(Ir)Regular Ramblings – 6

26/3 - 3/4

After Kalgoorlie came Esperance. An overnighter at a roadside parking area on the way resulted in a meeting with a couple on their way to Perth to live. They had just become ANOTHER Port Augusta statistic after staying there and having their wallets stolen, hers with $1500 in it given to her by her mother before they left for Perth… Ouch!

We had previously met another family in Port Lincoln (and also in Kalgoorlie) who also have 2 girls (aged 14 & 10) and the four kids (and the adults) get on really well.. As they were staying in Esperance we decided to join them at the same caravan park (Crokers).

Esperance is a reasonable sized town, with about 15,000 people and just offshore, 105 islands! Fellow campers in Kalgoorlie recommended a boat tour run from

Esperance, so both families forked out $128 each for a family ticket and away we went. It wasn't long before all four kids were in the 'wheelhouse'. As Maddie put it, they were "the only kids on
the cruise, and the only people on the boat to have 1st class seats"! The ½ day cruise was worth every cent, as we were taken very close to all sorts of sea creatures, including seals, sea-lions, sea-eagles and plenty of other wildlife. Of the 105 islands, we visited about 10. Our skipper was full of info and obviously passionate about the islands, birds and animals.
The initial part of the cruise, around the harbour gave the skipper the opportunity to show us their company's three tug boats hard at work docking a very large ship. He expounded the virtues of their latest
acquisition, a very modern and powerful tug boat - one of only two in the world. It was at this point an idea began to germinate…a ride on the tug would be good.
Now to figure out how….
Fortune and fate smiled upon me. I asked our cruise skipper if he knew who I could cajole, coerce or otherwise con into giving me a look on the new tug. He advised me to ask at the company office. However, as we finished birthing, the skipper took me aside and pointed to some people on the wharf - amongst others, the Managing Director and his brother! My course was set…

I made a bee-line for them as soon as I disembarked, introduced myself, complemented them on the quality of the cruise and… asked them about the tug. "Would you like to go for a ride ? - the ship will be leaving tomorrow…" I was in!!! Simple, just leave my number with the girl in the office and they'd ring me when they had the ships departure details… And so it was… 8:30am the phone call… be down at the docks by 10:00.

I asked the father of the other girls (Charlie) if he'd like to come too, as I figured it'd be OK, and it was… This tug was AMAZING…!

For the technically inclined, there are a few figures at the end of the email, for the rest, WOW!!!! This tug is incredibly powerful for its size and the water frothed and bubbled for at least 200 metres after it left the props. So much water was pumped by the props that you could see a vortex form and the sea-level drop on the 'upstream' side as the water rushed under the tug to the props!
We were promised an exciting ride as they were going to attempt some new and previously untried manoeuvres with the ore carrier. As the drive legs are able to swivel through 360 degrees, the tug can, and invariable did, go in any direction,. At one point, shown here in the photo, we were travelling sideways beside the ship, while the ship was 'steaming' at ¼ power, pulling backwards on the ships stern, to turn the ship into the shipping lane out to sea. This cannot be attempted with a normal tug and words (finally) fail me, to describe the ride. As we manoeuvred from behind the ship to beside and back again, the tug was bucking and kicking fiercely We even did an exercise where we tried to stop the ship from astern.

The ship however had a huge amount of inertia (180,000tons!) and 20,000 horsepower, so 'our' 6000 horsepower only slowed it slightly!.

A good effort, nonetheless!
The tug is controlled by two rotatable dials that determine the direction of thrust and the amount of power applied.

As we returned to port, we travelled part of the way sideways, then backwards at 10 knots before coming to a dead stop in about 10 metres - not bad for a 300 ton boat!

The skipper then proceeded to spin us at high speed, taking less than 6 seconds to turn the tug through 360 degrees!

Donuts in something of this size need to be seen to be believed! The 'G' forces even in the cabin were considerable, and if you were to have been down on the deck, you could not have hung on!
I could ramble on for ages about this amazing boat,

however it wasn't the only highlight for this area. After staying 4 days in Esperance, we upped camp and headed out to the Le Grande National Park, 60 Km's east of Esperance, to a place called Lucky Bay.
Lucky Bay is a superb sheltered bay with a gentle beach, beautiful aqua water and the whitest sand you could ever find.

Kangaroos abound and even feed on the sea-weed on the beach. They even visited the kids beside the van under the awning while they ( the kids, not the roos) were doing school work! Sunset over the bay looking out to the islands was spectacular.
From there we passed back through Esperance for another two days to allow time for a bit more school work and some washing. The school work part of it wasn't too bad, but leaving the

the washing out while we went doing 'touristy things' seemed to attract the rain. The first of the 'touristy things' was to visit a fish skin tannery! It's the only one in Australia and although it's only a small business, they are exporting all over the world. Last month saw 12,000 skins go to Italy to be made into shoes. The fish leather is very similar to sheep or cow, although often thinner and softer. Each fish scale grows in its own pocket and therefore leaves a pattern on the leather that looks just like… you guessed it, the side of a fish! Virtually any sort of fish is suitable, and they also do shark and sea-snake. The shark skin is in demand as very fine sand paper by French Polishers, and also as a very effective lint brush, as the skin is smooth one way and 'sticky' the other.

Who should you complain to if it rains and the washing gets wet? The weather bureau of course! So off I toddled, up the hill and spoke to the local Senior Officer. Told him what I thought of his weather, and advised that in future, he smarten his footwork a bit. He suggested that if I thought I could do better, then perhaps I should have a go… So we all trooped back there at about 7:00pm that night, just in time for the weather balloon launch, (see pic) then watched the figures come streaming back from the radar and

computers. The balloon rose at 1000feet/min to an altitude of about 28km before bursting and returning to earth… somewhere… It was an interesting evening with the guy (John) having been in the bureau for 31 years and having done a couple of stints down at the South Pole.

For those into this sort of thing, try: http://www.wn.com.au/spencer/ also see last page of this email for some details of the Weather Bureau computer in Canberra.
Next stop was Wave Rock. We arrived at about 6:30pm just as the sun was setting.

Although it was in shadow, the colours were superb. About one kilometre up the road was a secluded car park, so can you guess where we stayed the night? At Hippo's Yawn!

Various things over the preceding few days had conspired such that we arrived at the rock much later
in the day than originally planned. We almost didn't stay, as the caravan park looked pretty dry and barren. However, we decided to have a quick look in the fading light at the Hippos Yawn, then had dinner and stayed the night in the car park. As time was getting on next morning, we almost left without walking back to the Wave… but decided to make the trek. Events unfolded to yet again reinforce my belief that sometimes, things are just meant to be.

We awoke at Hippos Yawn, to a magnificent day. Clear blue sky and a very light breeze.

After showering (it really is great having a toilet and shower in the van) and eating breakfast in the sun whilst looking at the hippo, we were ready to set out on a walk around the rock, back to the wave.

A 4WD stopped with 3 Aboriginals. While two disappeared up onto the rock., the driver seemed to want to chat He explained that one of the others, the "old bloke", is one of the Chief Aboriginal Elders for Western Australia - all very interesting I'm sure,
but hardly relevant to us….

We walked about ¾km back to the wave and after a few more photos, we were ready to return. As we turned back, the Aboriginal Elder was sitting in the shade near the rock and spoke to us as we passed. He was obviously well educated and spoke well, with a very soft voice that suited his gentle manner.

Turned out, this particular guy is an expert on the Dream Time stories for WA. He told us he felt the need to tell us a story, and proceeded to tell us the story of wave rock. There was something really special, sitting at the foot of the wave, on such a beautiful day, hearing the story of its creation from such a wonderfully articulate aboriginal story teller. Jess inspired him to tell the story to us as it revolved around a tall spirit lady
with long blonde hair full of spirit children. She was being chased by a bad spirit man, spirit children falling onto the ground in a pile, which hardened to become the rock. We were absolutely spellbound. Many tourists came and went while we sat with him, but we were the only ones to receive this special treatment. We left eventually, feeling very fortunate to have had such a special 'moment' in time.

Some things are just meant to be.

Once again, that's all for now, love to all…

Marg, Jim, Jess and Maddy.
For those who might be interested, some figures about the ship & the tug.

Iron Ore Carrier ('big' ship)

Weight 50,000tons plus 70,000 ton of water ballast, (draught 5m when empty),
Iron Ore 130,000 tons
Loaded 180,000tons (draught 18m - Esperance harbour depth…. 19m!)

Tug

* $5.8million to build, but would cost much more now it has proven itself
* 2 x Doitz Diesel V16, 3000Horse Power each. 600rpm - idle, 3000rpm - full load
* 2.4m dia. Propellers x 2.
* Prop shaft speed 25rpm to 95rpm
* Minimum pull at idle 6 ton (3 ton each drive, but may be cancelled out by opposing leg/drive to remain stationary)
* Maximum pull 87 ton
* Rolls Royce drive train, similar in principle to outboard leg, mounted under tug,

able to swivel through 360deg.
* 4.5m draught
* Weight 300ton
* 12-15 knots Forward, 10Knots reverse, 8 knots sideways!
* 20litre per hour fuel consumption at idle
* 400litre per hour fuel consumption at full load
* Crew of 3 (took skipper 2 solid months to learn to handle it)
* Only 2 in world
* Third most powerful tug boat in Australia.
* Built in Kwinana - Australia
Weather Bureau computer in Canberra

Dual node NEC SX-5 computer comprising
* 32 CPU's
* 224 Gigabytes main memory
* 2300 Gigabytes high speed hard disks
* 35 Terabytes on line storage
* 170 Terabytes near line storage
* Overall processing power = 256 GigaFlops

STREWTH!!!