As I write this I am approximately 150NM out of Darwin. It is a clear clear night with a full moon and Sea Otter is running before a 20Kt wind on a calm sea doing up to 7.5kts. I am very nearly at the end of this first excursion for the boat.
I left Gizo as scheduled on Saturday 26th
July. The immigration guy came onboard
early morning and carried out the necessary paperwork, slugged me a couple of
hundred dollars for outboard fuel as he had to come out on a Saturday from the
main town of Noro on a different island and then issued us the relevant
approvals. I made a quick trip into the
markets to pick up some fresh provisions and finalized our outbound clearance
with customs and then returned to the boat and weighed anchor.
The planned route was to head south west to
round the Louisiade Archipelago (part of PNG) which would take approx. 2 days and
then turn due west towards Australia for another five days to arrive at the
Great Barrier Reef. From there it is
another day to navigate through the reef system and the Torres Straits to arrive
at Thursday Island off Cape York which was the planned Port of Entry. Once cleared I intended to push on
immediately for Darwin.
The weather forecast we had was favourable for
the most part. After leaving Gizo the
wind was very changeable and it was necessary to motor for extended periods of
time between the wind dying and then filling in again. The good news was the repaired autopilot
worked faultlessly much to my relief. Having
the autopilot makes the passages infinitely more enjoyable. Near the turning point at the Louisiades
there was a patch where the boat motion got very uncomfortable but that only
lasted for 6 to 12 hrs. Rounding the
Louisiades I poled out the jib and set the main on run – and that was how the
sails stood for the next five days. This
was perfect trade wind sailing conditions and it was magic – following seas of
1 to 2m and constant winds between 15 to 20 kts. Every now and then I had to take a reef or
adjust the trim but apart from that the boat just sails quietly along. Sea Otter is very impressive and was easily
doing a constant 6kts with bursts of 7kts in the stronger wind.
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| View from the helm |
The Great Barrier Reef is a pretty amazing
natural wonder. When you look at it on a
chart you realise how huge it is and the vast area it occupies stretching not
just 1,430NM north to South but also up to 150NM east to west. I had to negotiate the reef to get access to
the Torres Straits and spent a considerable amount of time prior to departing
Gizo looking for the right route. Eventually I picked a lesser used route
starting at an island called Raine Island and then weaving through the inner reefs. As usual I was pretty wary of this stretch of
the passage in part because, given the length, I would have to do one nights
sailing in the reef.
Raine Island came into view as planned at dusk
on the 1st August after an uneventful sail for the previous 5 days. We entered the reef as night fell and
followed the route I had mapped out.
There were some very shallow patches but generally given the modern
navigational aids I have on the boat it turned out to be a relatively
straightforward passage albeit one which required pretty constant focus.
By mid morning on the 2nd I was
through the reef and sailing off Cape York and the outlying islands that make
up the Torres Strait in near perfect conditions heading towards Thursday
Island. There were a couple of other
sailing boats around but by and large we were on our own until Thursday Island
came into view. We announced our arrival
to the port authorities and as anticipated were instructed to anchor and await
the arrival of customs/immigration and biosecurity personnel which would not be
until Monday morning. Until then we were
instructed to remain onboard the vessel. We dropped anchor off the town in the afternoon in a windy anchorage and
settled in to wait for the authorities.
Thursday Island is an administrative centre for
this area. The Torres Straits are a
major shipping thoroughfare and given the environmental sensitivities marine pilots are mandatory for much of the commercial shipping and these are staged
out of TI. There is not much to the
town but from the anchorage it looked very neat and orderly after having been
in the islands for the last three months.
We were cleared in on Monday morning by very efficient
and courteous Australian Border Force personnel.
They looked the boat over, took away some remaining fresh food which was
still onboard and then gave us our clearance.
Free to leave the vessel I went ashore and
bought some food. There is only one
supermarket on TI but this was like a mega store to me having left the shops in
the Solomons and Vanuatu. The shop was
airconditioned and the selection of food whilst standard for Australia was
really novel for me. It was great to be
back in Australia seeing familiar signs and hearing familiar accents.
Once back onboard we set sail for Darwin,
another 7 days away from where I will write the final chapter in this trip for
this year.
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