By Ashleigh Fielding | posted on August 17, 2017
HMAS Anzac paid its home port of Albany an unexpected visit on the weekend, as massive seven-metre swells forced the ship inland.
“We’ve had the sea sick brigade for four days, so I think the crew were very appreciative of our stop in Albany,” Captain Michael Devine said.
The naval ship was headed to Henderson for maintenance checks, but changed route to take a break from the crazy swells and waves.
“When we hit the Bass Strait, we knew we were in for some bad weather,” he said.
“We have been here since Sunday and are hoping to leave on Thursday, with a swell hopefully less than six metres.”
Home ports are often used as the areas for ship maintenance, which meant the eastern-states based crew members were away from family for longer than planned.
“Sydney is very busy, so we’ve come to the west for our maintenance checks,” Capt Devine said.
“Unfortunately, this means a lot of us are away from our families for longer, but we are aiming to be back in Sydney in late October.”
The ship’s last visit to Albany was in March.
“We hadn’t been back to Albany in a while before our March visit, so our relations seemed a bit faded,” Capt Devine said.
“It is so important to us to have strong relations with our home port, so we had open days, lunches and a cocktail function the last time we came into port.
“However, this visit was at short notice, which is disappointing, and we had no time to arrange any events.”
As fate would have it, a representative Albany soccer side was able to be quickly pulled together, to challenge the sailors to a match on Sunday night.
“It was great to see familiar faces from our March visit,” Capt Devine said.
“We didn’t have our full naval crew in March, so we had lots of new crew members keen to play against the Albany side.
“It was a really warm vibe.”
The sailors managed to get some sight-seeing in whilst in town, visiting the National Anzac Centre and checking out popular cycling trails.
“We have a few diehards out bike riding at the moment, and we hope to send some of them back to Albany in time for the Southern MTB event in September.”
Captain Devine spoke with Albany Mayor Dennis Wellington during the HMAS Anzac’s stop over.
“We hope to come back to Albany for the 2018 celebrations,” he said.
