WEEK 10 : 28 June – 3 July – Cape Hotham to Darwin

Day 66 : Sunday 28 June – Cape Hotham to Darwin –Happy Anniversary to us
Today we opted for a 4.30am start instead of the 2am we should have started at. We figured the seas are flat and it is neap tides (not much different between high and low). The Clarence Strait had lights marking the islands so we headed straight out towards those in the pitch dark and caught a good bit of favourable current going along at a good rate of knots, however, the tide changed before we got through the Strait and we were punching into a slight westerly headwind and current doing only 2 knots – we thought we wouldn’t arrive in Darwin til 7pm! Once we got out of the Strait and we started making our run to Darwin (motoring – still no wind!) and Peter worked out a bit of a shortcut with his navigation, we finally made it into Darwin at 3pm!!!!! Yay. We were welcomed as we came in by Vulcan, Kristie 1 and Wave Sweeper. We anchored about a mile from the shore – as close as we can get in because of the big tides here and headed for the Darwin Sailing Club on shore for a reunion and also to celebrate our 34th wedding anniversary. We swapped lots of stories and had dinner and headed back to the boat late-ish. We had to tow Cilento’s tender as their motor wouldn’t work and it was hilarious because there were so many yachts in the bay we couldn’t find ours!! Took a while but we got there.
Miles: 68 Alcaro Bay to Cape Hotham
Miles: 45 Cape Hotham to Darwin Total 2,345

Day 67: Monday 29 June – Darwin
Caught a taxi with James and Sandra (Cilentro) to drop their outboard motor off and our chart plotter off for repair then headed to town for a look around and a haircut for Peter. Collected the outboard on the way back (they couldn’t find anything wrong with it) then we adjourned to the Sailing Club to collect our Sail Indonesia instruction packs. Escape came in and anchored close by.


Day 68: Tuesday 30 June – Darwin – Happy Birthday Yvette
A busy day of running around. Caught the bus into town and headed to get our charts but they weren’t ready. Went to customs, booked our boat in to get duty free fuel, applied for Social visas at the Indonesian Embassy (it was so hot in there we thought they were trying to acclimatise us!), to the doc for Hep A/B booster shot then back for the charts – had to wait but finally got them.

Day 69: Wednesday 1 July – Darwin – Happy Birthday Jeremy
Left at 9.30 and motored to Cullen Bay Marina fuel dock for duty free fuel. Pulled up in front of two other yachts – got our diesel (83 cents/litre) and our petrol (85 cents/litre) and filled up with water. Saw some boats going through the locks into the marina and were really pleased we didn’t have to go through that. We then anchored back in our old spot. The bay is really lovely and the beach is sand not mud and it is very pleasant. Much better than a marina I think. Today was cracker day in Darwin and they started letting them off before it even got dark. People are allowed to buy their own crackers and let them off privately. We were in the perfect spot as the main display was from the beach just to the side of us. It was fantastic and went for quite some time and almost seemed to be in 3D. People kept letting them off for ages and we saw a big fire over to the left!! I believe there were quite a few – the firies must hate cracker night!!! A Good night.

Day 70: Thursday 2 July – Darwin
Tried to get flights to Adelaide to visit Jack and Rose but couldn’t get anything – could get down but couldn’t get back. Devastated – really wanted to see them before we headed OS. Bit of a work day – washing etc then we went in to a barbeque and had a few drinks with quite a few yachties. We didn’t have anything to barbeque so Escape, Cilentro and we all walked do the Mindi markets and bought dinner (heaps of interesting food) and went back and had a nice evening.

Day 71: Friday 3 July – Darwin
Just caught the bus to Casuarina Shopping Centre and back. Blog could get a little boring from now on as we are not scheduled to leave till 18th July. By the way it is very hot up here.

Our gorgeous little grandson turns 2 on the 13th of July – would have liked to have been there for that too.

Meanwhile take care and fair winds
Dell and Peter