Heading home

After nearly 2 months in Darwin it was time to head home, Kai was on his way to Europe and Dave flew back in to join us for the trip back home. Our departure was delayed by some damage that occured to the rigging associated with the crossbeam and forestay, and we had to call in a favour from a friend of a friend who operates a fabrication business. Luckily I had bought a box of mackerel fillets to Darwin for him, from Bruce on Wildcard! Bruce had asked me to deliver the box of fish to him and mentioned he was a handy contact if we needed any fabrication work done – not something we expected to need at the time!

At least we had our shiny new front windows in, that had turned into a bit of a mission but we got there in the end. Thanks to Grant & Dave at Northern Shipwrights.

We also managed to squeeze a last supper in with Suresh & Nikki, they also invited a few friends over and we had a great night with loads of interesting conversation, great wines and delicious food. A lovely way to finish our time in Darwin.

 

 

We left Darwin about 3am in order to have the tide right for passing thru Howard Channel between the Vernon Islands and then heading down to Port Daly in the mouth of the Adelaide River. We ended up spending a couple of days there as the weather was not suitable for heading across Van Diemen Gulf and past Cape Don. Dave & I did a bit of fishing with no luck and also put the pots in for a soak, but only got one nice muddie for our trouble. It was a pretty interesting anchorage – the tide in and out of the river ran at about 3.5k and of course the wind blew from the opposite direction on one direction of the tide.

The next leg was out of Port Daly, across Van Diemen Gulf and round the notorious Cape Don into Alcaro Bay, it proved to be a slog, and a portent of things to come, winds more Easterly than we expected and stronger, so windows to move on were short and there was a lot of motoring and or motor sailing to make any progress. The trip to Alcaro Bay was not particularly pleasant, but we got there and given the reputation of these waters, especially heading East in the dry, we probably had a good run actually. Alcaro Bay was a pretty little spot to overnight, it had a creek in the corner with an old landing pontoon which I think the Cape Don Fishing lodge use to access the area and there is a walking track to the lighthouse apparently.

After a night at Acaro Bay we hauled anchor and headed round to Port Essington, site of the infamous 3rd attempt to settle the NT, called Victoria. It was a pretty grim story and 11 years later it was abandoned, like the 2 previous 2 attempts to create a settlement in the NT. There is a bit of an overview here, CLICK  and for a broader perspective on the whole of Garig Gunak Barlu/Port Essington, CLICK

We spent the first day at the entrance, at Black Point, site of the ranger station and the cultural centre, it was fascinating talking to the ranger, who was a Iwaidja man, it really gave us a sense of just how remote this part of Australia is and how sadly the Government’s abandonment of support for the homelands meant that other than the ranger station, no infrastructure remains and the people have all had to leave and move to Croker Island or Darwin.

The next day we headed 15nm in to the head of Port Essington to West bay, from here we were able to visit the ruins of the Victoria settlement and also spend some more time unsuccessfully fishing! ( a reminder of how hard it is to arrive in a new place and work out the fishing quickly.)

In the end we only walked part of the trail thru the settlement ruins, we had intended to go back and walk the whole trail but the freshening winds made it unviable to land in the tinny. Still we certainly got a sense of the immense difficulty these early settlers would have faced trying to establish an outpost in this remote wilderness.

 

We spent a couple of days in West Bay and then decided to sail back up to Black Point so we were ready to leave for the next leg when the weather allowed, it was a beautiful sail of the 15nm back up Port Essington.

We set off from Port Essington about 0400h with the intention of overnighting at Point David at the bottom of Croker Island, we had a great sail that morning down Bowen Strait, between Croker and Coburg Peninsula, and arrived at Point David in time for lunch, we had sailed down just behind another cat who just managed to stay ahead of us, and then sailed on further South in what looked quite unpleasant conditions and we were thankful for our decision to stop here overnight. It was a beautiful anchorage, a stunning beach, clear water and an old group of buildings that looked to have been damaged badly by a cyclone and abandoned.

Later that afternoon we realised the weather had been updated on Predictwind (joys of Starlink!) and there was now a good window to sail on thru the late afternoon and night towards our next destination, South Goulburn Island. We decided to change plans, not stay the night, and take advantage of the changed conditions to get to what is a very sheltered anchorage because there was some pretty nasty winds coming that would keep us holed up for a few days. We were starting to feel two pressures, progress had been slower than we expected due to the strength of the prevailing winds and their more Easterly aspect compared to our expectations, and secondly as a result of the extra motoring we were doing, we were getting low on fuel. I had realised we would have to refuel at Maningrida at the furthest, or if possible at South Goulburn Island at the community of Warruwi, which I knew had a service station, but its not somewhere you can go ashore without a permit in normal circumstances.

So we pulled anchor at about 5pm and sailed thru the night and made it into South West Bay on South Goulburn Island at about 3.30am. A bit hairy anchoring in a place you have never seen, in the middle of the night, but we managed! Its a truly stunning bay, the beaches are scattered between bauxite and gapan cliffs and we have a very comfortable anchorage. Looking at the weather we realised we would be stuck here for at least 3 or 4 days, so we decided to try our hardest to organise the refueling here. There was a barge landing where we were anchored which made getting the fuel to the boat practical, we only had 4 empty jerry cans, so it would require 3 trips to and from the boat to the barge landing and 3 trips across the island of about 4kms – so quite an exercise.

I found the phone number for the art centre, Mardbalk Arts & Culture and got hold of a very nice guy, Paddy, who ran the CDP program, his wife helps out in the Art Centre and he said the manager was away on a training course for the day, but he would speak to the council manager and see if they would let us come ashore for fuel, and to visit the Art Centre and the ALPA store. I explained that if we did get permission we would need to pay someone to help us transport the fuel from Warruwi to the barge landing. He said not to worry about that, he would be happy to help! I explained it was going to be a lengthy process as we had to not only go from the boat to shore, shore to Warruwi, fill the jerries and return them to the shore and then out to the boat, but also syphon them into the tank each time, so it was only fair if we compensated him for his time helping us, but he would have none of it.

Such generosity is one of the benefits of living and travelling in very remote locations, people generally do their best to help and that was certainly the case here. We also met a lovely young local guy fishing on the beach in front of where we were anchored, he turned out to be the sports & rec officer for Warruwi, as we found out when we bumped into him again at the servo. He had told us the night before that we should be able to get permission to get fuel given our situation and when we saw him at the servo he said he had intended to come back that afternoon and check we were ok and had got sorted!

While Dave and I did the fuel runs, Sal spent her time in Mardbalk and selected some nice artworks to add to our collection, including a lovely little painting for the boat.

So that pretty much brings us up to date, now we just have to wait for this system to move thru so we can make the next leg towards home, its looking like we will have a few very calm days in a row later in the week so we will probably be doing a fair bit of motoring as we have a fair way to go still and only 2 weeks left before Dave is meant to be back at work.