Torres Strait to Darwin
Sunday
16th 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 5th?), 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.
I'm glad the trip was relatively uneventful. Also, dolphins are awesome!
ReplyDeleteDolphins ARE awesome.
DeleteYeah dolphins are so awesome 😍 wish I could speak their language
DeleteUlysses: you can do it, Kara. I did it last year. You have a nice version. That's the Sandycove Martello Tower on the cover. We went there a few years ago. It's right at the Forty foot.
ReplyDelete