The 'G' Spot

25° 37.497S
113° 34.024E

Monday May 12 2014

A leisurely sail from Monkey Mia to a bay 40 nautical miles north. The chart shows a protected inlet called Guichinault Point that seems quite attractive, but not being sure of the pronunciation, it becomes re-christened as the 'G' spot. We are still waiting for the new genoa sheets to arrive by courier from Yacht Grot in Fremantle, but while we wait, we can take advantage of the weather to explore a bit of Shark Bay.

Guichinault Point, Shark Bay, Western Australia

For a change Moonshadow was on point duty with Divided Sky and Aqua Vitae following. At 10am we lifted the anchor (Well, pushed the button on the capstan) and we all got a clean getaway. It took about 5 hours running with the genoa to port. Sea a bit rolly in places and the wind touching 20 knots at times. Busy the whole way, so much to do that time flies. Plenty of opportunity though, to reflect on how really lucky we are to have reached this particular milestone. The process towards this point was a myriad of steps, some tiny and some huge, the last one being the harbour wall behind Moonshadow in Fremantle, constantly being there, reminding us of what became, for us, the final hurdle.

And now it is done.
Ripper!

Margie continues to amaze me with her love, courage and constant support. The learning curve is pretty steep but Margie is soaking it all up and becoming addicted to 'the cruising life'. I couldn't have done this without her, and I am very, very proud of her. 'Nuff said!

The colours here are raw and earthy, different to Fremantle, almost polarised with an intensity of hue. I have to keep the Canon in easy reach and I'm just loving doing the landscapes with the 200mm lens. I am just hankering for something a bit longer, especially for the wildlife! We are surrounded by dolphins, dugongs, pelicans and the inevitable seagulls of course.

We had to swing around to the west to clear sand banks a fair way north of the point, that poke out and try to trip the unwary into a short cut. Not for us; we took the long way round.

We are anchored at Guichinault Point just around the bend from Hopeless Reach on the Francoise Peron Peninsular and sandwiched between Herald Bight and Herald Bluff. I find that somewhat amusing given that I worked for the Herald in Fremantle!

The 'Western Australian Cruising Guide' published by the Fremantle Sailing Club is like the cruiser's bible. You would like to think that its contents are gospel. Alas, like the good book, the WACG will sometimes mislead you. Unfortunately, we only have the 'Second Edition' and we are eagerly awaiting the publication of edition number four. C'mon Jim! We can't wait to see the new one.

Anyway, back to the story. Margie reads out the passage about where to find a safe and secure anchor in the WACG, and I quote:

"Anchor over weed, just outside two large yellow buoys".

Naturally my interest was piqued to say the least so grasping the binoculars firmly in hand, with Margie at the helm,  we scanned the horizon in search of the weed and the buoys. They proved to be elusive. Ummm. Absent. The buoys are no more. And as for the weed... well...  nah! Pipe dream.

So Margie chooses the best place to anchor and there goes the chain again as we cut back and a get the satisfying bite as the CQR does its job. 30 metres of chain should be good in 2.5m. Excellent! Reverse gear to tuck her in and all is calm as we cut the 100HP diesel. And silence. Aqua Vitae and Divided Sky are not quite as lucky and have to hunt around for a decent bit of holding. Is that 'boat language' I can hear reverberating across the swell? Surely not.

Aqua Vitae gets set and Karen and Mike arrive on Moonshadow for the usual celebrations of a safe arrival. Crack open the Bailey's and get set in the cockpit to await the arrival of Nick and Robyn. Wine, cheese olives, champagne... Karen brings over this bag of chilli chips. Now I'm not saying they're spicy but I think they are as hot on the way in as well as on the.... you know what I mean. Karen seems to be enjoying them.
"Does it get any better than this?", we ask ourselves.
Karen then makes an unusual contribution to the conversation but also has the fortitude to own up to it, asking the question, "Where is Mocha when you need him?". We luv ya Kazza, but this is an enclosed cockpit!!

Meanwhile  Divided Sky seems to be doing a few laps of honour as if they had won the Cock of the Rock...
"Nah! Don't like it here, darling, we're dragging."
"Lets try over there, honey pie."
"Okay, sweetie, anything you say".
"Well done. That looks perfect. You're so clever."

Or words to that effect.

Eventually we all decide to go to Divided Sky as Nick and Robyn don't trust the weed and the missing yellow buoys. The sea has settled a little in the bay but still a kick in the wind so we all decide to head back home having depleted the supplies of champagne, cheese and biscuits again and to where we can be close to our anchor drag alarms!

Damn, thats the last of the Bailey's.

But I digress.

Back to the point. That's Guichenault Point.

Antoine Guichenot or Guichenault (1783–1867) was "gardener's boy" on the 1801―1804 French scientific voyage to Australia under Nicolas Baudin, and the 1817 voyage under Louis de Freycinet. Very little is known about him, but the records of Baudin's voyage, together with annotations on surviving plant specimens collected by him, suggest that he was poorly educated, with atrocious spelling and little knowledge of botany, yet worked extremely hard, collecting more plant specimens than the officially appointed botanist, Jean Baptiste Leschenault de la Tour, and, despite his poor literacy, labelling them with much more useful annotations. There were five gardeners altogether on the Baudin voyage, the others being Antoine Sautier, François Cagnet and Merlot, all under the supervision of Head Gardener Anselme Riedlé.

His contributions to Australian botany are commemorated in the name of the Australian plant genus Guichenotia. Guichenault Point, a promontory on Peron Peninsula in Shark Bay, was named after him. Guichenot is the more commonly used spelling of his name, and widely adopted by botanists; but Guichenault is used in François Péron's journal of the Baudin expedition, and hence for the place named after him.

Courtesy Wikepedia.

Getting close to exploring the 'G' spot. 

Having finally found the 'G Spot', we are looking forward to exploring it in greater depth in the next installment of the blog. Stay tuned for some hair raising adventures!