Hi Ross,
Did you manage to get the new R&R in the water? Building a boat is always a massive undertaking, I hope it all turned out well.
We had an awesome but relaxing cruise through the West Kimberley during June and July. The weather was perfect most days. We did a lot more motor sailing than expected as the breeze seems to funnel along the waterways and as “Murphy” would have it, we were usually trying to go wherever the wind was coming from. The headwind did not detract from the experience. The Kimberley’s are spectacular and we enjoyed a beautiful and sheltered anchorage every night.
We used KCCYC’s documented anchorages and the FSC’s Western Australian Cruising guide. Both sources were very useful, and we certainly benefited from the sharing of information that you have facilitated through KCCYC. Thank you. I will be suggesting that The FSC guide should move towards having two or three decimal points on their Lat & Long’s for anchorages. Some of the anchorages are small and the bottom can be variable. Accurate Lat & Long’s can assist greatly, although I am very mindful of developing the blind reliance that tends to occur when we get too accustomed to having highly accurate electronic chart plotting. I met one skipper who had spent most of his time in the Whitsundays where the seabed has been very completely surveyed. He was struggling with the lack of accuracy in Western Australia.
Mindful of your suggestions regarding inflatables, we towed a 13ft tinny from Broome north and it was well worth the effort. We fished for Mangrove Jack, Spangles & cod etc. confident that the crocs watching us were not tempted to give us the taste test. We ate well thanks to the tinny. It also made exploring the various water falls a lot less intimidating & we did see plenty of crocs, the largest we saw slid down off his rock into the water very close to us as we departed the Sapphire Falls at Red Cone.
We slowly worked our way as far north as Hanover Bay. Unfortunately we didn’t have enough time to do a good job of the Prince Regent, so we made our way back to Broome. To avoid the potentially bouncy trip from Cape Leveque to Broome, Julie did the trip by road, and did indeed miss out on some wind!
A great holiday, made all the better thanks to your efforts with KCCYC.
Best regards,
Dave & Julie

Hi Ross & Co,
Julie and I are hoping to get to the Kimberley this year. I am trying to decide which part to focus on for our first time. The plan is to fly Julie in to join Sea Shell in an area that will provide spectacular but sheltered cruising (to ensure that Julie enjoys the holiday and will want to do it again)! Any suggestions regarding places we could do the crew change would be appreciated. Kalumbaru, Mitchell River or the Prince Regent are likely. The Horizontal Falls would be economical, however, you would quickly find yourself in the Montgomery Reef area and the whirlpools etc are probably more exciting than we need at this stage.
I have plenty of experience (Commercial Skipper) and Julie has done some good sailing on the trimaran we owned before Sea Shell. I just want to keep it fairly tame for this year. We will have a 3m Zodiac rib and 3.6m tinny in tow.
I plan to provision in Broome by late May, we have a daughter living there, so will have her car for loading from the beach at Gantheaume Pt. I hope we can meet up with some of the other boats along the way.
Dave