Rottnest Island Safety Convoy

juggernaut1

Well-Known Member
Apr 19, 2015
1,152
Perth, Western Australia
Boat Info
Boatless - sold Searay 38 Sundancer
Engines
8.1’s
Hi all,

My favourite summer destination is Rottnest Island situated about 20 klm's off shore from Perth Western Australia. Approx 185,000 people arrive by private boat to Rotto each year. Until last weekend I had never been there in the SeaRay since taking ownership in April last year. Rotto is surrounded by many reefs and getting into bays can be expensive if you're not paying attention. Twice a year the BIAWA leads a convoy of boats over to the Rotto showing how to get in and out of the various bays. So I took up the opportunity and registered for the convoy. The weather ended up being a balmy 40 plus degrees C for most of the time. In fact I think Perth set some sort of new record for the number of consecutive days over 40 degrees.

Several convoys departed from various locations along the Perth coast. Our convoy departed from Mandurah where my boat is penned and is approx 70+ klms to the island. Along the way we picked up other groups of boats. Of the 6 boats that left from Mandurah only about half made it due to mechanical breakdowns and one boat even running out of fuel. It was certainly a lesson in maintenance and preparation and I took Friday off to focus on making sure all was in order with my brother. At a guess there were probably about 20 boats in all. Most of the boats are smaller in size than the SeaRay and accordingly the convoy speed was dictated by the slowest boat tackling the conditions which at times was only around 9 - 10 knots and up to 25 knots on the way back from the West End after the bay tour on Saturday. We also had flare demonstrations and Q & A session which was followed by a quiz and dinner at the Lodge on Saturday night. The SeaRay handled the conditions without a sweat. We stayed an extra day and headed back solo on Monday where the weather conditions were about as good as I have ever seen.

I'm glad I did the convoy as upon arrival we were greeted with a 40+ footer high and dry on one of the reefs from the day before which served as a reminder of the reef system around the island. This was also the first time I stayed on the boat on a mooring. All in all it was a great weekend.

I managed to snap a few pics and have also included a few pics when I visited the island for 8 days approx 2 weeks ago.
 

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That's only a chop, on the East Coast........
Beautiful place, I did a few dives over there, many years ago


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
That's only a chop, on the East Coast........

Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk

Agreed - water on the windscreen = chop. Windscreen below sea level = rough :grin:.

Still.....probably why Fremantle Sea Rescue is one of Australia's busiest sea rescue groups - attempting the crossing to Rotto.
 

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Nice write up,thanks for showing us your parts of the boating world.
 
I like Rotto, of all the things I miss about not having a boat (for the moment at least) it is the ability to temporarily put your "normal" life on hold and go to the island for a few days with the family.

In my experience there are 3 types of boaters who live in Perth, those who have hit the reef at Rottnest, those who will hit the reef at Rottnest, and those who have hit it already but dont admit it............
 
bj, thanks for sharing the pics of your trip. It looks like a great place to own a boat.

With all the talk about how difficult it is to get through the reefs, are they not marked or visible on chart plotters?
 
Awesome!

Thanks for sharing!

Only 7 more weeks until we'll be able to do stuff like that again!
 
BJ - Of the 3 boaters I must be the boater who will hit the reef.

GFC - The Navionics chart I have shows the navigation markers, etc - the charts also have suggested routes into and around some of the more demanding bays. However, throw in a busy boating area which mimimics peak hour and what seems to be a million cray pot floats and things start getting interesting. One of the bays has leads and a series of cardinal marks in a tight turning and narrow dog leg arrangement into the bay. If another boat was coming the other way it would have been an extremely tight squeeze to get passed each other. I have heard that on a previous convoy some boats have hit the reef whilst on the convoy as they strayed to far wide when entering some of the bays.

Strypes - Gotta love boating when you can do this sort of stuff.

To put the location of Rotto into context for you guys, the 1987 America's cup defence was held in waters of Fremantle which is the nearest port to get to Rotto.
 
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Agreed - water on the windscreen = chop. Windscreen below sea level = rough :grin:.
.

Yep coming up through Bass Strait, bringing the boat from Adelaide to Sydney (I know I need to write it up, as my Searay Farewell)...we had more than several occasions where we were burying the bow sprit into the waves in front, that was following sea and NO tabs.

And 45 minutes heading into Portland, where it went from around a 2m sea to scarey, auto pilot off, seat up, stand behind the wheel in a braced position, and steer manually........if we had unzipped the starboard clear, I'm positive we could have touched the water out that side a few times with our fingers.

That was the night, the Tasmania to Melbourne Ferry snapped its mooring lines and ripped one of the vehicle ramps apart, in Melbourne


Sent from my iPad using Tapatalk
 
Yep coming up through Bass Strait, bringing the boat from Adelaide to Sydney (I know I need to write it up, as my Searay Farewell)...we had more than several occasions where we were burying the bow sprit into the waves in front, that was following sea and NO tabs.
Ian, it doesn't have to be a farewell thread, but I'd love to hear about your journey.
 

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