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 From the Arafura to the Coral Sea - the Gulf, the Cape, and Lizard Island  Dear friends We are currently in Port Douglas where we have been berthed for the last week waiting out some strong south-easterly winds before heading south.   We have really enjoyed our time here, especally a day trip to Cape Tribulation.  It always feels amazing to come into a marina and the civilisation associated with that, but after a few days we find ourselves yearning for the sea and the wind! We are off tomorrow in some great northerly winds and hope to get to Magnetic Island, off the coast of Townsville, by the end of the week.  We departed Gove at dawn for our trip across the Gulf of Carpentaria - Stewy's good planning led to an uneventful sail from a weather perspective - flat seas and little wind, so we motor sailed much of the way.  There was heaps of sea life - turtles, seasnakes shedding their skin on the surface, brown boobies, and lots of fish jumping out of th...
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Darwin to Gove - the fabulous Arnhem Land  Dear all We are currently sitting in the delightful Gove harbour where we arrived 5 days ago, just in time to celebrate S2ee's birthday at the Gove Boat Club.   There are five other yachts here, all of which we have met through our travels, and we have done heaps of socialising with our fellow sailors.  We are all here waiting for the same thing - good weather conditions to cross the Gulf of Carpentaria (Gulf of Crap Interior?) to Cape York.  That good weather has now arrived - two boat are departing today and the rest of us are departing tomorrow for a 3-4 night sail across the Gulf. Gove harbour and the associated Nhulunbuy town are delightful - I expected a dirty, dusty, mining town - but it is quite the opposite.  Green, neat and tidy and has all the services for a travelling yachty. Entry to the harbour is marked by the now defunct alumina refinery, which closed a few years ago.  So sad for the town to lo...
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 Crossing the Blownapart (aka Joseph Bonaparte) Gulf to wonderful Darwin Yachties have nicknames for lots of places and things, and the Blownapart Gulf is another one, named so because there is normally a howling south easterly wind which blows 30+ knots during the dry season.  We were dreading the two night passage  from the King George River, across the Gulf, but S2ee timed it well - although we did end up motoring much of the way.  It was so windless on day two and three that we stopped the boat and jumped into the deep blue, inviting water for a swim, confident that there were no crocodiles so far offshore.    We sailed into the Fanny Bay anchorage, off the Darwin Sailing Club, in the early afternoon and had a very long nanna nap.   As temporary members we then made full use of the lovely restaurant and laundry facilities at the Club.   After a couple of nights on anchor, we moved into Cullen Bay marina for 4 weeks.  Because the...
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Rounding the northern tip of WA and the spectacular Eastern Kimberley  Cape Londonderry marks the northern tip of mainland Western Australia, and has a poor reputation amongst boaters.   It is not nicknamed Cape Laundry without good reason.  On each side of the Cape, the tides occur at different times, and it is not unusual to find tide meeting tide at the tip, creating  turbulent waters and difficult currents.   Add a decent breeze into that mix, and the sea really does become a bit of a washing machine.    Fortunately, marvelous people have put together good instructions on timing your passage around the Cape.   Unfortunately for us, this would have meant a night passage, something we were not keen to do because of the potentially difficult sea.   Instead, we timed it for neap (low range) tides, lights winds, and kept our fingers crossed.   In the end, the seas were reasonably tame, but it did mean motoring int...
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