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 into a head current to get around the Cape.  Even though we were well off the Cape in water 40 metres deep, the water looked like pea soup, so strong are the currents and upwelling they create.

So it was a very welcome relief to arrive at Glycosmis Bay, a very pictureque bay surrounded by classic Kimberley cliffs. 

Just outside the Bay is an area of rocks known as the Lost City.  The maze of rocks extends over may hectares, and the overhangs hide lots of scattered Aboriginal rock art sites.  S2ee dropped me at the shore in the dinghy, and I spent a couple of hours exploring the area, getting temporarily lost, and discovered lots of amazing rock art. 

From Glycosmis Bay, we headed to our last anchorage in the Kimberly, the amazing King George River.  Wow, it was very spectacular!   We crossed the shallow bar and motored up the 5 nautical miles to anchor just below the famous Twin Falls.  Being late in the dry season, there was no longer any water coming over the falls, that that in no way detracted from the spectaular landscape and beauty of this spot.   Arriving at the head of the river, we found two other anchored yachts, one of which we had previously met and shared good times with (Al, Juliana and John).  But imagine our surprise when one of the owners of the other yacht turned out to be S2ee's long time work colleague and friend from Albany, Jenni Flotman.

We spent a terrific few days exploring the river, climbing to the top and sharing drinks and afternoon teas with our neighbours, while waiting out strong winds before crossing the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf to Darwin.  More of that in the next blog, but here are some photos and video of the wonderful King George River.