seafood and great facilities. We are so glad we came. Now it is on to Port Lincoln.