North To Darwin

We arrived in Darwin on 8^th July after a very lonely trip north and east after sailing 2100 miles from Bundaberg . We left Lizard Island with friends Ula and Christa on Circe and enjoyed a lovely evening with them at Flinders Island. We left ahead of them and anchored at Morris Island. This was the last place that we were anchored with another yacht until we reached Darwin. It's very surreal anchoring every night in bays with no signs of any other civilisation. Australia really is a big empty continent. Cairns was the last time we had any signs of civilisation or internet though we did see a supermarket and other humans at Red Island, which was just after we rounded Cape York.

Although we anchored most nights the anchorages were not very memorable. This was not helped by not being able to get off the boat. There are lots of Crocodiles in the north and apparently they like to bite inflatable dinghies. No one swims anywhere and if you walk along the shore you are never sure where a croc may be hiding. It was like seeing the place through prison bars.

Going around the top of Cape York was memorable. We motored between the Cape and York Island which is a very narrow gap and anchored on the west side of the Cape. Here we did dinghy ashore and walk to the northern tip of Australia. Rounding the cape was like landing in a different country, suddenly the weather was hot and sunny and the sea was a very milky blue. We could finally put away our trousers and jumpers and coats!

Just south of the cape was where we stopped at Red Island. This is the end of the road in the northern territory and lots of camper vans stop here. We are not sure why anyone would want to live there but they did have a supermarket and a laundry.

When we left Red Island we had a 3 day passage across the Gulf of Carpenteria. It was a good passage, though the shallow seas do make for short choppy swells. We compared the Gulf to the north sea only warmer!

The anchorage in Darwin is a big shallow basin. We are anchored as close as we can but it is still half a mile to the shore. When it gets near to spring tides we have to move further out otherwise we would be sitting on the bottom at low tide. Even so, we were very relieved to be here and to see other cruisers.

We had the boat lifted last week as we had a problem with our engine shaft alignment following our leak in NZ. The yard where we were lifted was up a creek that is only accessible at spring high tides so we had to be back out by Friday. The place was so horrible that we were very pleased to leave as quickly as possible. The yard is surrounded by mangroves so we were eaten alive by sandflies and mosquitoes. Also the staff will certainly not win any awards for friendliness and are poor ambassadors for the Australian people. They are not very yacht friendly either which comes from handling lot of steel commercial boats.

It was lovely to go back in the water with the boat in one piece and with minimal damage to the outside. When we got back to the anchorage friends Chris and Dave on CD and Stef and Sue on Charlottte had arrived. It is so nice to have company again and it has really made us realise how much this whole experience is better with good company and friends to share it with.

We are hoping to leave for Indonesia as soon as possible. We haven't enjoyed Australia and of all the countries we have sailed in it goes bottom of the list.