Darwin (including Natural Disaster 2: Earthquake)

Darwin (including Natural Disaster 2: Earthquake)

After the excitement of arrival we spent a couple of days anchored at Fannie Bay just enjoying doing absolutely nothing, not moving, not being on watch, admiring the scenery and those fabulous, smokey, red NT sunsets. We arranged to head into the Marina at Cullen Bay on Tuesday morning which meant entering through a lock – our first ever (apart from, as Karl answered when asked by the lockmaster, the Panama Canal – where we had the luxury of being passengers and not responsible for anything at all) so a little anxious anticipation involved. The tidal ranges here are about 7m (difference between high and low tides, compared to about 1.5m in Mooloolaba) so at low tide there's not a lot of water to float in. The Marinas get around this by keeping the depth artificially high by using locks. Otherwise we'd all be aground at the marina at low tide. Not a good look.

We got up on the morning of the move, listened to ABC Radio National Darwin over breakfast and who did we have as a presenter only Connor Byrne from Ireland. It was like having RTE on. Then we weighed anchor (no dramas!) and motored over to the dock outside the lock where Lockmaster John was waiting to take our lines. 

That's the entrance to the lock behind us, were we going to make it through........?

We went ashore with Lockmaster John for the guided tour of the lock and how that would all work. Then a tour of the marina, the local restaurants and bars, got introduced to the guy who runs the launderette, were shown our berth, then were introduced to the marina office staff, finished off some paperwork and finally back to the dock.  Back on the boat and Lockmaster John opened the gates, we went in, tied up, he closed the gates, raised the water level (gently, he said, clearly feeling sorry for us), opened the gates and set us free. Then he met us at our berth to catch our lines again. Such a lovely welcome after having had to be responsible for everything all by ourselves for what seemed like so long. And nothing went wrong. This blog is getting dull.

Yay, safely through and the lock behind us.

Cullen Bay's an interesting little community. A new estate and marina reclaimed from the swamps about 20 years ago. It's got that gated community/Disneyland vibe about it. Very big houses and even bigger boats moored out front. There are a few bars and restaurants and just as many day spa/acupuncture/massage/teeth-whitening places but not a single local shop for when you run out of bread and milk. It's not unpleasant though. There are even fountains IN the marina. My running route is up and down every cul-de-sac in the suburb eyeing up the expensive landscaping and shiny boats. Karl, perhaps influenced a little by our luxurious surroundings, decided to fire up the icemaker (our big guilty indulgence) for the first time to provide several tiny but perfectly formed bullets of ice for our James Squire Cider. Heaven.

View off our stern by day (you can just make out the fountains in front of the park).

And by night.

And Darwin itself has just been very pleasant. Dry season weather seems sensationally stable – sunny, high of 30 degrees, low of 17 degrees, 0% chance of rain. Every day. We're within cycling distance of town where you can sit at the local microbrewery at happy hour, sipping $5 schooners of excellent beer, watching the backpackers and tourists wander by. We're also within cycling distance of Fannie Bay (where we initially anchored); home of the Darwin Sailing Club, Darwin Trailer Boat Club and Fannie Bay IGA (small supermarket). The Sailing and Trailer Boat Clubs are lovely spots for lunch on the Bay and the Fannie Bay IGA has all the Greek food you could possibly want including 1kg tins of dolmades and great big 5 litre bottles of Greek wine. That's a picnic right there.

Karl at the Darwin Sailing Club.

Couldn't resist the Greek wine. And yes, we did finish it off in the month we were here.

One day, standing on the floating dock having just gotten off the boat, I noticed that the vertical concrete pylon that anchors the dock was vibrating a little dramatically. I looked around to see what crazy boat-wake might be causing this; nothing. I looked at the pylon. Definitely rhythmic wobbling. I wondered “does Darwin have earthquakes?” and looked around to see if anything else was shaking or falling down. Nothing. I mentioned it to Karl. He seemed unimpressed. We cycled to town, had lunch at the wharf and then got a message from Ralph (currently in Russia) asking if the earthquake in Darwin had effected us much. Earthquake! And to think we almost missed it. 

We had a touristy afternoon exploring WW II tunnels used as oil storage tanks (whose dribbly walls didn't inspire much confidence after I realised that there probably hadn't been any engineer inspections after that morning's earthquake) 

and learned some interesting things about Darwin. It's very new, all the early mentions of the 1860s/1870s seem to involve individual boats arriving to claim the land and then to facilitate the Adelaide-Darwin telegraph cable. Weirdly it was part of South Australia until the early 20^th century. Interestingly, the indigenous locals had a longstanding relationship with the Macassan people from Indonesia who came seasonally to harvest sea cucumber. Things finally got going in the late 19^th century with a gold rush but just as the town was growing all the civilians were evacuated during WWII. During the war it was a base for the military, Australia's main line of defence and the victim of several Japanese bombing raids. 

The tunnels were secret until the 50th anniversary of the war in the 90s (we were skeptical of this fact when presented at the museum thinking "yeah, in a little place like Darwin everyone probably unofficially knew" but we checked with locals and they were genuinely secret) and are actually pretty impressive pieces of construction.

Civilians only returned in 1946. Then an influx of those fleeing Timor and Vietnam in the 70s followed by being flattened by Cyclone Tracey. And it's been growing steadily since then, with a resource boom, except now there's a general feeling of a recession and reduced tourist numbers and empty shopfronts.

Karl in his element once again in the narrow bit of the tunnel.

Random night in Darwin: we were sitting in the cockpit after dinner, admiring the view, when Karl noticed something in the water and exclaimed excitedly “oh.....it's...seahorses!!!!!! oh, no, ducks.” Life at sea with Karl O'Neill.

We were lucky enough to be here to celebrate Territory Day, or “Cracker Night” which seems more appropriate. A lovely Territory law means that on Territory Day you can buy fireworks (in shops that only exist for one day a year) from morning until sometime in the afternoon and then you can set off fireworks from 6pm to 11pm. For those 5 hours it's a free for all. Then, at noon the next day, it again becomes illegal to possess fireworks (you're expected to surrender any unused ones) until the following Territory Day. So we had 5 hours of constant, random fireworks on all sides while Karl manned the bbq in his singlet. 

We also had a fly-by by a very, very loud and very, very low military jet which was only slightly less impressive than the speed with which Karl identified it as an F-18. Plane nerd. And among the watercraft that buzzed by that night was a big, tough looking tinny with two big tough looking Territory men – one with the outboard tiller in one hand a a nice glass of red in the other.

We've just been working through our to-do list - all the wood is oiled, all the stainless is de-rusted, waxed and polished, poor Rover has been fixed and reattached and the engine looks shiny and new. Karl adds the following: the missing bearing in the furling gear has been replaced, the mast winches and windlass have been rebuilt, the fuel filters have been changed, worn lines have been replaced, a stern anchor light has been fitted, a broken mainsail slug replaced, staysail cover, mainsail cover, lifesling cover and dodger repaired, new dinghy fuel tank made, chart cupboard, surfboards, sewing machine and guitar secured with new strapping, new snubber and anchor hook system tested, dinghy leak repaired, new coolant overflow reservoir for genset fitted, mast climbed and fittings fixed/inspected, replaced mainsail tack fitting and added new reefing system, bimini painted, water tanks scrubbed, coachroof leak sealed, forward hatch and port gaskets replaced, compass light fixed, water pressure circuit breaker replaced, throttle and gear cables re-routed safely away from the influence of the steering system, new bilge drainage system in place (may contain Bunning's garden irrigation parts), anchoring fibreglass damage epoxied, cockpit speaker twiddles replaced, a new insurance company has been convinced of our competence, hair has been dyed, highlighted and cut (in some cases), Bunnings sausages have been eaten ... and a myriad of other tasks! – and we're pretty much ready to set off again.

Life of a liveaboard:

Work - crane Rover off the stern in order to fix him.

Not work - Sunday night live music across the road to accompany sunset picnic.

Work - service the mast winches I've been avoiding doing for years.

Not work - Karl gets to visit an aviation museum with a B-52 and F-111!!!!!

(play spot Karl)

Work - my first ever attempt at making (as in sewing) an actual thing from scratch.

Not work - Afternoon at a craft beer bar by the wave pool watching tourists.

Work - cleaning out the water tanks.

Not work - finding the One Mile microbrewery (well, actually finding it was work).

Work - fixing Rover.

Not work - watching other people work! What you didn't think you'd be doing when you became a tiler.

Work/not work - getting all your tools out, putting on a Bunning's hat and going to the bow to make it look like you're doing a thing.

Work - de-rusting, cleaning and painting your engine.

Not work - admiring the AMAZING cover you just made for the outboard fuel tank.

Work.

Not work - meeting a lovely young Kiwi couple who paddled by one evening and stopped for a chat,  they live on their boat in New Zealand and had just crewed across to Darwin.

So I've started my mule runs to the supermarket on the bike, we've been to see Border Force in person (they were very friendly and pleasant) to start the leaving paperwork and we're pretty much set to go next week.

Time to say goodbye to Darwin, to the guaranteed beautiful red sunsets, to the man with the small black dog I pass on my run each morning, to our local bar Lola's (which is right at the end of the dock, a couple of metres closer to us than the shower block), to the Brazilian dudes who shine all the (usually already shiny) big boats, to the uphill cycle out of Cullen Bay to town but the downhill run back home, to the staff of the local IGA who have provided advice on the best noodles to stock up on/fish to catch on the way out of here (depending on the gender of the staff and customers at the time) and to life at a marina. Next we (hopefully) explore Australia's Indian Ocean Territories.