On 1st October we finally left Darwin and continued our voyage eastwards. Darwin was great! We made lots of friends in the sailing community and many of them will be setting sail eastwards in the next few weeks. So we are hopeful to see them again somewhere on the Queensland coast. We are very excited to be on our way again, back on track to New Zealand.
Day 1 was probably the most difficult part of the passage from Darwin to Gove. Crossing the Van Diemen Gulf to Cape Don is a delicate balance of tides and currents. Catching the floods at the right moment saw us clearing the Vernon Islands at over 9 knots (pretty good for our old tub). It was just as well as we had to pass Abbot Shoal before the tide ebbed and swept us back over the ground we had just covered! We managed to catch it right and were off Cape Don the next morning. By that evening we were anchored in Port Essington and enjoying the sundown with a much needed ale!
The following day we went further into the bay and anchored at the old Victoria settlement. The community was established as the first British settlement on the North Coast and existed for 11 years between 1838-1849. Cyclones and the remoteness of the community made life pretty tough and malaria took about a third of the population. Finally the settlers gave up and headed home (or more probably back to Sydney). Their stonework for the building foundations still survives as do the lime kiln, magazine, smithy’s hearth, gun placements etc. The termites have long since eaten the woodwork. We found it very interesting but also sad – thinking about the settlers and their obvious efforts and troubles.
From Port Essington we sailed straight to Gove on the NW corner of the Gulf of Carpentaria. As we were leaving we met three other yachts from Darwin which had just had arrived and we joined up with Ron and Heather on Tradewinds III for the passage to Gove. We had mostly favorable winds for the sail across to the Hole in the Wall and spent a night anchored off a beautiful beach on the west side. Manta rays were circling the boat as we enjoyed sundowners with Heather and Ron.
The Hole in the Wall is a very narrow crack which allows passage through the Wessel Islands and saves a long trek up to Cape Wessel at the tip. The currents roar through the gap and if you don’t catch it just right you’ll be having the white knuckle ride of your life! We got up early and just caught the slack and had a breathtaking passage through, the cliffs on either side were just spitting distance away. The sail on to Gove was, yes you’ve guessed it . . . spectacular! Rolling green hills, white sand and the sea all shades of turquoise and aquamarine and deep, dark blue.
We’ve enjoyed our long stay in Gove. As you may know, Neil lived there for a year a long time ago so it was interesting for him to see the changes and the “no changes”. We were there long enough to get to know a few of the yachties in the bay and were very pleased to see a couple of familiar faces from Darwin. Sandie and Kelvin had sailed across and planned to stay and work in Gove for a while.
A lot of yachties use Gove as an opportunity to top up the sailing fund so maybe they’ll see us back there soon!! Another bloke, Laurie, was kind enough to give a guided tour of the neighbourhood so we were able to visit some of the more remote beaches and also Yirrkala, the Aboriginal camp. Unfortunately the Art Gallery was closed so our sailing fund remained intact a little longer!
We were looking forward to being on our way but were waiting for a break in the E’lies. Several other boats from Darwin arrived so it looks like we’ve got us a convoy!! The crossing of the Gulf of Carpentaria was superb. We had 10-15kts wind on the nose during the day (OK not so great) but we had a couple of good night sails and the swell was pretty tame. All in all fantastic compared to some of the horror stories we heard from folks earlier in the year. We were satisfied to have made the crossing in 3.5 days and anchored in Seisia as the sun was setting, about 12 hours behind Carribean Blue and H2O. Now we’re only about 20NM south of the tip of Cape York!
Seisia is an amazing place! It is a small community of mainly Thursday Islanders, whose origins are from the Pacific Islands and New Guinea, rarther than Aboriginals. We we’re lucky enough to arrive in time for the Seisia Rock Festival. A stage had been set up at the Fishing Club and everyone in the town had been rehearsing for weeks. The music was pumping when we arrived and was still pumping late into the night. There was a great atmosphere, over-excited kids were running around going crazy, everyone was dancing or trying to chat above the din – it couldn’t have been better welcome!
Sadly we didn’t stay long, while we still had a good weather window we had to press on. We rounded Cape York at dawn the next day and had the satisfaction of turning the boat south again. We had a tot to celebrate a major milestone in our journey!
As we rounded the Cape Neil caught our biggest tuna to date – magic! The favourable winds didn’t last long and we were stopped at Cape Grenville by SE’lies the following night. We anchored behind Cape Grenville in Margaret Bay. Several other boats were sheltering in the bay including John and Val on Auspicious with whom we’d left Seisia so it was a pretty sociable anchorage. We had 4-5 days relaxing and enjoying being on the east coast. We spent our time fishing, beach-combing and exploring the bay – not much different to the West coast really!
Before long the wind eased and we set off for the last leg to civilisation. We were bound for Port Douglas where we planned to spend a few days with Stephanie – the pommie girl at our wedding with the crazy red hair and the beautiful jewellery! The trip was about 400NM and we broke the journey at the Flinders Group Islands where we had the magical experience of sitting in the boat and being surrounded by dugongs. In a cave on Stanley Island we saw more Aboriginal drawings. The wall acted as a kind of sketchpad to note the sighting of birds, crocodiles, dugongs, dingoes and even sailing ships. Some of the drawings were probably two or three hundred years old and it was interesting to see the arrival of the white man as recorded by the indigenous people. I guess you could say the writing was on the wall.
We arrived in Port Douglas and were warmly welcomed by Stephie – but I’ve bored you enough! All that can wait for another blog.
Cheers from an increasingly feral
Suzy and Neil