A final 750 mile passage and still in Australia!

Date: 30th July 2025

Location: Fannie Bay, Darwin

Having decided to leave Australia from Darwin rather than Thursday Island or Gove we had a final 750 mile passage ahead of us across the top of the country and into the Wild West of Northern Territory.

Passage to Darwin.

We left Horn Island and its collection of boats waiting to start the more organised Rally Indonesia early one morning in order to catch the tide. As I mentioned earlier the currents around here in The Torres Strait are huge with three oceans meeting at the north eastern tip of Australia. Winds are strong, tides vary from island to island and the water is shallow with plenty of rocks around to catch the unwary. As it happened we caught it all spot on. We zoomed between the islands and squirted out to the west at 9.4 knots at least three of which was current induced. We were following and intended to cross the big ship channel but as we approached the crossing point a large ship arrived too. After a brief radio chat with the captain we agreed to slow down, run parallel with him until he was past and then cross behind. A nuisance and a bit tricky but all was fine. Meraki who were a mile ahead of us crossed in front of him without incident.

And then we were free of the islands and on a bearing across the 350 miles of the Gulf of Carpentaria. Well, we got the pole erected for some more downwind sailing just before conditions became pretty horrible. Shallow water, confused seas and winds gusting well over 30 knots made for a very nasty passage for the next 30 hours. Gill even began to feel a bit sick which is most unusual.

Still, these things don't last for ever and eventually the winds moderated, the sea state eased and we enjoyed a couple of days and night of pleasant trade wind sailing. The Gulf of Carpentaria is pretty empty. We just saw a few ships on the first day plying their way between the east coast of of Australia and Indonesia. Other than that nothing at all really except for a solitary dolphin and a few petrels zooming just above the waves.

After three days we finally spotted land again. It was night as we approached and we saw the light on Cape Wessel flashing it's welcome beam on us every five seconds. Halfway to Darwin. We continued along the coast of NT but eventually the wind died and we first motor sailed and then motored to the entrance of Van Diemen Gulf. Here we had the option of stopping in an anchorage for the night or pushing on for Darwin, still well over 100 miles distant. Gill and I were keen to stop but Meraki said "we've just made the tide so let's continue and get it over with." In fact we were an hour later than planned but that meant we were already riding a big current into the gulf. The Gulf is an enormous expanse of water with narrow entrance and exit points and with six metre tides the water roars through. It's a long passage, around 15 hours, that you can't make in one tide so somewhere the current will be against you. We picked up speed and were soon flying along at over 10 knots with just the fore sail helping us along. The water swirled and gurgled throwing us off course from time to time. It was flat and featureless with no sign of land to left or right. The final challenge is the Howard Channel where the water is squeezed through the Vernon Islands before we exit Van Diemen Gulf and out into the approaches to Darwin. Another 10+ knot rollercoaster and we're through just beating dusk. 25 miles later on the first absolutely dead flat sea we've seen for months and just before midnight we arrived in Fannie Bay after negotiating the mass of lights, anchored ships and the main shipping channel into Darwin. Lights, civilisation and a city for the first time since Cairns many miles behind us. Sleep!

Through Van Diemen Gulf.

Next morning we made our way past the city and up the shallow Sadgroves Channel to catch the high tide and enter the lock protecting Tipperary Waters Marina where we would spend the next ten days. Actually we missed the entrance to the lock and had to turn round to reach it - rather embarassing!

Locking in was uneventful and we ended up with a nice easy berth to get in and out of with Meraki following behind. Robbie the dock master and his son Robbie made us very welcome and helped with our many questions. This was the first place that we were seriously warned to be aware of the Aboriginals though to be fair we never saw any trouble during our stay.

Passage over it was jobs time - big time. Darwin is the last place to get things fixed for many miles. For Meraki Japan may provide some facilities otherwise nothing much til they return to Vancouver Island in Canada. For us maybe Langkawi marina in Malaysia but otherwise there's not much until we are back in Europe. So. New wind indicator, new windlass gypsy. Sort out diesel issue (where will we get that nitrile tank seal from?). Laundry, doctor, Indonesian embassy, dentist for Meraki, new battery charger, gas bottle filling (actually not - we illegally decanted from an Australian bottle). Buy lots of provisions to store away to keep us going for the months in Indonesia. Gill and Shawna get haircuts.

On Sunday we visited the famous Sunday Market overlooking Fannie Bay. Street food, stalls, thousands of people, camel rides on the beach, impromptu groups of musical Aboriginals and the most amazing sunset.

Shawna, as the self declared 'fun police' declared one day off to explore a bit of the outback in our shared hire car. Scrub and more scrub but finally we reached Lichfield home of basic campsites and several waterfalls and gorges. Gill had been suffering from, we think, heat exhaustion so was happy to jump into the cooling waters. I, on the other hand, was tired from watching a YouTube of Southampton's pre season friendly match against Español in the middle of the night and was probably not the best company for the day! [Gill says 'you were grumpy as hell'!] At lunch a couple of water monitor lizards came to join us.

Friendly Water Monitor Lizard.

Lichfield is also famous for its termite mounds. Not just the normal Cathedral termites but also Magnetic mounds actually more like termite blades. Somehow the termites build them so they are sheltered from the harsh sun - it is very hot here and it is winter at present!

Cathedral Termite Mound.

Magnetic Termite Blade - running north/south.

A welcome cooling down.

Back in the marina the final jobs were completed - the nitrile gasket doesn't leak - yeah! 

The new diesel tank nitrile gasket.

By now our friend Gary who had been our next door neighbour back in Scarborough had completed his solo passage along much the same route as us. We are in awe of him. It's hard with two. On your own it's VERY hard. He sleeps for 30 minutes then looks around for five before setting his klaxon alarm for another 30 minutes. In the storms coming up the east coast he was thrown across Meshugah damaging ribs and spleen and in that final passage through Van Diemen Gulf he was desperately fighting to keep awake. What a guy!

Gary and Gill.

And so yesterday on the 10am tide Meraki and Mehalah left the marina and are now anchored back in Fannie Bay before making the two mile trip to the Customs Dock at Cullen Bay tomorrow morning. There we will check out and set off on the 450 mile passage to Kupang, Timor, Indonesia.

Cape York - The top of Australia!

Date: 24th June 2025

Location: Lizard Island, North Queensland

Wind, wind and more wind. All day, every day the SE trade wind howls well over 20 knots gusting over 30 knots. Slowly, slowly we creep northwards up the east coast of Australia and each night we seek a more sheltered anchorage before setting off again for another 30, 40 or 50 miles the next day Despite sailing conservatively things break. The masthead indicator that tells us the windspeed has stopped working and we lost the end of the boat hook trying to pick up a mooring in tricky conditions. Our friend Gary who has sailed these waters for 35 years says these are worst consistent winds he has ever seen.

But it's not all hard. We now only have just over 300 miles to go before we turn west and head for Gove in the Northern Territory when the winds should ease off a bit - 10 days, maybe two weeks. Today our Australian visas expire but new ones have arrived taking time pressure off us. Our Indonesian visas have finally been approved too.

Ah yes, visas for most countries are now completed online. That's great when the sites have some flexibility. The Indonesian one doesn't. Meraki got theirs without incident though it did take me and Shawna an entire frustrating day to complete the applications.

We received an email with a request for additional information and a link back to one of the pages of our initial application. The link took me to a blank screen. Eventually I found my application and was led to a big yellow message saying my photo did not match the requirements. This was true because I had submitted photos in the ratio of 6x4 rather than specifically at 3cm x 2cm. But the page I was on was the bank accounts page. I assumed it was the bank account details that needed uploading. The requirements had been ambiguous but I had also assumed we had to show incomings of at least $2k each for the previous three months. But all our incomings are to our joint account which is what I submitted. However to ensure our names were at the top of the file.........Oh, this is too tedious but you get the idea! Anyway in the end I ignored the photo message and sent individual savings accounts (which showed a balance of over $2k for the three months but no incomings). That did the trick but just indicates again that actual sailing is only a small part of the fun of this lifestyle.

26th June 2025

Location: Still at Lizard Island

And still the wind howls. There are eight boats here waiting for a slight dip in the wind. In two days time we do expect to leave. Another  nine days sailing it seems to the northerly tip of Australia with dodgy anchorages all the way and the islands of the Great Barrier Reef to be threaded through. This east coast is not for wimps.

We did catch fish on this passage too. Between us and Meraki we caught a couple more delicious Spanish Mackerel and some Striped Australian Bonito. Our bonito was chased to the boat by three sharks and by the time we got it aboard it had no tail left. To identify it Shawna used our photo on her phone. Clever AI told us it was a crab!!

Shark infected bonito.

Early mornings became routine as we were often covering 40, 50 or 70 miles in a day so 6.30 departures and even one 2.30am morning.

10th July 2025

Location: Horn Island, Torres Strait - The Top of Australia

Cape York - the top of Australia

Well, we finally made it though not without further incident. I could tell you about every anchorage but there's not much point as they were all either:

1. A tiny Barrier Reef islet protected from the waves by a shallow coral reef

or

2. A longer anchorage hidden behind the northern side of a headland jutting out to the east from the mainland and very exposed to the strong katabatic winds that hammered down to the anchorage.

The only anchorage for 50 miles!!

The former provided amazingly evocative locations, the latter some of the windiest anchorages ever. At Melville [Hellville] Bay we were subjected to 48 knot winds and breaking waves even though we were 'protected' behind the headland. The boats were bucking and yawing around and in the middle of the night the anchor snubber (which takes the strain off the chain and windlass) broke. Luckily for the first time ever I had attached a subsidiary snubber which did not snap. However when we decided the next morning that it was becoming untenable the chain began to slip off the gypsy (cogs) stripping the teeth as the bow rose up and down in the shallow water. Pretty scary. Since then we have had to be very careful raising and dropping the anchor to ensure the whole chain does not run out. Kevin suggested a clever technique of looping a line twice round the chain and attaching one end to a cleat. If the chain did start to slip I had to pull on the other end tightening the loops around it and hopefully bringing the chain to a halt. Even more scary!

Just before this the wind speed indicator stopped working so we relied on Meraki for gust reports. One plus from the Melville experience was that the biggest gusts got it working again. But only for a time and it is again out of action now.

And now we have a battery charging problem too. That must wait til Darwin.

We did have one idyllic anchorage though. Hidden behind a small island, Night Island, was completely protected from the constant SE Trade winds. What a relief but next day it was back into the wind again. At least the waves mostly weren't too big behind the Great Barrier Reef and that day's sail was almost perfect, a lovely trade wind day.

Gilly at large.

Another rare evening we were sheltered much better behind one of the headlands at Portland Road. Famous for its Friday seafood special we, Meraki and several other hardy souls feasted on a fabulous seafood platter before returning in the dark to the dinghies with strong torches lit keeping an eye out for the saltwater crocodiles seen there earlier in the day.

Well worth waiting for.

There are quite a few boats travelling to Indonesia. We meet some, we lose them and then we find them again. All nationalities, all with a story to tell. A GP, a big pharma exec, a health insurance expert, a lady who survived a fall over two waterfalls in Guadeloupe and was found the next day, a young hippie on the tiniest catamaran sailing home to the Philippines, Swedes, Brits, Canadians, Australians, Finns. You learn so much about other cultures at happy hour.

We are still travelling with Kevin and Shawna on Meraki 2 and becoming firm friends. Previously owning one of the most prestigious hotels on Vancouver Island they travelled in company with their daughter and her family in Meraki 1 from French Polynesia to Fiji. We first met them in Panama. We all enjoy the extra safety of travelling together and the comfort of a shared anchorage. We will be together through Indonesia before they head back home to Canada via Japan and the Aleutian Islands.

Shawna and Gill

11th July 2025

Location: Horn Island, N Queensland

Oh yes, forgot to say, because of the technical problems we have decided to sail to Darwin to check out. So tomorrow we leave Queensland for a 6 or 7 day passage across the Gulf of Carpentaria. Meanwhile we have been exploring Horn Island and neighbouring Thursday Island home of the Torres Straits Islanders. These guys, together with the Aboriginals form the First Nations peoples. The islanders here all seem happy and pleased to chat. Culture is very important to them and as we found out at the Cultural Centre they have great local artists and are so proud of their previously much maligned heritage. We like it here.

Torres Islander. Torres Island artwork.

Tomorrow will be particularly challenging as the Torres Straits have some of the strongest currents in the world as three oceans meet across this narrow, shallow area. We'll be pleased when we have escaped and can set a course for Darwin (which just has its 8m tides to deal with).

Hopefully see you in Darwin!

PS: Just realised I missed out our week in Cairns. Nice anchorage and the last place to stock up before Horn Island where we are now. Highlight of the week was watching the Ironman Pro. Those guys are nuts. Winner did 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike ride and full marathon in 8 1/2 hours completing the marathon in just 2 hours 35 minutes. Respect!