June 21, 2012 - Crossing the Gulf of Carpentaria

We departed Seisia at 7 AM under blue skies. For the first several hours we had decent wind moving along at about 7 knots. The water was very shallow, ranging from 20 to 40 feet deep and even 12 feet at one spot. For the better part of the day we remained in depths no more than 50 feet but lost the wind and had to motor.

By around 3 PM we received word that several others were catching Yellow Fin Tuna and Spanish Mackerel so we put out our hand line. Nearing dusk I had given up hope of sashimi for dinner and was rummaging around the freezer for some of our Mocka's Pies when Frank yelled, "We've got one!" By the time I got topside it was gone, along with the lure and a few hundred feet of line, and we could see it leaping several feet up out of the water behind us - it was a huge bill-fish! It was angry trying to shake loose that lure in its mouth. Feeling pretty rotten about that poor fish I returned below to take the pies out.

As evening approached, depths increased to around 150 feet and the Crap-entaria began to earn its nickname. The ride became AWFUL. Seas have no rhythm, and they slap the hull madly, dipping us up and down, seesawing us fore to aft and tossing us side to side. It is a very agitated motion and so uncomfortable we can't find peace. This continued through the entire night. We eventually got more wind, but the seas are hateful. Then in the middle of the night the rains came pouring down. Neither of us were able to get much rest.

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June 20, 2012 Seisia, Queensland, Australia

Yesterday evening a group of cruisers gathered on shore at the lone picnic table adjacent to the town's boat ramp. We have traveled back in time to the days of prohibition. Seisia is dry. The assembled yachties were grumbling about the grocery store not having any beer which is something I didn't notice when we were in there. Of course I absolutely would have snapped to this awful reality had I still been drinking. There is no liquor store (bottle-0) and apparently no place to consume spirits at all. People were actually sneaking drinks and hiding the bottles in their coolers.
Anyway, several conversations were going on at once all around us. I kept getting drawn into one conversation or another to find that topics ranged from Salties (the saltwater crocodiles), to drinking (or the banning thereof), schedules and plans to cross the Gulf of Carpentaria. This is what I gleaned from it all:

+ Some people claim they have seen lots of crocs; some at Margaret Bay, some on Morris Island, several at Escape River and some very large ones here right on this very beach. We must be blind because we have not actually seen any ourselves.
+ Those who had thought they would be stocking up on booze here will just have to ration their stores until they get across to Gove, a mining town on the other side of the Gulf that surely sells liquor to the miners.
+ Schedules for departing here depend primarily on the weather and secondarily to the amount of booze in the individuals ships stores
+ Plans range from southing along the coast to pick up a better wind angle to going straight across to Gove or more northerly to either the "Hole in the Wall" or to Marchinbar, all depending on the weather and the current.

There appears to be a lot of anxiety about crossing the Gulf, which many refer to as "The Gulf of Crap-entaria", because it is very shallow and apparently exposed to a nasty current and all sorts of strange phenomena that often make it utterly ugly to cross. No one seems to be able to explain exactly what causes this and no one is eager to go. It's only a 2 - 3 day voyage and Frank and I aren't as worried as some who are studying GRIB files and angsting over it. We just want to get it over with. So at the end of all the discussions I think most of us are leaving on Thursday.

That was yesterday. Today it is raining. Has been all day. Frank has tried countless ways to repair the water-maker hose and has finally agreed to take Peter from Renegade up on his offer of a spare one he has onboard. I spent most of the day catching up on emails, blogs and taking care of personal business, and I baked cookies for Peter and Evelyn in a gesture of gratitude for the hose. To Frank's dismay we only kept 5 of them. We had thought of going to shore for a walk, but outside of the fenced-in compounds it really isn't safe to walk around with Salties on the loose. By the way, the campground, park, fishing club and playground are all fortified with fencing. Now we know they aren't all in prison as it appears - they are just protecting themselves. What a strange way to live. I didn't take any of this to heart yesterday when we were walking around and still would have gone back in today had it not been raining and had the wind not been blustery out.

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June 19, 2012 - Through Albany Pass and Rounding Cape York - An Exceptional Sail

This morning was pitch black when we awoke but we needed to be ready at first light to move out of Escape River. The next part is a short trip - about 42 NM- but the trick is to run with the flooding tide going into Albany Pass and then catch the outgoing, coming out the other side as we go over the top around Cape York when the tide ebbed and turned.

What a beautiful sight watching twinkling mast lights bob as crew weighed anchor all around us. There were 9 or 10 yachts here staging to depart. I was still hosing off the mud and shell caked anchor when Avant Garde and two others passed on by us. Darn! I had pulled up an entire underwater kingdom with that anchor. I grabbed the boat hook and got to work knocking the chunks off. Finally we were away, following along we immediately felt the current grab us. Unless you sail or race on a yacht I cannot impress upon you the feeling of exhilaration that pumped through us this day. We were bristling with excitement because our friends, s/v Bebe, s/v Baraka, and s/v Harmonie had all really enjoyed this part of the passage in previous years.

Yachts were positioning all around us, falling into line entering Albany Pass. We were moving with a 3+ knot current through the pass, past beautiful little islands. It was magnificent. Pretty. Colorful. And it was FAST! The wind pushed us while the current pulled us to over 10 knots of boat speed. We reefed in the genny and furled the main all the way in so we wouldn't march up the backside of Solar Planet, a German yacht in front of us. I spent the better part of this passage up on the foredeck enjoying the ride, my foot wrapped around a stanchion, and holding onto my camera trying to capture some of this magic. Stunning vistas sped passed before I could snap decent photos, but our eyes took it all in. In hindsight, what I needed was a video camera.

At one point we picked up a near 5-knot current. We took pictures of the instrument panel showing that, although we were only sailing 5.8, our SOG (speed over ground) was 10.0. That is what a good wind angle and current will do for you. We hit a top speed of 10.8 knots with 1/3 of the genoa and no mainsail flying. As we broke free of the protection of the pass coming out the other side of Cape York we were immediately hit with 35 knots of wind gust. The winds were sustaining over 30 knots and the pressure on our sails was tremendous. What an amazing ride! We have now sailed 2080 miles since leaving Sydney.

We now had only 14 miles to go to Seisia. We enjoyed a fairly easy ride in, keeping the sails tightly reefed because it was blowing like hellfire. Approaching the little village we noted about 15 yachts sitting calmly at anchor just waiting for more new neighbors. It is very peaceful and calm in here.

We anchored in less than 10 feet of sand but let out plenty of scope allowing for the tide and wind which will both increase and decrease exponentially while we're here. We gathered our rubbish and went into shore for a nice stretch. It's been nearly a week since we have been off the boat. There isn't much to Seisia, population 165 according to The Lonely Planet, other than a large campground, a BP station, a fishing camp and a small grocery store where the price of a whole grain loaf of bread was $8.95. It was delivered by cargo ship packaged and frozen, thawing on the shelf. There was a sign posted within the store, prohibiting photo taking. I guess we aren't the first visitors to want to bear witness to highway robbery! That same loaf was 2/$6 in the real world (Port Douglas) that we have now left behind. We had been craving fresh veggies, but iceberg lettuce at $24.95/kg could sit and wait for the next customer. We purchased just a few items and then walked around some more. The earth here is red, red, red. There are termite mounds around that look like teepees. I did not have my camera (again!). Most of the inhabitants are indigenous Australians. There we also croc tracks. I suppose since they originated in Papua New Guinea, they are not indigenous but sure seem to own the place.

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June 18, 2012 – Margaret Bay to Escape River (69 NM) - Great Day and Another Fine Mess!

Lovely and serene by day, Margaret turned into nighttime hell last night. It began around suppertime, as the rising tide rushed in and started the roll. Winds continued to build so that roll VS wind equaled sleep deprivation. We were nearly thrown out of the bed. Good grief what a lousy night. Wind howling, halyards slamming against the mast and swell throwing us from side to side, we barely slept a wink before the 5:30 alarm shattered my nightmares and roused a petulant crew. We both groped around sleepily while getting coffee started and warming up the engine. We were hauling the anchor up by 6:00 and away at 6:07 immediately surfing the 25 knots of whistling wind.

The sailing today was pretty darn good. We only had to fiddle with the genoa and staysail a few times, otherwise we enjoyed between 25-28 knots True (wind) pushing us. The chop gave us a bit of contention and a countercurrent of between 1 – 1.5 kts pushed us at us a good bit of the way but in spite of that we sailed along at between 7 – nearly 10 knots most of the day. Skies are gray but the temp is warming rapidly as we journey north, so a bit of cloud cover is good for managing the heat.

Smooth sailing turned into a veritable Bull Bide coming into the bay! Actually it isn't a bay but it looks like a big bay outside the Escape River, as the coast swings inward a bit. Big seas. Big winds. We were fine but as we looked around at a few of the other smaller yachts in the little flotilla, masts were not only swaying but also pumping up and down, their freeboards disappearing in the 2 meter chop. Turning Destiny to furl in the mainsail looked like a terrible option in these conditions. Frank instructed me to bring it in slowly while he controlled the outhaul. I chose to crank it rather than use the electric wench – why I can't say but it is darn good thing I did. Sometimes instincts and/or angels keep us from big trouble.  At first the cranking was slow but steady and when the sail was about ¾ of the way furled, difficult became unmanageable. I thought this was due to the pressure from the wind and although I was watching the sail one side was obscured from my view. On that particular side, unbeknownst to us both, a spare halyard had loosened and was being cranked into the mast along with the mainsail. I finally told Frank I just couldn't move it anymore. He switched places with me and gave it all he had until a nerve-wracking screech sounded. I yelled, "STOP! SOMETHING IS WRONG!" He stopped; we peered up toward the top and saw that the halyard looked strange. For the love of Neptune, the halyard's gotten sucked into the mast! Meanwhile the wind began gusting over 30 knots. Oh Lord, we have to let some sail out and pray it will actually come out. Frank cranked the outhaul with the wench and suddenly it all gave way at once; the halyard popped loose and the main billowed out. Quickly we turned into the wind tossing around like a rubber duck in a washing machine, and cranking as quickly as possible got that sucker furled in. Coming back around, with Frank now back behind the helm, we looked up and saw something black and crescent shaped sticking to the middle panel of the front Strataglass (windshield). I went out, scooped it off and handed it to Frank. We both scratched our heads wondering what this hard piece of plastic was and where in the world it came from. We put is aside for later and continued on into the river entrance.

We sure didn't expect the Escape River to be as beautiful as it turned out to be. Rivers are generally sort of brown with brown-ish beaches. Aren't they? And because we have heard horror stories about the crocs in here eating dinghies and living in abundance, that sort of added to the "brown" expectation. There is nothing brown about it. It is turquoise blue with white sand beaches and is full of pearl farms. Our friends on Scallywag and Avant Garde were here. We chatted on the radio shortly then got to the business of checking things out on deck to make sure Destiny was A-OK after that little fiasco. We found a few more pieces of black plastic up by the mast and started looking around to see what had shattered, feeling around everything that was black. We discovered that the triple line turning block that sits on the midships deck had a busted pulley. It was the one our outhaul line passes through. My first thought was Thank God we were hand-cranking and not using the power wench or who knows what could have… and Frank's was Wonder what THAT's going to cost to replace!  Frank is so clever – he removed the block, turned it around so that the broken pulley sat with a line we seldom use, thus we had a sound one in place for the main outhaul.

At the end of the day, it was a fantastic sail. We traveled 69 nautical miles in 9 hours. Holy moly!  What is even more cool is that as of mid-day today, we hit the 2000-mile mark since leaving Sydney. This is a big country indeed.  Tomorrow, we go over the top. 

June 17, 2012 – Portland Roads to Margaret Bay (46 NM)

Well, it can't all be sunshine, lollipops and rainbows, now can it? If so then life would be incredibly boring.

We are no longer enjoying peaceful nights of slumber in still anchorages. The night in Portland Roads was pitchy and tolerable but not pleasant. Today's trip isn't very far – just 46 miles, so we waited until 7:45 to depart.  Right away we threw up the sails and away she went. Destiny enjoyed a very nice day of skimming over the water. In fact a few times throughout the day we had to reef in. Things were going along smoothly until Frank noticed that water was seeping into the bilge when he turned on the watermaker. It appeared to be just a trickle but leaking water is not generally a welcome sight on a boat. He began methodically tracking the trail of the trickling water to find a breach in the pressure hose. He said it looked as though it had been worn through by rubbing against the bulkhead. He enlarged the opening and then set to trying to stave the leak until we can get a replacement hose in Darwin. Thankfully we have ½ of a tank of water and should make it OK.  Frank, however, cannot stand to leave this challenge untackled and immediately placed the thinking cap firmly onto his head.

Back to sailing, we flew past several of the boats that had left earlier than us making us very proud of our big girl. She was on her favorite point of sail and was showing off just a bit.  Once set, we didn't have to touch the sails again until we neared our destination. This gave Frank plenty of opportunity to experiment with fixing our hose.  I cannot bear to watch him in this mode because he becomes a driven man and very unsociable so I have learned to leave him to it and to stay well out of the way. I finished re-reading and thoroughly enjoying "The Power of One" while keeping an eye out for traffic and watching the stunning coastline pass by. It just gets prettier and prettier and more remote.

We had no drama approaching Margaret Bay, but as we rounded the point we were stunned at the beauty of this large, magnificent bay. My gosh, the sand is so white I desperately wanted to go ashore. All around us were miles and miles of stark white sand beach.  I commented to Frank that Whitehaven Beach in the Whitsundays has got nothing on Margaret Bay. This place is far more stunning, but of course we could not walk the beaches because the damnable crocs have taken over and made it theirs.  The whole bay is very shallow and so we anchored well offshore of the beach so far in fact that I couldn't take a decent photo. We'll have to remember this one in our mind's eye.

June 16, 2012 – Morris Island to Portland Roads (59NM)

After clearing Morris Island, we enjoyed one of the best days yet of sailing yet on this trip up the coast so I think we are starting to pick up those nice winds our friends enjoyed the two previous years, we are just late bloomers.

Entering the heads into Portland Roads we did not know what to expect, but suddenly my broadband stick glowed bright blue so I jumped below to quickly check emails and get a couple of updates posted, then lost the signal. It was a good 20 minutes though.  The Lucas Guide is more sketchy than informative in these parts and gave no information that was useful really. We dropped the hook at 4:30 PM in the pouring rain. Gee whiz it is choppy in here. The Germans, Austrians and another yacht are here as well. There is life on shore but we can't tell how on earth we would get there. There is no beach and no semblance of a spot to land a dinghy. I had no intention of going to shore here anyway it sort of looked like another "Deliverance" site, and felt like one when we found there was no phone, TV or internet signal. Hummmm, wonder what they do for enjoyment??? Scary to think.  OK, so we really, really did not like it here but are truly thankful that it offered a place to stop for the night. We had left Morris Island at 6:30, and arrived here at 2:45. Had we not had great sailing winds we sure wouldn't have hurried in.

Dreary, windy, rocky and rainy we did not rest, but had a break I guess you could say. This was as bad as those awful rolly anchorages in the Whitsunday group. After having not slept well at all (again), we arose had our coffee and then at 7:45 were out of there.

June 15, 2012 – A 59-Mile Day to Morris Island

Leaving Flinders at 6:30 AM, where we spent a wind-howling, stormy and miserable night, we hardly got a handkerchief-size bit of sail up before the winds swept us away. So, the uncomfortable and miserable anchorage can often translate into decent sailing. This day, however, we lost a good bit of speed due to the confused state of the sea. The heavens alternated from ugly and threatening to clearing with some clouds and pretty blue sky. It was a weird day and not one that we particularly enjoyed. But we did appreciate making the 59 NM passage to Morris Island before losing daylight, arriving at 4:45 PM. This is another flat little sand island amidst the Great Barrier Reef that surprisingly offers great respite for the weary traveler. It appears that many of the trees have lost their leaves, possibly due to recent cyclones but were sprouting little bits of green. It was a funny site to see all these sticks on the pretty sandy island. Here again we were forewarned that there are crocs about and should not venture off the boat. Apparently dinghies are croc targets. We enjoyed a fair night here at Morris Island and then sailed away for Portland Roads (on the mainland) for our next stop, which is another 59 NM passage. It was 6:30 AM when we hoisted the anchor

Approaching Morris Island

at anchor at Morris Island

June 14, 2012 - Howick Island to Flinders Group (52NM)

We bid farewell to the not very attractive but comfortable anchorage at Howick Island around 6:30 AM, motoring under pretty blue skies but not getting a lot of help from the wind. We swung out the main hoping to tempt the wind. The morning was so lovely, seas fairly calm and the motion of the boat so smooth that I announced to Frank I would prepare some passage food, beginning with King Ranch Chicken. He was busy fussing with the main sheet trying to eek out a little more speed and didn't seem to mind but shouted down that he sure could use a chocolate chip cookie! I told him I suppose I could throw a few into the oven while preparing the casserole.   As I busied about, the wind typically increased enough to wing out the genoa. This is beginning to sound like a broken record. Now we know the pattern of the trades (light in the AM and then building to gale force when we are ready for bed), which is nothing close to what our friends experienced the two previous seasons. They all praised the consistent 20 – 30 knot sou'easterlies they had enjoyed all the way up this coast to Cape York. We must have caught it on an off year. But who's complaining…we are still moving fairly steadily if not briskly along, and enjoying the heck out of it.

I finished the casserole, and while the cookies were baking, started on banana nut muffins. Every now and then I'd pop up into the cockpit to enjoy the beautiful passing scenery along the mainland. It is desolate here - native isolated beauty that looks as wild and untamed as nature intended. For us it yields a serene backdrop for pleasant surfing up the coast.

approaching Cape Melville

Approaching Cape Melville we were on the lookout for its famed boulders. We soon found there was no need to be on alert because you couldn't miss them. What amazed us most is that we had been cruising along commenting on the green, green mountains, white sandy beaches and then all of a sudden the entire landscape morphed into piles of nothing but large rocks and boulders heaped upon one another, appearing to have freeze-framed in mid-tumble right down into the sea. There were a couple of small "islands" of piles of boulders sitting right out in the water as well. It was a remarkable sight. I was immediately taken back to 2008 when Frank and I were driving with all of our worldly possessions in tow from Colorado to San Diego, and on the way, we passed a similar sight in the middle of nowhere. 

At the time I thought to myself these look like some giant's discarded marbles. So very odd, and to think these are the only two places we've seen anything like this. I wonder where else we may spot this same phenomenon. OK, I do tend to digress. 

Renegade

At this juncture, we were sailing neck and neck with an Austrian catamaran, Renegade, and as we approached the boulders Frank hailed them on the radio to tell them we would take their picture if they would come out on deck. We snapped some great shots of them and then they in turn did the same for us.

Destiny

About 14 NM beyond Cape Melville lay the Flinders Group of Islands. The passage between Flinders and Stanley Islands is called Owens Channel. This is our intended anchorage for the night. There are two ways to approach the anchorage Frank chose the western approach allowing us to pass into and through the channel between the islands allowing us to enjoy the view of both islands. It is lovely here, but not safe to go ashore. Saltwater crocs apparently patrol this area. At 3:45 we set the anchor in time to see the blue sky gobbled up by fast approaching storm clouds. 

April 21 – 22, 2012 Pancake Creek, then Hummocky Island

As we motored free of the encircling reef of Lady Musgrave, Destiny picked up a 15-knot wind abeam and just flew. She loves this point of sail. We love this point of sail; it is a smooth and fast ride for us. We comfortably reached 8 – 9 knots and sped toward our next destination of Pancake Creek.

Well, crikey! At just about 11:00 AM, the wind began to slack, slowing us to less than 4 knots. Ha ha, as Frank says: BOHICA! Bend Over Here It comes Again! On came the motor as we sallied forth.  Pancake Creek is a riverbed that offers safe harbor and good holding; however, the Lucas Guide mentions that the tide differential is approximately 2 ½ - 3 meters.  We were settled in by 1:00, had a bite of lunch and then at around 3:00 PM (30 minutes after low tide), Paul and Glor picked us up in their dinghy for a visit to shore and a walk along the shoreline.  The tide was quite far out, so we dragged the dinghy far up onto nearly to the beach and set the anchor into the sand before trekking off. By the time we had walked 15 minutes we looked back toward the dinghy to note that the anchor was already well under water.  Our exploratory hike didn't last much beyond about 45 minutes before we were wading back out to the dinghy. Good grief, we knew there was a big tide wash but didn't realize it rushed in this fast. We returned to Scallywag for sundowners and then back to Destiny for an early dinner, because we had another 5:15 AM wake up call to look forward to.

April 22^nd, anchors aweigh 6 AM. NO WIND today. The seas are as calm as a mountain lake. Destination: Cape Capricorn.  As we neared Gladstone, which unfortunately doesn't even rate a paragraph in the Lonely Planet guide, we spotted dozens of tanker ships resting on the hook outside the entrance to the harbor. What I do know (which is not much) is Gladstone is a large shipping port that is not a venue for private yachts. In fact we would have to apply for a permit to even enter there.  We passed on by and at around 11:00 AM, The Scallys called on the VHF wondering if we should just push on to Hummocky Island, bypassing Cape Capricorn altogether. 

Hummocky Island

 There was plenty of daylight, and if we push ourselves a bit further we can afford the time to spend a couple of days on Great Keppel's pretty sandy beach get away. We voted "Yes", and so onward we roam.  I got fidgety which for me leads to boredom that generally inspires me to DO SOMETHING. That something ended up being chocolate chip cookie baking.  I baked two dozen and froze the rest of my dough. Then I made a dilly dip and cut up vegetables for our sundowner tonight. As soon as we dropped the hook, Paul radioed to ask what time is Happy Hour. Well, it's 4:00, naturally!  We enjoyed another beautiful sunset commenting on how fortunate we have been to enjoy this lovely weather for the last couple of weeks. The days are very warm, but the nights offer cloudless star-filled skies and a cool tropical breeze.  This particular anchorage is very rolly but we were so tired it didn't matter. By 8:30 we were both falling asleep.