Drew the diver, did Esprit’s bio-security check on the Friday afternoon we arrived in Darwin. He squirted some pink mussel poison into all the sea water intakes of Esprit, in case there were some killer mussels hiding there. This we had to pump through the toilets and run through the engine and then wait for 10 hours overnight at the fuel wharf for this stuff to do its job. Saturday morning the 15th July, we entered the Tipperary Waters Marina through their lock and tied up in our allocated berth. Comfort at last! In the afternoon we washed down the salt encrusted Esprit with fresh water and filled the water tanks. We had our neighbours on “Nauti Buoy”, Barry and Wayne from the UK, over for sundowners, which carried on until 1:30am – quite a welcome to Darwin.
In the Tipperary lock.
Welcome to the Tipperary Marina.
The foldup bikes were put back into service on Sunday, when we cycled into the city to stock up at Woolworths. This is Barramundi country and we bought some lovely fresh fish at the fish market. John, from the rally organisers visited us on Monday morning to welcome us and supply us with the latest rally information, name tags and T-shirts for the rally. Annie visited the Indonesian consulate to submit our visa applications, while Jack Warren our friendly American neighbour, ran me out to Darwin Galvanisers with our anchor chain to have it re-galvanised. Jack and his partner Janice Holmes have twice crossed the Pacific. We enjoyed their company over sundowners.
Back in the saddle again.
Annie, Jack & Jan.
As an aside, the Coral Sea and the islands in it, have lots of coral heads (bommies) which snare your anchor chain and literally strip the galvanising off it, allowing the rust to set in. The advice we were given by Yogi our lockmaster, was to spray the anchor chain with lanolin after re-galvanising, to inhibit rusting. We bought 5 litres of lanolin for this and other rust prevention. Lanolin is a by-product from sheep wool and has many uses other than an aftershave lotion and deodorant for Kiwi blokes. We also had to visit the doctor for medication scripts for the next six months, Bunnings for tools, bolts and gas and Annie had her hair cut, plus had the usual manicure and pedicure done.
The following Saturday we attended a welcoming BBQ at the Darwin Yacht Club for the 22 yachts in the rally, to meet the Indonesian consul, his staff and the other yachties. The crowd was treated to a graceful Balinese welcome dance performed by three ladies. The evening was a huge success with fantastic food and unlimited booze sponsored by the consul – yachty heaven!
Balinese welcome.
The reception.
Serious yachty discussions.
I was reduced to reading the weekend papers on the Sunday, while Annie polished all the stainless steel work. On Monday we ran into Northern Territory grog laws when we tried to order 120 litres of cask wine for the next three months sailing in a Muslim country. The aboriginals are a thirsty lot, so you are limited to 1 x 2 litre cask of wine per person per day – after 4pm! We were allowed to order unlimited bottled wine, so we settled on 120 litres of Hardy’s Stamp varieties – though not ideal with so much glass weight.
Sunset at the Darwin Yacht Club.
Darwin was on our itinerary 25 years ago, when we first visited Australia. It was a much smaller town then, but has grown to a modern city with tower blocks and all modern amenities. The presence of the Australian and US armed forces bases around the outskirts, must have stimulated this growth. The Northern Territory is also making a pitch for building a new rocket and satellite launching facility outside Gove to attract NASA, SpaceX and Ariane to launch their vehicles only 12 degrees south of the equator, with the potential to reduce launching fuel costs by 50%. Gove can certainly do with this plan, after the closure three years ago of the aluminium smelter, we sailed past just recently.
Darwin skyline.
Darwin walking street.
Darwin has two seasons: the wet and the dry. The current dry season at around 30 deg C and humidity at 40% is quite pleasant. We hear that the wet season with higher temperatures, constant rain and 90 – 95% humidity can be very challenging to acclimatise to. The rally technical briefing was held at the Darwin Yacht Club on the Tuesday arvo, with presentations by Customs, Border Force and Indonesian officials. On the way back, we detoured and cycled to an engineering shop about 10 km out of town. A 15-minute wait and Nick the owner cut and machined a new 8mm solid stainless steel rod for the rudder feedback arm to replace the original 5mm threaded rod – for only $25!
The new improved 8mm rod.
I took the opportunity to strip and service the four winches and the anchor winch the following day. Two joker valves for the toilets arrived from Brisbane on the same day, so I installed these in the toilet pumps to stop the back syphoning of the old valves. Wednesday evening saw us at the Dinah Bay Cruising Yacht Club with Jack and Jan to listen to some blues and have dinner. Lovely food,music and company.
Really cool blues at the Dinah Bay club.
Paul from the galvanisers called to say our anchor chain was ready on the Thursday, so Jack and Jan kindly ran us out to collect this and then took Annie and I to Coles to buy our food supplies for the trip.
Annie and the re-galvanised anchor chain.
Friday, before the start of the rally, Customs did a mass clearing of all the yachts and their crews at the Darwin Yacht Club. Our duty free whisky, gin and wine arrived just in time on Friday arvo, so these were carefully stored as everything was in glass bottles – not ideal on a yacht. Saturday the 29th July at 10:00 the Sail Indonesia Rally started off Fannie Bay in Darwin.
The Thursday Island Customs and Quarantine personnel came to clear us in on Monday morning, the 3rd of July, after which we went ashore on Horn island to have lunch, visit the museum and collect water for our tanks. In the afternoon, Annie caught the ferry across to Thursday Island a mile away, to buy fresh salads, veggies and meats for the trip ahead, to cross the Gulf of Carpentaria, south of the Arafura Sea. We set sail the following morning.
Thursday Island.
Booby Island -the last waypoint to Gove.
The water was flat and the winds light for the first 12 hours, but after sunset the wind increased and the sea built up. A very uncomfortable night followed, but the following morning we were able to pole out the jib, for a better sailing angle. We arrived at Gove after two days and six hours of sailing. Gove, on the north-western side of the Gulf of Carpentaria, is like Weipa on the north-eastern side, a mining town for bauxite, the feedstock for aluminium smelting.
The Gove smelter – like a set for a Star Wars movie.
The bauxite loader.
The red dust from the bauxite is everywhere, but the Gove Boat Club is an oasis in this arid region, with green lawns and trees.
Gove Yacht Club
The club is the social hub for the locals and serves great meals. We ate there on both nights in Gove and met some interesting people, like Harold, who at 81, recently completed a solo circumnavigation of the world. He is due to set sail for South America again shortly, on the 38 footer he built of steel. Annie managed to get to Woollies to stock up with fresh food and we again topped up the water.
View from the Yacht Club.
The trip from Gove to cross the Wessel island chain was interesting. You have to get to the Gugari Rip, also called the Hole in the Wall at the right time, to cross at the start or end of an ebb tide. The Gugari Rip has been the foundation of many a yacht club “best yarn” and can be disastrous if you attempt to do it against a flood tide or at full ebb tide, and would probably require a change of underpants afterwards. We left Gove at 6 am to do the 45 nm and arrive there in the last half hour of ebb tide. The nearly slack tide still pushed us through at 10 knots, before it spat us out on the western exit. We anchored for lunch at a lovely beach just south of the exit.
Wessel island chain.
The Gugari Rip as seen from Google Earth.
Entering the Rip.
Slocum Schady shooting through the rip.
Lunch stop.
After lunch we sailed 15 miles to Stevens island and on the way Annie caught a northern Bluefin tuna. We had some sashimi and cryovacked the rest for later BBQ’s.
She is getting good at this!
We anchored in the lee of the island, for a very bumpy night. We couldn’t wait to set sail at 7am the next morning, to cover as much Westing as possible, before a strong S-E wind system across the Arafura sea was due to start blowing. The first day was a pleasant poled out downwind sail with 12-14 knots of wind and a moderate sea, averaging 6-7 knots Speed Over Ground. We also had an Australian Border Force ship shadowing us for a while, until our credentials were established. I hoisted our big Aussie flag!
Poled out.
But wait, it was getting better. After a beautiful sunset, a full moon came up in the east and we continued sailing with a full main and the jib poled out, in 14-16 knot winds throughout the night. We only lowered the pole after 32 hours of beautiful sailing, when we rounded Cape Croker at 3pm the next day. An hour later we anchored after sailing 193 nm, in Somerville Bay in the lee of a flat a featureless landscape. Checking Predictwind on the sat phone that night, the forecast was for the strong S-E winds to track south to Darwin, which was still 170 nm away. Rather than try and cover it in another long-haul, we decided to do small hops and anchor in the lee of the landmasses at night.
Our trip so far to Darwin.
The first night was at Port Essington, then Cape Don and after that, Cape Hotham, before reaching Darwin on Friday afternoon. Darwin has a huge tidal range of between 6.5 and 7.5m, so anchoring will leave you miles out on the mudflats. Or, you rent a berth in one of the marinas which you have to enter through locks. If your boat has been in foreign waters, the biosecurity diver has to check the boat’s hull before you can go through a lock. The reason for this free check, paid for by the Northern Territory government, is an exotic and aggressive type of mussel that was brought in by a yacht some years ago, destroying the local marine environment before it was brought under control and eradicated.
The biosecurity dive check and injection of a mussel eradication liquid into all the boat’s sea water intakes by Drew Pearce of Darwin Dive Company took an hour, followed a 10 hour quarantine period. We entered the Tipperary Waters marina though their lock the next morning and tied up in our allocated berth. Comfort at last!
The autopilot rudder feedback unit eventually arrived late morning on Monday 26th June, after waiting 5 days for the DHL express delivery from Sydney. After installing the new unit ($439 plus $100 shipping fee), we tested the autopilot and found that it was still not working!
The old and the new rudder feedback units.
Crawling around below decks, I found pink hydraulic fluid running down a rear bulkhead. Andrew Olsen, hydraulics expert, now takes over. He discovers that the Jeanneau factory in France, didn’t tighten the outer cylinder of the hydraulic ram sufficiently at installation, thereby allowing the hydraulic fluid to slowly leak past the O-ring at its junction with the body, until the system was empty.
The steering quadrant and hydraulic ram.
The defect.
After he topped up the hydraulic pump reservoir with half a litre of ATF, bled the lines and ram, plus a few hundred dollars later, the autopilot came to life. Jeanneau SO 439 owners please note: check the hydraulic steering system on your boats for leakages and check that the threaded connecting rod between the quadrant and the rudder feedback unit doesn’t push into the bulkhead next to the mounting, thus bending the rod! We are not impressed by this installation at the Jeanneau factory in France.
The other defect.
Say no more.
One thing is clear: Carry spares for all the components on your boat which are subject to constant use. This includes winches, furlers, autopilot and the anchor winch. Whilst waiting for our spare part in Port Moresby, there were a number of other yachts waiting for spares to fix broken components, before sailing again. Among them, a French Canadian couple whose fridge had packed up in the Louisiades, on “Grace” their Beneteau. They are Robert and Lucie from Beaumont in Quebec.
Robert Ruel & Lucie Dumas.
Over dinner and subsequent sundowners with another French Canadian couple, Claude and Louise, we learned that Robert and Lucie’s first Beneteau sank off Ibiza in Spain after sailing from Canada to the Mediterranean. They wouldn’t let this get in the way of their long term plans and after their insurance company eventually paid out, they bought another Beneteau in Mexico, on which they have crossed the Pacific, visiting many Pacific islands, New Zealand and Australia over the last three years. They and Claude and Louise fly back to Canada from time to time to visit their kids and grandchildren. These are all people of our vintage, sailing two up.
Louise Lafontaine & Claude Jolette.
On Tuesday, after Andrew finished his work, we cleared out with Customs, paid our RPYC account and set off at 2pm for the 200 nm crossing of the Gulf of Papua, to Bramble Cay at the Bligh entrance to the Great North East Channel. At 6pm we started the autopilot, which worked well through the night until we switched it off at 6am.
Shitty conditions.
We then started steering manually because the sea was getting lumpy and the wind increased to 25 knots as we approached the Torres strait. We arrived at Bramble Cay after 30 hours at 9pm and at our third attempt at anchoring, the anchor eventually bit. We had a bumpy but good night’s sleep, to wake up the next morning and see how minute this cay is. The rain was pouring down, so we waited until 12:30 before setting sail through the North East Channel.
Bramble Cay.
The autopilot was turned on and did its job until 7pm, when it decided to kark it again. At 10:30pm we anchored behind Dalrymple island, only 55 nm down the 125 nm channel to Thursday Island. Early the next morning an Australian Border Force plane buzzed us and a friendly female officer called us on VHF 16, to identify ourselves and read us the quarantine regulations about what not to bring into Australia. The reason is hundreds of exotic pests that may prove impossible to control, should they reach mainland Australia from across the Torres Strait. Another reason we were told later, is to intercept drugs from Irian Jaya (Indonesian annexed west New Guinea) to Australia.
Dalrymple Island.
Back to below decks to find out what was wrong with the autopilot and to top it all, find out why our chart plotter was no longer working! I discovered to my dismay that the rudder feedback unit’s threaded connecting rod was again bent, probably having suffered metal fatigue after being straightened a few times. There was however a new replacement rod that came with the new rudder feedback unit, which I suppose I should have installed. So cursing, I replaced the bent rod with the new one. Suddenly, the chart plotter decided it liked this and came alive again. This was fantastic as you can only re-programme the autopilot parameters on the chart plotter, which I then did.
Remember me? I will haunt you!
So happily, we set off at 2 pm with the autopilot working again and anchored behind Dove islet at 5:30pm. Annie didn’t want to challenge fate and sail at night with a dodgy autopilot, in case things went pear shaped again. The next day we did a short hop to Poll island where we anchored for our last night before sailing to Thursday Island to anchor in the lee of Horn island.
Horn island jetty.
Now to quote Alan Lucas in his “Cruising the Coral coast”: The Torres Strait is in the centre of the windiest trade wind area in the world. Accelerating this wind is the funnelling effect of the two great land masses, Australia and Papua New Guinea converging on each other in the strait whose warmer waters exacerbate the situation. This is not an understatement – we have sailed from Port Moresby to Thursday island with two reefs in the main and a half furled jib. Annie decided to call it the Torrid Strait! Cruisers should avoid the Torres Strait and also the Gulf of Papua, if they can.
The Torres Strait’s myriads of islands – Cruising the Coral Coast by Alan Lucas.
