We left Exmouth mid-morning for an overnight sail to the Montebello islands. I’ve been looking forward to these for a while so I was quite excited. We had better than expected conditions and were able to sail for a while, then motor sail later in the afternoon when the wind did its normal trick of dropping off. By 9pm we were sailing again and managed to sail the rest of the way making pretty good speeds. On the way we saw our first whale of the season! With no moon and cloud cover, it was a pretty dark night but very smooth sailing.

We arrived at the reef at 7:30am, and the wind conveniently went south, allowing us to sail a further 3 miles in towards Hermite island where we dropped the sails. We then motored up the west side of the island towards the gap between Hermite and Hovea island. The plan was to anchor outside Turtle Lagoon - the further in we managed to get, the more protection we’d get from the SW/S/SE winds predicted for the next few days.

On the satellite pictures there seemed to be a small pool to anchor in, but whether we could make it there or not, it was unclear. On a rising tide, we very slowly made our way towards the pool. With less than 20cms under the boat at times, it was pretty tight - but we made it into a nice 3m deep pool, which would give us plenty of water at low tide. Its an incredible spot, totally protected from the quite strong winds we’re getting at the moment. Utterly flat, especially overnight. Very very comfortable.

You can see the small pool we found, and just beyond us is Turtle Lagoon (better for mud crabs than turtles though). Beyond that is Home lagoon and then Champagne Bay with its very narrow Chippendale Channel on the far side, and the small gap on this side. We hope to explore Champagne Bay and even anchor in there during our stay.

The Montebello Islands were used by the British for their first nuclear tests, and later the largest test in Australia. As a result, we are limited to 1 hour a day ashore on the islands used for the tests. However, for me, the appeal is in the water. We’ve seen dolphins already in this bay - but we hope to find crayfish and maybe even get a dive in on the outer reef when conditions allow. We’ll probably hang in this spot for a while, as its not too far to the outer reef from here. We’ve had neighbours for a night (a boat we met briefly in Shark Bay), but they’re on a mission and left this morning - back to peaceful solitude again. Lovely!