Wiki defines the Great Australian Bight as “a large bight, or open bay, off the central and western portions of the southern coastline of Australia”. The coastline of the Bight is characterized by 400′ (120m) cliff faces known as the Bunda Cliffs, said to be the longest line of sea cliffs in the world. The International Hydrographic Organization considers the Bight part of the southeastern Indian Ocean, but on all Australian charts and maps, it’s the Southern Ocean. It’s a 600 nm stretch of tough ocean passage marked by submarine “terraces” and “canyons” with depths ranging from ~16,000′ (5000m) to 164′ (50m) causing those southwest swells that prevail to become very big rollers.

The Great Australian Bight (GAB) was first noted by European explorers in 1627, when Francois Thijssen, a Dutch navigator sailed along its western margins. Our old buddy, Matthew Flinders, British navigator and cartographer, was later the first to accurately chart the area in 1802, during his circumnavigation of the continent. The GAB runs east to west in alignment with the equator and is the longest ice-free coastline running in this direction in the Southern Hemisphere.

Few cruisers transit the Bight for obvious reasons. There’s a certain amount of trepidation associated with that part of the world. The charting isn’t up-to-date and in many areas, “inadequately surveyed” shows up as a comment on even our electronic charts. We’ve known, however, several people who have crossed without incident and we'd met fishermen who made their living in the area. Originally we thought we’d do as most others do … wait for a weather window and just get across. After chatting with Warrick on “Olein” who had fished the area for many years and recommended seeing some of the Bight rather than racing across, we started to think about things a little differently. Though we were keen to get across safely, we’d never been known to hurry, so we looked into some alternate possibilities.

Warrick gave us his copy of the Western Australia Cruising Guide in exchange for some Tassie guides we had. Additionally, he provided several handwritten charts he used as a fisherman. We did a bit more research and decided we'd take a non-traditional, more scenic route.

St. Francis Island - 32S30.08 / 133E17.88 - 30'

The first leg of the passage should have been an easy one. We thought 54 nm from Streaky Bay to St. Francis Island would be a good introduction to the Bight without getting right into the thick of things immediately. It started out great with sunny, warm weather and light winds. Then it went all wrong. In a wind burst, the clew tore out of our jib, we were assaulted by "roll clouds" producing sudden high-intensity blasts the likes of which we had never encountered before and once we arrived, our new anchor would not dig into the grassy bottom. All things seem catastrophic when they're happening, but with a bit of time, solutions always appear. We removed the clewless yankee and hanked on our old genoa.

The roll clouds, though vicious, were forgotten in no time. And the anchor, after giving it some time before backing down on it, finally grabbed and held tight. The sunset was gorgeous. We spent two days here waiting out strong westerlies, repairing the clew, hanking the jib and enjoying more sunsets then headed for Eucla.

Eucla Sands - 31S43.71 / 128E53.22 - 18'

The chartlet to the left with waypoints, shows our track getting into Eucla behind the shoals and shallows. The dark cliffs were very evident and contrasted sharply with the white cliffs nearby. We could make out the dilapidated jetty as soon as we neared the anchorage.

Welcome swallows lit on the whisker pole topping lift before we even finished anchoring. Up close, the old jetty was even worse than it appeared at a distance and only served as a perch for hundreds of cormorants and gulls.

We walked along a rutted, dirt road 5km to Eucla through the Eucla National Park. We met several emus along the way. The road was long and dusty, but offered some interesting sights. The remains of an old telegraph station was being gobbled up by the sand dunes. A monument to John Eyre, the first European to cross the Nullarbor Plain, is located close to the Eucla Roadhouse. Flies inundated us throughout the walk and we stopped every few minutes to swat them off each other.

Eucla turned out to be not much more than a couple motels, a caravan park and a small restaurant. There was also a tiny museum to visit that offered info about the old telegraph station, as well as some brief history of Eucla. About 7.5 miles west of the South Australia border, Eucla is the largest settlement built on the vast Nullarbor Plain - the biggest limestone karst landscape on Earth.

The Nullarbor Nymph

According to Wikipedia, “was a hoax perpetrated in Australia between 1971 and 1972 that involved supposed sightings of a half-naked woman living amongst kangaroos on the Nullarbor Plain.” We saw no nymphs, no naked women nor any kangaroos. Of course, she might have been living with the drop bears, too, but quite honestly we didn’t drive across the Nullarbor, so we can’t say. There is a 2012 mockumentary entitled The Nullarbor Nymph in case you’re interested.

As we were heading back to the boat, a woman called out to us and asked if we were from the sailboat anchored offshore. She offered us a ride back which we gratefully accepted. We asked about other possible anchorages and without hesitation, she turned around and took us back to her home where her partner, a veteran fisherman in the area, who hauled out a well-used chart and filled us in on other possible anchorages in the Bight with some tips on approaches. After a cold drink and some chat, he dropped us off as close to the boat as possible. We spotted Cups' mast bobbing up over the dunes and used it as our landmark to get back to
the dinghy.

Eyre Observatory - 32S15.46 / 126E17.94 - 18'

The directions to the Eyre Bird Observatory anchorage were great and we anchored with no problems. From Cups' deck we could see lots of sand dunes, but the Observatory was hidden from view.

Once ashore, we spotted the Observatory sign and followed a well-marked path. Along the way, we came across a memorial to Edward John Eyre and his three Aborigine guides.

The resident volunteers at the Bird Observatory were used to company. Kirsty had the tea kettle going within minutes of our arrival. After tea, we visited the little museum which told of a hard family life at the telegraph station.

Daw Island - 33S52.33 / 124E07.98 - 28'

Daw Island appeared grey and ominous on approach, but it turned out to be pure magic. Uninhabited by humans, Daw is home to a multitude of seals, sea lions and Cape Barren geese. We arrived in the early evening and anchored. The next day dawned sunny and we walked the shore while curious sea lions watched our every move and followed us at a safe distance. We climbed a hillside to check out a posted sign and were rather alarmed when we were close enough to read “Death Adders reside in large number on this island”. We hightailed it back down the hill.

Daw Island was the western end of the Great Australian Bight. We were across the Bight ... in one piece. Read Marcie’s published article “Taking A Bite Out of the Bight” here.

We’re heading to Western Australia. Wanna come?