Coromandel Quest

Then, however, the wind became quite contrary - from 5 to 25 knots in the space of a few minutes, then boxing the compass a couple of times.  It was frustrating more than anything, trying to decide which sail plan was most effective.  There was also some rain, which varied from a light drizzle to a torrential downpour, coupled with no Sun to charge the batteries so we had to run the engine.  At one stage, though, the GPS was registering over 9 knots, so at least some good came out of it.  During one downpour the whole surface of the sea appeared to be smoking, visibility being cut down to about 100 metres.  That night we carried the full main all night, reefing the genoa when things got a bit windy.

14 and 15 June found us motoring all day then handing all sail at night and snoozing, despite the wallowing motion.  We were just south of the entrance to the Louisades, so there was a fair amount of shipping about.  On the first night lying a-hull we drifted 5 miles south east, whilst on the second we drifted 11 miles north - interesting.

16 June By 1200 we were still motoring, but by 1300 we had reefed main and genoa, thanks to a squall which hit like a banshee, packing 30+ knots with seething rain.  We later realised it wasn't a squall but a band of weather wherein the winds were about F5, big grey piles of breaking waves with the odd shower thrown in.

Storm Clouds

20 June  At 0300 I spied the light of East Cay, and later the one on Bramble Cay, so at least we'd found the entrance to the Torres Strait.  However, the wind disobligingly shifted into the south south east, so we were beating into it.  By 1500 it had started to increase - called "reinforced trade winds" by the weather man we listened to - and by sunset, with the wind gusting up to 30 knots, we decided to put a second reef in the main.  Suddenly there was an almighty bang as the reefing block pulled out of the boom, so we decided to anchor in the lee of Coconut Island as it seemed sensible to wait until daylight to fix it. We were there for two nights, with the wind howling over the island and the sea a mass of white water.  Sadly, the reef and cay-strewn Torres Strait is no place to heave-to!

Mahimahi for Supper

22 June  By 0700 we had the anchor up, despite of forecast of 33 knots, and bashed our way down the channel, being very glad when we could ease the sheets to bring the wind on to the beam.  The Torres Strait is not challenging from a navigation point of view, and the sea was a beautiful pale aquamarine speckled with whitecaps.  We were shipping it green over the bows so Andy wore his all-in-one self repairing waterproofs - nothing!  I had a brief chat with the authorities on Thursday Island when I requested a radio check - really just a way of letting big ships know we were out there.  "Bit lumpy out there?" he asked, to which I replied, "Yes!"  "No worries, mate", was his laconic reply, "it gets better round the corner".  With 35 knots blowing down the channel from Thursday Island, we decided to give it a miss and carry on to Darwin, so by 1700 we had cleared the Strait and were out into the gulf of Carpentaria.

26 June  As the wind began to fall light, we decided to anchor in Trepang Bay for the night rather than push on into Van Dieman's Gulf, as we'd be pushing the not-inconsiderable tide.  It's no wonder that no-one found Terra Incognita Australia before Captain Cook - even three miles off it was virtually invisible, and it was only because we KNEW it was there that our persistence finally paid off and I spied land.  We anchored just south of Madjari Point and had pleasant sundowners watching the sun set in a pastel sky over a gunmetal sea with the full Moon rising over the land - low-lying mangroves.   Supper was a melange of chicken, garlic, stuffing, peas and carrots topped off with a packet of roasted pumpkin and garlic soup - delicious!

27 June A short day sail down Van Dieman's Gulf, pushing about 3 knots of tide at one point with some small overfalls - nothing like the Lashy Rost in Orkney.  There wasn't a cloud in the sky, but by evening the wind had started to fall light again, and we needed to wait for the tide to pass through the Clarence Strait, so again we anchored, this time in the lee of Cape Hotham.

28 June  It seemed such a pity that having had too much wind coming through the Torres Strait, we should have none for the final passage to Darwin.  So we motored, or motorsailed, all the way, finally anchoring in 5 metres in Fannie Bay.  It had taken us longer to get from Vanuatu to Darwin than it had to cross the Atlantic.

Darwin at Sunset

29 June  We were told to go to the pontoon at the entrance to Cullen Bay Marina to go through the customs, immigration and quarantine process, so we trundled off there first thing on Monday morning.  First to come aboard was Customs with a sniffer dog, then two more Customs men, followed by the Quarantine chappie.  No worries – all he took was a jar of awful mayonnaise, a few chillies and a packet of mulled wine spices, plus all of our accumulated rubbish.  What a pleasant experience after all the horror stories we heard!

29 June - 24 July  Darwin We spent just over three weeks in Darwin, yet never have we spent so much on so little in such a short space of time, and it's sad that my abiding memories of that city will be coloured by the depletion of our bank account!  We had planned to treat ourselves to a few days in a marina, but (a) AUS$85 (£50) per night was too outrageous, and (b) we didn't carry AUS$5 million insurance cover.  Andy's still reeling from the shock of paying £6 for a pint of indifferent beer!  At least in Dublin that's what we paid for a Guinness.

Darwin is a modern city, and so is remarkably like many others in the western world, perhaps made unique by the many galleries which sell Aboriginal paintings and artefacts like didgeridoos and boomerangs.  I had seen Aboriginal art before, of course, but never so much in one place, and the highlight of my visit was the Museum of the Northern Territory which had a gallery devoted to Aborginal Art – dot paintings on canvas, rarrk paintings on bark, watercolours of the harsh interior.  I think my favourite was the painting of “Seven Sisters” by the artist Reggie Sultan, whose book An Untrollable Child gave me something of an insight into the curious existence of some of the Aborigine.  It is difficult to know what to make of the situation of the Aborgines in modern Australia, but certainly their plight is a sad reflection on the downside of colonisation when no regard is taken of the indigenous inhabitants.

One of the first things we did was to contact the Doyle Sails representative to set about getting the modificatons to the main done.  Unfortunately Doyle Sails in Whangarei had not contacted him, and we then found that they would be on holiday until 21 July, far too late for us to leave things.  So we called him out, showed him the problems we’d had and he took away the sail.  We also asked him to remove one of the horizintal panels of the spinnaker – it was a bit too big for us, and taking out one panel would reduce it in size to more manageable proportions.

Fannie Bay from Mindil Beach

Over the next three weeks we met up with old friends, made new ones and saw something of Darwin and its surroundings, including the Sunset Market and Mindil Beach, a short walk away from Fannie Bay where we were anchored.  The main attraction here was the large number of stalls selling food from all over South East Asia – Vietnam, Indonesia, Thailand, the Phillipines, China – as well as fish and chips, burgers and the rest.  Andy was sadly disappointed in his crocodile burger, but I made up for it later with a kangaroo steak, which tastes slightly like liver and steak.  We also visited the Botanic Gardens, seeing a wonderful variety of native and exotic trees and shrubs.

Fountain in the Botanic Gardens

Whilst I was doing that, Andy was doing other boat jobs - repairing the autohelm, making a box for the two batteries we had been give by Bo of the Swedish yacht Lorna and which were superfluous to his requirements, doing engine checks, sourcing fuel and oil filters (which he discovered had been a much easier task in Ecuador!) and the myriad other little things that need doing whenever you arrive in port after a long passage.

When the sail finally came back, we were both dismayed at its appearance: no wonder the chappie had just dumped in on Andy and disappeared sharpish-like!  There were bags between the slides and the battens and he'd sewn up the ends of the batten pockets, put in new cringles with fabric ties which pulled the luff out of shape.  Words were had, but with so little time left we called upon the expertise of the fleet and thanks to a donation of slides from Ivan and Sheryl ofThumbs Up (whom we'd first met in Hiva Oa in 2009) we were able to rectify the situation.

Farwell Supper: Sheryl, Marian, Jim, Ivan and Andy

In the meantime the preparations for Sail Indonesia were under way, meeting with Lydia and the other participants, looking through the literature, trying to decide where to go and what to see - the choice was mind-boggling.  We got our visas from the Indonesian Consulate, got sets of charts from Copytime, stocked up with wine to complement the spirits we'd bought in Vanuatu and with food and by 23 July were all ready to go!