September 2005
Cairns is a large city, attractive and sophisticated with a good beach. We managed to anchor outside the harbour, tenable but not ideal, though there were free showers on shore and I managed to find a good cheap internet cafe to catch up with correspondence.
Cairns Beach
Mike had work to do on the boat, most importantly a new bulb in our tricolour light, as well as replacing the back stay and fitting a new VHF aerial. Mast work is incredibly difficult to do. Because Mike is so much heavier than me and I am so much feebler than he is, it usually worked out that he hoisted me up and I did my best up there. Sometimes, though, it had to be him up there, this being a case in point as he knew how to fit rigging and I didn't. Not only was it exhausting to hoist him but I would then spend the whole time he was up there in a state of nervous terror that the halyard would break - much more so than when I went up, perhaps because I am so much lighter. If we were lucky, some friendly fellow male sailor would come and hoist Mike.
Up the mast
On the 9th of September we set off northwards again. The Barrier Reef is closer to shore from Cairns upwards rendering the sailing passage narrower. We met many large container ships all the way up and would have a little chat with each of them on the way. Everyone was well-mannered and they invariably adhered to the sailing etiquette to giving way to sailing vessels. Apart from chatting occasionally on the radio with other yachts, we made no new friends. The weather was pleasant and warm. We picked up a feathered companion for a while, and Mike caught some good eating fish.
Company at sea
After a 30 hour trip we anchored at Lizard Island for a couple of days and took our dinghy ashore to repair a leak, had a picnic on the beach and took a rare swim, abruptly halted when we spotted a shark in the water! Our next stops were Hannah Island, Night Island, an overnighter to Bushy Inlet and a final day sail to Mount Adolphus Island, right in the Torres Strait at the top of Queensland. Papua New Guinea lies directly to the north. The Australian Coastwatch plane flew overhead frequently and checked our details via radio – we figured they were checking for smugglers and illegal immigrants.
On the 19th of September, after a pleasant stay during which we had cocktails with another yacht who shared a bag of large oysters with us, we left Mount Adolphus and headed through the Torres Strait. The current can get quite fierce through this narrow gap and passage should be timed with the tide. Large tides were a bit of a novelty for us and we were nervous to begin with, but it was a marvellous transit. There was no wind so we had to motor, but with the aid of the current we travelled very fast – up to 11 knots over the ground!
Shooting through the Prince of Wales Channel
Once through the Strait and into the Carpentaria Sea, this lovely joy ride came to an end and we seemed to hit a counter current. Limping past Booby Island we spotted Booby birds, last seen in the Galapagos and then crawled across the Gulf of Carpentaria in lumpy seas, chatting frequently with the Coastwatch planes that continued to keep a look out. Along the way, we changed our minds about going to Darwin and decided instead to stop at Gove on the north east tip of the Northern Territory as it is possible to check out there. And so, after four days we arrived at Gove, well after dark. Always nervous of unknown ports at night we radioed the port authorities and were surprised to receive a response from a company called Alcan Security who informed us it was okay to enter at night. With the help of our GPS hooked up to the computer charts, and a blessedly near-full moon, we crept slowly through the vast and confusingly well-lit harbour till we found a spot to anchor in De Belle Bay at midnight. Whew!
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