Bundy to Darwin

(click on a place to go there)

Without reference to a map, the idea of sailing from Bundaberg to Darwin may sound easy, but it's not. It's close to 2,000 miles and much of it is best done during the day. That's because half the route is inside the Great Barrier Reef, which is strewn with islands, reefs and container ships moving at 20 knots between them. So, we had to do some actual planning. As you can see, there's a lot of stops until one passes Cape York, at which point one is pummeled by the sea. For days. Badly.

Only someone needing to make the same passage or a sailing nerd would really care about the places enumerated above. However, for completeness we will mention that the stops, mostly islands, were: Great Keppel I ,Rosslyn Bay,Pearl Bay,South Percy I, Scawfell I,Hook I,Orpheus I,Kent I,Cairns,Low I,Hope I,Flattery Bay,Flinders I,Morris I,Portland Roads,Margaret Bay,Escape River, Simpson Bay, Alcora Bay, Darwin (whew!). It took about a month of almost daily movement. The only longer stops were in Rosslyn Bay to replace $1800 worth of batteries,Hook Island in the Whitsundays owing to a gale and Cairns because our desalinization system broke down. It was a forced march, er, sail.

As we were leaving Bundaberg, the Oz Navy training vessel Young Endeavour was docking. It's an interesting mixture of old and new, e.g. the headsails are roller-furling.

A bad omen when we left was the engine did not want to start. This was the symptom of bad batteries that finally forced us to pony up big bucks for all new ones. Batteries that cost us $80 in Trinidad were $240 in Rosslyn Bay, but we had no choice but to pay.

We had always wanted to visit the fabled Whitsunday Islands. Of course, we had to be there during a gale. But. we were well-hidden in the Nara Inlet on Hook Island, as the tub-shot above attests.

One interesting feature of Hook Island are the Aboriginal cave paintings. No one knows what the drawings mean, but we've ruled out snowshoes and tennis rackets.

One thing we did do was catch fish. Here Capt Hub holds his latest victim, a Yellowfin tuna. He (Hub) has obviously been eating more than fresh fish.

Constant companions on the east coast of Queensland are prawn (shrimp) trawlers. They fish by night and sleep by day, as seen here in the Low Isles.

And Margaret Bay.

The reader may wonder why we have not regaled them with more shots of the beautiful Coral Coast. This is partly because we tended to leave and arrive places in the dark or dawn/dusk, also because it gets very hazy here owing to the strong trade winds. This is a great cruising ground for the financially gifted, but has 3 major drawbacks: crocs, crocs and crocs. They can grow to 7m and weigh 1/2 ton. They are patient hunters and will stake out anyplace you frequent and strike without warning. The admiral admits to being allergic to crocs, so we have never tested the waters here. We were also under a lot of time-pressure to get to Darwin and one never knows when the weather will become untenable, perhaps for as long as a week. So, we had to keep moving.

This is when you know you're close to the "top" of Australia: Albany Pass, an inside section of the Torres Strait. The tidal currents here rip at up to 5 knots, which is a lot for a sailboat. One must therefore begin to consider the tides as one leaves the Pacific and enters the Indian Ocean.

Did we mention strong trade winds? The trees in Albany Pass appear to be combed: they are actually sculpted by the trades here which can blow at gale force for weeks.

Every yachtie has their Cape York shot, the top of Australia. This is ours. The pyramid-shape is actually Cape York Island, the Cape itself is behind it.

After the Cape we spent the night at Simpson Bay because we were advised not to attempt Endeavour Strait at night. After that we had a seeming eternity crossing the Gulf of Carpentaria which is rather shallow and thus capable of nasty seas.

This is Darwin.

As we got within 20 miles of the fabled city the exhaust on the engine blew out whilst we were happily motoring. A temporary repair was effected using a cut-up soup can and hose clamps. However, we feared to run at anything above idle so we limped slowly into Fannie Bay and a chance to catch up on our sleep, which had been rather short for the previous week. Now the challenge is to obtain all the parts needed and repair all the stuff that broke on the way up here. This is most critical, since we will be leaving the first world soon and parts will become non-existent.

Our visit to Darwin was largely one of expensive repairs and hassles. The fridge started leaking refrigerant on the way to Darwin and required attention, especially given the $600 worth of frozen goods acquired in Bundaberg. We had to make a couple of trips to obtain dry ice to keep things from being spoiled, at $70-80 per trip. It was a typical boating adventure.

We then strived to buy whatever we could think of the eat, drink or use in the next 6 months. This can lead to excess, but we usually appreciate having a few luxuries that just don't exist in paradise. Car rental was rather typical for Darwin, i.e. about 3 times what it cost in old Bundy, but the cab fares were becoming ruinous. We spent almost a week in Tipperary Waters Marina, which is on the south side at Frances Bay. Access is typical for marinas here, i.e. a lock has to be used as the tides here are so extreme.

Just so the adventures would not end, we had to wait for parts before we could leave, a common pastime for us, albeit one we would prefer to avoid. We therefore had to remain behind while the mini-rally boats, both of them, departed for Saumlaki. Our plan as of this writing is to join the rally at Tual as Saumlaki lacks permanent Customs officials. We're told you can smell the spices (nutmeg, cloves, etc) while far offshore - we're looking forward to that.

We'll leave you with a nice picture of a boat doing a sunset cruise. Our next stop will be in the fabled Spice Islands of Indonesia.

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