Arrival

After coming out of Cadell Strait we set a course thru the Crocodile islands overnight and then Sunday we headed out to the north of the Goulburn Islands, originally we had planned to take the inshore route, south of South Goulburn Island to stay close to the mainland and mitigate the effect of any stronger South Easterly winds, but the wind was so light we were actually chasing more of it, and even going further offshore we spent a lot of time motor sailing with one engine on.

We did manage a sail for a few hours with the spinnaker up which was nice, and the first time since Queensland that we have had the spinnaker up.

We also caught 2 nice mackerel at the same time, trolling past Junction Bay, so we put the fishing lines away after that!

We also took the outer track around Croker island, again, chasing more breeze, rather than our original route  up the Bowen Channel between Croker Island and the mainland.

We had to slow down for the leg across the top of Coburg peninsula as we needed to be at Cape Don around 8pm to catch the complicated tidal currents in the right place at the right time to traverse Van Diemen Gulf and then along the southern shore of Melville Island before taking the North Passage over the Vernon islands and heading round into Port Darwin.

We cleared the Vernon Islands at dawn on Tuesday and then had a magnificent sail across to Darwin, arriving in very high spirits just after lunch. We were fortunate to be escorted into Darwin Harbour by HMAS Woolamai! (Not really escorted, but Dave’s son is stationed in Darwin and serves on the Woolamai and they were out doing sea trials so that was pretty special to be chatting to him on the phone and him taking photos of us!)

The trip was about 440 nautical miles in 3 days 9 hours, and we really had no issues at all, very pleasant conditions for the middle of the dry season and we had a lot of fun, especially nice to have Kai with us for the trip too.

We found the mooring we have been lent for a couple of weeks, got set up on that and then cracked a celebratory beer or 3. (we didn’t drink on passage.) After that we went ashore and signed up as members of the Dinah Beach Cruising Association and then enjoyed a few more beers and a delicious meal.

We also bumped into Paul O’Hara there, a fellow yachty from Gove who was on his way home after delivering a yacht to Onslow in WA!

After a full nights sleep and a lazy morning we went ashore and Dave’s son, Steve dropped off Dave’s car which was already here so we have transport and then we went to have brunch at the Roma Bar and promptly bumped into our dear friends Lance & Cheryl who spent some of the trip home from Queensland on board Lumiel with us. We knew they were in Darwin, but it was pure fluke we bumped into them this morning!

 

The amazing video Kai made of the trip over,