Departing Townsville at 07.00 on the high tide, we headed North round Magnetic and Palm islands. We had decided to take the inside route up the Great Barrier Reef as seas inside are 1 to 2 Metres less than outside in the Coral sea, and the distance to Cape York 130 odd miles less.
We wanted the authorities to know that we were out there so we logged on with our trip details to the Townsville Coast Guard by VHF and asked that Cairns be informed of our intended route North and over to Darwin. Cairns CG was contacted on the second day and we were passed on to Cooktown CG who tracked us by VHF and then HF radio until we could contact Thursday Island. From Thursday Island all the way to Darwin we were over flown by the Australian Maritime Patrol Aircraft daily, it sure was a comfort crossing the Gulf of Carpentaria and then the Arafura Sea to know someone was watching over us!!
It took 4 days and 3 nights to get to Cape York. Sailing in 15 to 25 Knots we made good progress assisted by a 1 knot current. Sharing, at times, a 1 Mile wide shipping channel with 800+ foot bulk carriers was at first a bit unnerving, but with the AIS on it soon became apparent that separation was not an issue. Personally I would not have considered this route without AIS. On the photo page there is a shot of the chart plotter that gives all the AIS targets we had at that time, note it even picked up ships at 400+ miles!! Providing we kept to our side, it was possible to watch the ships approach us and at 10 miles the ship symbol on the plotter would show that the rudder of the ship had gone either left or right and its heading would change, the ship would then pass us between 600-700 Mtrs away. No ship we saw was doing more than 14-16 Knots so when they pass there is minimal or zero wake from them. The passage is marked with all the “Normal” channel marks, what we found is that ships “aim” at these marks thus they take a zig zag path up or down the winding channel, again with the AIS showing where they were, we too were able to employ this shortening tactic!!....OK enough on AIS!!!!!!!!!!
Jan had the watch when we rounded Cape York at Dawn, wow what a sight, the top of Australia. As we came thru the Endeavour Straight the seas calmed right down and so did the wind to 5-7 Knots on our stern, yet we still had full sails up, 2 Knots water speed and 5.4 knots over the ground, we were glad not to be going the other way!!! Crossing the Gulf took almost 3 days followed by 2days to crossing the Arafura Sea, all was very peaceful. There is a photo showing just how peaceful it was, it shows our wake stretching back to the horizon!! During this crossing, I decided to try my hand a fishing, a bit late I know but I had to have a go. Putting out the line and lure that had been so successful for Captain Kimbo in the Pacific, I soon had a 6-8 Kg Tuna on the hook. As I pulled him in it became obvious he was not a happy fish as the hook was thru his top lip and came out of the eye socket L....With pliers in hand I managed to extract the hook, held him up for Jan to photograph then let him go, (No I did not kiss him/her first!!) The next day I caught 3 more, and like the first, were all returned to swim another day...
On board we have an extensive library of cruising books, among those are the “Bibles” written by one Jimmy Cornell. On this leg to Darwin he suggests going to the North of Melville and Bathurst Islands making a South Easterly approach to Darwin in the marked shipping lane, this he says is preferable to the shorter route between the mentioned islands and the main land. The reason being is the current. The charts show it can race up to 7 knots and if that is against you it will make for a long trip. So round we went and timed our arrival into Darwin for 09.00, high tide (+6.7 Meters). There are 4 marinas in Darwin and all are accessed thru a lock system due to the large tides. We had pre-booked a berth at Tipperary Waters Marina for our stay, so as we passed the Naval base Jan phone the lock master only to be told that as our yacht had not been Anti Fouled in Australia in the last 12 Months and we would need a hull inspection performed prior to entry to the lock/Marina as required by the Fisheries Department....A call to the Fisheries confirmed that we had to return back past the Naval base and anchor in Fannie Bay for this inspection to be carried out. This we duly did, a diver arrived checked the hull and put a disinfectant up our sea water inlets to kill any bugs. This then prevented us from starting the engine/generator for 14 Hours, if we did then the a fine would be imposed. We were given clean bill of health and permission to enter the marina the following day, total cost for this service was $0.00.....Neither of us had been thru a lock system before but with the expert guidance from the lock master on VHF Ch 8 this was achieved without drama. We are now in a pen with our friends from Hillarys YC, Dan & Elise on the Yacht “Baba” in the pen opposite.
And now a word on the iPad......You will have read we bought 2 in Townsville. One has the inbuilt GPS and the Navonics gold card I downloaded onto it for less than $50. We compared it against the chart plotter and paper charts throughout this leg. It is very good and well worth the money, especially when coming into Darwin and I needed to zoom in quickly, bingo it was there, no 2 second delay while the redraw is done, same for zoom out. There is also more detail on the pad, the shipping lanes were more clearly marked and directions shown. It also showed at least 2 lanes that were not on the chart plotter, we used these two and so did ships so they must be an addition that our January 2011 34XG card did not have. On the negative side, I didn’t like the continual up date of heading and SOG, this was done a little too quickly for my liking, SOG rarely agreed with the chart plotter and the heading was continually left/right, it seems to refresh every ½ second. But that is it, a tool worth having and when the “Imux” is installed we will have radar and AIS info displayed on the iPad.
We are staying here for 2 weeks to do a few urgent repairs. The fresh water pump has been playing up for some time now, so a new one has been bought and is now installed. The rear toilet outlet is blocked so that needs to be sorted, hummmmmmmmmm and we have a 12 inch separation on the main sail Luff that needs attention by the local sail loft.
All for this time, next will be the leg from Darwin....Mike
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