28 June 09

Wessel Islands

11 34S 136 21E

"Its just not a tropical paradise if there are sharks, crocodiles, and stingers in the water" Quote for the day 3 weeks ago and still valid. We have hardly swum in the sea all year. The sharks we met in Polynesia, Fiji & Tonga were reef sharks that warrant respect, but did not stop us from swimming, but here there are tiger & bull sharks, sometimes in muddy water. The many saltwater crocodiles just beneath the surface are even more worrying.

Janet flew into Cairns, our last point of civilisation, and has been back on board for a month. Cairns Marina was in the middle of the modern, clean town with a grassy esplanade, a hotel, lots of tourists visiting The Reef, and well-stocked chandleries & supermarkets. A good night market with many Asian food stalls. One chose and paid for the size of plate one wanted and then the challenge was to put as much food as you could on your chosen plate. The backpackers in town had it down to a fine art and you'd see a couple sharing a small plate piled high with food. We rented a car for the week end and traveled to the Table Lands, and up the coast to Port Douglas. Then back out to some of the best sailing we have had.

For 2 or 3 weeks we had SE winds 15-20 knots on the starboard quarter and flat seas behind the Reef. The spinnaker has seen more use than ever before and we got used to averaging 7 or 8 knots between overnight anchorages. The water got clearer, the sky bluer, and the air warmer as we went. We traveled in the company of the same boats, mostly also heading to Darwin and the International Rally that organizes paperwork for Indonesia. Most crews are couples that we met along the way, but some are old friends from previous years, and several have children doing home-schooling on board too.

Sadly, Dave's Mother passed away during this part of our sail. We had planned to carry a satellite 'phone and thought there would be mobile phone coverage, but we forgot to reopen the account for the satellite phone and there was no mobile coverage remotely close. Alan: Sorry to be no help, but thank you for organizing everything and keeping us in touch by e-mail. However, we felt isolated when it would have been nice to have communication. It actually would not have made a lot of difference. There was no way to fly out, and nowhere to leave Harmonica & Janet, even if Dave had been going to fly straight back to England. Anne had outlived the rest of her generation in the family and many of her friends too. Several people knew the older woman in the home who had more and more trouble remembering things, though few would remember the active mother, flute teacher, organizer, home-maker, hiker, camper, or the university blue lacrosse player of years ago.

Up the Queensland Coast there were many lovely bays, Lizard Island is worth mention. It was from the peak of Lizard that Cook climbed, after nearly sinking the Endeavour, and finally saw passages through the Reef into the Coral Sea beyond. He sailed out to the relief of all on board just to be turned back by fierce weather which made him take shelter behind the Reef again 2 days later. Lizard is now home to a simple, but attractive-looking resort, and a research station which hosts young marine naturalists and conservationists from around the world. We couldn't think of a nicer place for a research student to study in. This was the last place where we were able to swim and snorkel. There were many huge clams, 3 to 4ft across...the biggest we have ever seen.

Once we thought we'd sail through the night, but we found it too nerve wracking to rely completely on electronics to dodge around the reefs so we anchored at 10.00pm behind a headland. A steady stream of shipping uses the passage inside The Reef carrying output from Queensland's mines to China & Japan. Our AIS system was invaluable (for the last 5 years or so all large international ships have been obliged to transmit AIS over a VHF radio frequency giving full details of the ship including name, position, speed, and course). It meant that we knew hours in advance of a ship coming into view and could call on the radio on the one occasion when we were not sure which side of a reef a ship was going to pass. Many sail boats now have AIS. We are one of the few that transmit and receive & as a result our friends track us and know exactly what speed we are traveling at and where we are....no privacy anymore!

In one bay, there was a crocodile that spent the afternoon surfacing and sinking between two boats. More lovely, however, people who left the day after we arrived also saw 2 dugongs with a calf. These "sea cows" are so shy we have not seen adults many times and the family would have been lovely to watch.

Finally, we reached Escape River and then Cape York - the most northerly point of mainland Australia. On the west side of the Cape is Seisia, a tiny community with a paved road, hamburger restaurant, supermarket, library, and internet connection. It felt very civilized, and we stayed for 3 days. We bought an aboriginal painting. Some friends who anchored on the other side of the jetty from us have some excellent pictures of a crocodile that sat 100 metres off the shore watching a dog in the campsite - spooky. We are told crocodiles are creatures of habit and watch for regular activity. Therefore we do not land in the same spot at the same time on any beach.

The Torres Strait between Cape York & New Guinea is a fascinating region for many reasons. It was a land bridge in the last Ice Age and although there is a wide blue border to Australia on any normal map, the marine charts show that you could travel to New Guinea without going into more than 20 metres of water. The Torres Islanders arrived from Polynesia & Melanesia about 2,000 years ago and look quite different from the Aborigines. They are tall and strong. They used to be famous for pearl fishing, and one of them is supposed to hold the record for diving having dived to more than 100 metres depth with only fins and a face mask. We would not go nearly that deep even with a tank and time to decompress, and know nobody who could not hold his breath long enough to swim 100m out and back horizontally let alone up & down. Unfortunately for us, there is a quarantine zone which Australia maintains to keep pests out of the mainland, and we decided not to stop on any of The Torres Strait Islands so that we did not need to be checked by quarantine officers.

Our sail across Carpentaria kept David happy with lots of sail changes from spinnaker, to engine, to headsail, which we changed to twin headsails by lowering everything to the foredeck, then hoisting 2 sails on the same furling foil and goose winging them one on either side. Then our headsail halyard broke and landed a mass of dacron back on the foredeck and into the water beside us, so it was back to the motor then the spinnaker. It was 2 or 3 nights before the new moon and very dark, but there were regions of brilliant phosphorescence showing curls of green light in our bow-wave and a thin bright green line behind our stern. On the last night at about 4.00am short snuffing noises and green streaks through the water announced a school of dolphins. They stayed with us over an hour, and were the noisiest that we ever remember hearing - inside the cabin the sounds of their whistles and squeaks were loud.

After 2 nights & 3 days we anchored in Gove, which is the site of a bauxite mine, refinery, and nearby town on leased aboriginal lands. It was worth the stop and again we stayed for 3 days. The Gove Yacht Club has few patrons, but has a bar/restaurant on a lawn overlooking the bay, which is a perfect natural harbour. There is a shortage of housing for workers in the area, so "boaties" arriving with their own accommodation are sought-after employees and several stay and work for 1 or 2 weeks to many years. A small isolated community, but again a library, internet, and supermarket available in the town 12 km inland. (Thank you Bob for the swage, and tool to repair our halyard). 3 times up the mast in a month since we lost the spinnaker halyard once! We also spent a morning together cleaning the outboard and its fuel system on a picnic table behind the beach, but still did not manage to get it running better.

Now we are 50 miles north of Gove on the Wessel Islands. We took the short-cut through The Hole In The Wall saving 35 miles off the trip around Cape Wessel. This natural gap in the island is a straight channel 200 ft wide and a mile long. Timing our trip for 1 hour into the ebb tide we managed to photograph the speed log showing 4.7 knots through the water next to the GPS showing 11.6 knots over ground. Having flushed back into the Arafura Sea, there is no wind. We are completely on our own except for wallabies lurking under rocks & behind scrubby bushes. There is half a mile of white beach fronting onto a flat, blue sea and it is hot again. Janet is collecting shells.

Occasionally we hear the Australian Coast Watch aeroplanes on the radio asking passing boats for their registration, but we don't hear the replies from the boats which must be hidden by the curvature of the earth. When on passage, We have been checked regularly by aeroplane, one day we were checked twice, and on one by helicopter on another.

Tomorrow we must press on towards Darwin where many of the Rally boats are already gathered. We'll probably sail for 2 nights to reach Cape Don, where we must start to watch tidal currents again. Following some phone calls from Seisia & Gove, we are hoping to find some bits of chandlery and a new radio waiting for us in the Darwin Sailing Club.

Love to you all from Jan, Dave & Harmonica

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PS Finished breakfast of OJ & boiled eggs. Seen no land since yesterday morning, but just saw 2 large beige snakes mating. Maybe if you find a similarly inclined snake this far out, you hang onto her!

The sea is teaming with life here, perhaps because there are almost no fishing boats.