Torres Strait to Darwin

Sunday 16^th June. Fannie Bay, Darwin.

So last Sunday we left the Torres Strait, weighed anchor, it worked, no problems, no panic. Left Horn Island, sailed through the last of the Torres Strait and set course westward. Had a lovely week sailing across the Gulf of Carpentaria and Arafura Sea, arrived in Darwin overnight last night and anchored without hitting coral or anything else. And now we're enjoying a lovely, warm, breezy Northern Territory winter afternoon (only 30 degrees) watching the local sailing club race go past. No cyclones, no drama (well, only a little), no near death experiences. “How dull” you say. Though the trip has aged me and I now probably have to admit to being in my mid (as opposed to early) 40s.

Leaving Horn Island was incredibly civilised – the currents suited a midday departure so we had a leisurely breakfast, listened to the ABC Classic Top 100 Composer Countdown (only got as far as Vivaldi at number 6, guessing the top 5 included Beethoven, Bach, Mozart and Tchaikovsky but stuck for the 5^th?), had lunch and then set off. 

We enjoyed that beautiful, shallow, green sea through the islands and quite far offshore. A very, very beautiful part of the world. And gazed intently at the last land we would see for a week. 

 And then the reverie was broken by the sound of a helicopter coming closer and closer and lower and lower and then hovering right beside us taking photos of us. Border Force strikes again. This time they weren't even friendly enough to call for a chat.

So now we were sailing west. Which was a bit weird after permanently pointing north. We've been used to the latitude number falling but now we get a consistent latitude and a falling longitude (nerds might find this cool, I do). And later we realised that we were literally sailing off into the sunset! And some very nice sunsets they were too. 

It's all very relaxed now in the middle of nowhere. Handovers between watches used to go something like this: “there's the light marking that reef, there's the light marking that Cape, I think we're on course to shoot through the middle, there are two ships ahead coming towards us and one behind but I think we should be able to sneak through, the wind's been a steady 30 knots but with some 35 knot gusts, see you in four hours.” Now handovers are more like: “Hi. It's all good. Nothing's really happened. No traffic. The moon's just set but the Milky Way is looking great now and there's some lovely bioluminescence. I just listened to this new album, it's not bad. Good night Babe, have a good watch”. 

Plenty of time to get back to my tin whistle playing.

Karl was very impressed by my lifeline burn injury.

One morning I noticed some dolphins passing us at sunrise and that evening an enormous pod, dozens and dozens, passed by us at sunset. It was like an invasion, they just kept coming from behind and passing right by our decks and under our stern. 

Then I realised (while in the loo) that you could hear them underwater through the hull – they were constantly chatting/squeaking/beeping or whatever it is you call that noise they make. So I sat there, on the toilet, listening, with a big grin on my face, like it was the coolest thing ever. Communing with nature, man.

Karl got his first fish. A flying fish landed on deck overnight and I dispatched Karl to evict it. He did try trolling again and might have caught something – when he pulled the line in it was broken. So either (Karl's version) he caught something enormous that put up such a struggle it broke the line or (probable reality) the line was a bit old and neglected and eroded away.

You know you're making progress westwards when suddenly it's bright until 7pm and there's no sunrise on the 0200 to 0600 watch. So we decided to change ship's time to Northern Territory time. Ah, the all powerful position of being able to decide what time you want it to be aboard.

We've been having overnight bird visitors. They seem to like to perch on the solar panels over the cockpit. For a couple of nights we adopted a warily welcoming attitude, feeling they must need the rest if they're willing to try to balance on a slippery, heaving surface instead of bobbing on the sea. Then one day Karl noticed that our solar panels weren't generating as much power as they should and we realised that the parting gifts our bird friends were leaving were blocking the sun. Since then there's been a Purge the Panels of Poo project involving Karl and a mop and a new Zero Tolerance policy towards guests.

The only major drama (of course there was one) on this trip was one evening while I was cooking dinner. Karl called for help from the cockpit (very unusual, he respects the galley slave's time) and I found him looking very confused, saying we had suddenly changed direction and that Rover (the windvane self-steering) had “lost it”. We both stared at the compass, the chartplotter and (rather accusingly it must be said) at Rover. Then we realised that poor Rover had lost his oar. He was mortally wounded. (Rover has basically three parts: a vane in the wind, an oar in the water and a bit in the middle.) Thankfully we are paranoid enough to have tied two safety lines to the oar so it was dragging behind us in the water and I was able to haul it aboard. It looked like a weld had failed, prompting Karl to remember Ben Master's wise words "never trust a weld". Then we were again faced with that awful prospect, God forbid, of having to actually steer the boat ourselves. After a few moments feeling sorry for ourselves and imagining several sleep-deprived nights ahead we decided it was worth trying Ray (the electronic autopilot). Now he's only ever been asked to helm under engine, in calm waters for relatively brief periods of time. And he uses power. So we weren't at all sure about this. (Karl notes that he did give Ray a brand new belt in Cairns having watched bits of the old one slowly flaking away as we came up the coast.) We tried him out. He did ok. He kept doing ok, even in pretty decent seas. I was released to return to preparing the dinner. Ray kept helming all night, we watched his power consumption like hawks but it turns out he doesn't require that much (I was banned from using my galley LED strip lighting though which has had cooking dinner taking on a medieval atmosphere), and he just kept going, he really stepped up to the plate. Ray to the Rescue!

And back to stress-free sailing. It was my birthday on Friday. It started with a private sunrise on my morning watch. Then I opened my card and pressie – James Joyce's Ulysses. 

An appropriate date to start it and if I'm ever going to read it, now is probably the time. I do have some time on my hands. Karl had a birthday-themed playlist ready for lunch, there was some cake and promises of a week-long extended birthday celebration once we reached port. And in the evening: Land Ho! The first hint of a sliver of land since we left the Torres Strait.

After all that heading West we turned left into Van Dieman Gulf, a beautiful body of water; flat, nice breeze, can't even see the low land surrounding it. The only hint of land nearby is a haze and the vague smell of smoke. For the first time on the entire trip so far we had a full mainsail and full headsail up. The debut of the newly repaired mainsail too – all looked good. 

The currents in here are strong so we anchored at a random island for a couple of hours in the afternoon to wait for a favourable current, then continued to drift in an ever diminishing wind. Karl set new records in determination not to use the engine (“look, we're drifting at 2.5 knots, it'd be a waste of fuel”) until he eventually had to concede that if we were ever to reach Darwin we may have to start it up. During my watch we had a lurking, stealthy (not transmitting his position or details on the usual system) navy ship that I swear was following us, i.e. “escorting” us, for a while. I guess they eventually decided we weren't a threat to national security. Or maybe paranoia hits when you're alone in the dark. 

Stealthy Navy ship during the day, mine was following me at night.

Approaching Darwin.

We arrived in the early hours of the morning under an almost full moon. Then we sat and watched the moonset (which, I think due to smoke from backburning, is an amazing orangey-red) and went to bed.

And today we've been just chillin' and enjoying the view. And we may have opened my birthday bottle of sparkling wine. We'll head into a marina in a couple of days for a few weeks of maintenance tasks and of Darwin exploration. Karl has already Googled the local microbreweries. There are three.

The local sailing club Sunday afternoon race course seemed to involve buzzing us as closely as possible.

There are some nice sunsets here too.