Yay! We made it — we sailed (with some motor assist, heavy at times and very light at others) the ~2,000 nautical miles from Brisbane to Darwin. When we published our last post we had just arrived in Cairns from Mackay, part 2 of our 3 part journey. As you know from reading our blog, there were some incredible highs and some really low lows on the way to Cairns. The yin and yang of our sailing life with mechanical failures, boat repairs and uncooperative seas and wind on the one hand and epic beam reach sails, untouched islands to explore and fascinating people to meet on the other. The sail from Cairns to Darwin continued that theme with more great sailing to gorgeous remote and safe anchorages and making connections with wonderful people but also with our first overnight passages in a long time and a doozy of a mechanical malfunction that had us on a roller coaster that, instead of going up and down in a loop, seemed to be headed to the end of a cliff — naturally, more on that below.
To recap from our last blog post, we arrived in Cairns (which, BTW, is pronounced “cans” — it took us a while to get used to that) with 3 critical items on our repair list: our auto pilot computer, our chart plotter and our fridge/freezer unit. Thanks to Starlink and T Mobile’s incredibly affordable monthly international calling plan ($50 per month) we were able to make arrangements with specialized tradesmen in Cairns to address our issues — a marine refrigeration expert and an electrician — well in advance of our arrival. Though we still had an amazing time sailing up the coast (see our last blog entry), we sadly abbreviated our itinerary from Mackay to Cairns so we would arrive in Cairns on a Wednesday, giving us two business days to get stuff done. We had the refrigeration expert lined up to come aboard 7:30 AM on Thursday (we were wasting no time) and the electrician scheduled to visit us on Friday morning. We will cut to the chase and say that the repairs were successful. The absolutely awesome team at Neptune Marine Refrigeration removed our fridge/freezer unit, took it back to their shop, diagnosed a leak in the evaporator plate, expertly executed the repairs and, after keeping it in their shop to make sure that it now operated as intended, returned it to us Saturday morning. It’s now running like a champ! So great to have ice again! (We have our priorities.) The marine electrician replaced our chart plotter with the new one and programmed it for us. We were not able to get the new autopilot computer to Cairns before we arrived but the electrician found a broken connection and voltage drop in the main communication path in the network that includes all of our instrumentation. That would explain the loss of connection between our auto pilot and its computer. While we think it is still prudent to purchase a spare autopilot computer given that the existing one is now 11 years old and it is just too critical of a piece of equipment to not have redundancy, the absence of issues after we tightened the wires and the identification of a broken connection that would explain the symptoms made us cautiously optimistic that we would be okay waiting until we got to Darwin to get that spare. (Of course, we really had no choice since we couldn’t get it to Cairns but it’s still good to have one less thing to be anxious about!)
With tradesmen on our boat and taking up the better part of the day on Thursday, Friday and Saturday it didn’t leave us much time to explore the area. We really needed to depart Cairns on Monday, June 16. The final leg of our sail to Darwin (Cairns to Darwin) would be just over 1250 nautical miles. We had to give ourselves 3 weeks to get there to accommodate possible weather (or more mechanical 😢) delays. And we needed to arrive in Darwin about a week before our flight from Darwin to the USA to get settled in the marina, find a caretaker for Che Figata during our absence and organize tradesmen to address the growing list of repairs on our “this can wait until Darwin” list (like installing the new manual wind indicator to replace the one a roosting bird broke), take delivery of critical spares (e.g., our autopilot computer) as well as to do some standard maintenance (such as oil and filter changes). Suffice it to say, there would be much to do once we arrived! At any rate, with the parade of Cairns tradesmen ending Saturday and our planned departure on Monday, we only had Sunday to do laundry, provision and cook the meals we would need for the 5 day passage that would be part of our next leg. (Recall that Jill had already prepared and froze those meals but they defrosted during the great fridge/freezer melt so we needed to replenish our passage supply.)
Though we didn’t have the opportunity for the excursions we would ordinarily fit it while in Cairns, we did enjoy being reunited with our friends on Mehala and Meraki 2 (M2). They arrived the day after us and we met (x3) for sundowners at the marina’s very welcoming waterfront bar, indulged in coffees and cappuccino on Che Figata courtesy of our beloved Jura (there’s no roughing it when it comes to coffee on our vessel) — many thanks to Shawna from M2 for the yummy boat baked muffins — and enjoyed a walk around the waterfront to observe some of the festivities (including the running event) surrounding the Cairns Ironman competition which coincided with our visit. We savored our time together as we continued to get to know one another with full appreciation that the next time our schedules might align🤞would be in Indonesia in September.
Like our brief but highly productive stop in Bunderberg Port Marina, we rated our stay in Cairns a huge success. Critical pieces of equipment were again functional and we were provisioned and ready for our next leg with 4 frozen meals in our freezer. So off we went on Monday, June 15 as planned. There were high wind warnings when we departed with the winds predicted to be in the 25-30 knots range and gusts up to 40 as well as some occasional storms in the forecast so we did consider delaying our departure. After an ever so thoughtful deliberation though we left Cairns on schedule for several reasons. First, we really needed to get to Darwin and we didn’t have a large fudge factor. We were hesitant to use our reserved weather/repair contingency days so early in our itinerary, especially since the forecast was the same for the next week. In other words, it wasn’t getting any better. Second, and more importantly, we thought we could sail safely. The wind would be coming almost directly from behind us. That meant we could put out just our head sail (our genny) and let that power us forward. Finally, we knew we’d have some protection from the wind and corresponding waves from the barrier reef and islands as we sailed up the coast between the mainland and the reef. We made the right choice. We flew up the coast on sail power alone at 8+ knots. With several long days on our itinerary we were glad to have the bonus speed. (To put this in context, we usually average between 6.5-7 knots.)
The first 4 days of our itinerary were delightful no drama days — set and forget sail plan during the day and lovely places to stop in the evening. This included a 2 night stay in Port Douglas (June 16 & 17) which is located at the convergence of two World Heritage-listed areas: the Great Barrier Reef and the Daintree Rainforest. For this reason it is a popular tourist destination with a charming and laid back town that has an eclectic mix of local bars, restaurants and shops. This includes a wonderful 100% plant-based Asian street food restaurant, Bam Pow. We went there the second night of our stay in the area drawn by its menu and over the top reviews. Only after making our reservation did we realize its menu only featured plant-based fare. (Of course, that made Jill very happy!) We both really enjoyed our meal there and Zack declared it one of the best meals he’s eaten in Australia which says a lot since we’ve had many incredible meals. Because we were recently told that some of our readers like reading about our meals — and we like to include something for everyone in our blog 😀 — here’s a sampling of what we ordered (and quickly devoured!): potato gyoza served with sweet pepper sauce; jackfruit rendang made with coconut cream, cucumbers and kaffir limes; corn fritter lettuce cups prepared with coconut sambal, pickled cucumber and a spicy house herb blend; eggplant tempura with a miso glaze, teriyaki mayo and pickled ginger; and a bao bun brimming with Vietnamese “sausage,” Asian spices, ginger, chilli, peanuts and miso mayo. Just typing these menu items makes our mouths water! It goes to show that locally grown fresh ingredients, thoughtfully prepared with the right spicing can be incredibly satisfying and you don’t miss the meat. (Jill had to get in that public service announcement!)
Following our delightful and somewhat indulgent stay in Port Douglas our itinerary was aggressive with some 50+ nautical mile days that had us anchoring off the miles of untouched coastline and pristine deserted islands that the Queensland coast north of Cairns is famous for. We had quintessential sails on our first 2 post Port Douglas days that delivered us quickly to our protected anchorages off Hope Island (June 18) and Cape Flattery (June 19), respectively. There is nothing to complain about when you set sail early morning and the 20-30 knot winds gently (thanks to our reefed head sail) but swiftly deliver you to your targeted destination by mid afternoon allowing you to just enjoy the surrounding beauty, sometimes by yourself and sometimes with just a small handful of other boats. Add a nice G&T or a glass of wine and a satisfying dinner (cauliflower shawarma with spicy tahini dressing on day one a vegan pesto pasta with house made Caesar salad dressing and croutons on day 2) and it’s as good as it gets. Pinch us! The only thing that could have improved on this perfection would have been the opportunity to swim and snorkel in the beautiful aquamarine waters. There is a reason — several actually — that you haven’t read about refreshing post-arrival swims: alligators, sharks and stingers (large jellyfish). The waters along the NE coast of Australia look so inviting but, in actuality, they are very forbidding. The guidebooks and signs along every beach warn visitors not to swim in the infested waters. We decided to take the advice very seriously and did not get in the water once from Brisbane to Darwin.
Just make sure we didn’t get complacent, the cruising gods spiced things up for us on our 3rd post Port Douglas day as we sailed from Cape Flattery to Ninian Bay on June 20. All was going well for most of the day. We were enjoying another great sail with the strong winds pushing us from behind in relatively calm seas. With these benign conditions, Jill started our day with smashed avocado (seasoned with fresh lemon juice, cumin, smoked paprika, salt and a dash of cayenne pepper) on homemade multi-grain bread and topped with tomatoes, feta and a drizzle of hot sauce. The breakfast of champions! And our day continued along this this lovely good vibe theme. That is until . . . Dom, Dom, Dom 🎵
As always, as we approached our anchorage, we furled our sail and turned on our engine. It is much easier to set an anchor under power when you can better control the boat’s motion. Not long after we started the engine our hot engine alarm sounded (a quick glance at the temperature gauge confirmed we had a problem Houston) so we immediately turned off our engine. Aside from the worry about what caused the engine to overheat (hopefully something simple), we now had to anchor under sail in high winds. Oh joy! Fortunately, the now seasoned Che Figata crew jumped into action redeploying the genny. Jill took her usual station at the bow and, with Zack at the helm controlling our boat the best he could by changing our angle to the wind, Jill lowered our amazing anchor and it quickly took hold. (One of these days we need to write a testimonial for our “Ultra” anchor. It has never failed us!) Anchoring under these conditions is trickier than it may sound. When you anchor you don’t want your chain falling over your anchor because it can prevent the anchor from setting properly and create a less secure hold. To prevent this from happening you put your boat in a slow reverse while anchoring. With just the wind there’s no “reverse” feature so Zack had to mimic that as best he could by leveraging our wind angle. As always, he did a masterful job and, as noted, we were securely anchored in no time.
But now the fun part — figuring out why our engine overheated and, hopefully, remediating the problem. Though there are many possible causes of an overheating diesel engine (trust us), there are two usual suspects: an impaired impeller (the critical part of the water pump that circulates the water that is sucked in from outside the boat through the engine’s cooling system) or a clogged strainer (that’s the stainer that filters out particles in the water so that they don’t enter the boat along with the ocean water). Either of these would prevent cool water from passing through the engine causing it to overheat. The easiest thing to check was the strainer so Zack checked there first. It was clean. Drats — we were hoping for the simplest of the simple solutions. Plus now we had to pray that the culprit was the impeller. If that wasn’t the cause, we would potentially have big problems because some other likely causes would be above our pay grade and, at this point, we were far away from civilization! So we got into motion to assess and potentially replace the impeller. Jill was at the ready holding open the door to our engine “room” (more like a compartment) so Zack could get in there and pulling up YouTube videos from credible sources. Zack got out his took box and our spare impeller and got to work. The first thing he had to do was take off the metal plate that covers the impeller. When Zack did that his heart sank — the impeller looked fine while housed in the unit. We both held our breath as Zack pulled the impeller out for a better visual. On closer inspection, a number of the veins in the impeller were cracked and the back side was partially melted. We knew from our real time internet research that these conditions would not allow the impeller to spin the requisite number of revolutions per minute (about 1,000 RPM!) to push the water through the engine. We were never so ecstatic to find a defective part — the happy dance on Che Figata was one for the books. (Thankfully, there are no videos!). Zack replaced the impeller and the engine was fixed. When we turned on the engine we observed the most beautiful stream of water forcibly spit out of the back of Che Figata. If it were a picture we would have framed it! Another crisis averted! (Spoiler alert: Well, maybe).
The next day, June 21, we were back to glorious. We had a short sail from Ninian Bay to Stokes Bay on Stanley Island. Our engine worked perfectly when we turned it on to hoist our anchor (and again when we started it back up to drop the anchor) and we were back to big following winds that pushed us along at 8+ knots to our destination. Our rocket ship got us to Stokes Bay way ahead of schedule. Zack took advantage of our early arrival to fit in another boat repair — he replaced a faulty float switch for our sink drain pump. With the float switch not working our sink drain pump didn’t know when to start or stop pumping our sink water out of our grey water tank. (Zack is not going to know what to do with all of his free time when we are back on land. Jill has offered to break things to help keep him busy! )
The next few days — June 22 (Stokes Bay to Wilke Island) and June 23 (Wilke Island to Night Island) — were pretty much a carbon copy of the day before: winds vacillating between 20 – 30 knots from the S/SE, following winds that pushed us along under the power of our head sail alone at a nice clip, often at at 8+ knots, overcast skies that liked to spit on us off and on but particularly reliably when it was time to anchor and Jill was unprotected on the bow, and a beautiful anchorage for the evening off an untouched island with no other boats anywhere near us. The only slightly tricky part was that these small islands are surrounded by reef. We had to anchor close enough to shore to enable us to anchor in reasonable depths with a sandy bottom (generally not deeper than 30 feet if we can avoid it) without getting too close to the reefs. At least once we aborted our first attempt because we weren’t comfortable with how close the anchorage was to the reef — you could see rock peeking up out of the water not too far from where we had intended to drop our anchor based on the charts. (As you might imagine, we have a new and heightened appreciation for rocks.) We relished our 3 days without a crisis driven adrenaline rush and enjoyed peaceful nights at our anchorages with some of our favorite onboard meals: pasta primavera served with a Caesar salad and the house made croutons Zack has become addicted to as well as loaded black bean fajita burritos served with salsa, fresh avocado and cilantro.
But have no fear — just when things were getting uninteresting, we had more fun with our engine. As we mentioned, with several stops along the way we sailed from Ninian Bay to Night Island without incident. Just good sailing during the day, followed by a great anchorage in the afternoon and excellent food in the evening. The cruisers’ trifecta! On June 24, after our evening at Night Island, we were headed to Portland Roads off the mainland. The day started out to be another repeat of the last 3 days and we hummed right along to our final destination for the day. Just as things were becoming jejune and predictable, we had a burst of excitement as we approached the anchorage. As always, we furled in our genny and turned on our engine. All was well for about 15 minutes but then our hot engine alarm sounded again and we had to immediately turn off our engine. For a second time in 3 days we had to anchor under sail power in 25 knots winds near a reef. At least now we had practice and we were securely anchored in no time.
That was the good news. The bad news is that this time we were really panicked. After we replaced the faulty impeller that, we believed, caused our engine to overheat 3 days ago, what would cause our engine to overheat with an impeller that had only 4 engine hours under its belt? Was there something more serious that would be beyond our repair capabilities? This time, rather than pulling up YouTube videos we phoned a friend. We had a relationship with a marine mechanic and electrical shop near Scarborough Marina. The owner of the business, John, served as Che Figata’s caretaker and his “boys” (that’s what he always called them even though Ed, who did much of the work, had to be about our age) did a lot of preventative maintenance on our engine and genset while Che Figata was stationed there. Though we left Scarborough Marina on great terms with John, we were definitely that squeaky wheel sometimes and we half expected him to block our calls after we left. (Well, not really). To our surprise and great relief, John picked up his phone right away. The first words out of his mouth — even before hello — were “I suppose you aren’t calling me to tell me how much you miss me.” We had to confess that was not the purpose of the call. With continued appreciation for Starlink (which has now saved us on more occasions than we can count on one hand) and WhatsApp, we were able to have a live video chat with John, allowing us to show him how we had installed our impeller.
It turns out that we had installed the impeller incorrectly. Unfortunately, our YouTube tutorial did not mention that there were subtle differences (that certainly escaped our notice) on the front and back of the impeller such that the sides were not interchangeable and you had to have the right side facing up at you when you inserted the new impeller in its casing. We felt like such rookies but who knew???? He also told us that for people who use their boats a lot — that would be us — he recommends that the impeller be changed as preventative maintenance every 100 engine hours. This is much more frequently than we had been changing the impeller based on the engine manufacturer’s guidance (every 250 hours) but aligned with the 100-200 hours we were seeing on the internet in our searches after our first overheating episode. (The impeller that we removed after that first incident had lasted 160 engine hours.) You learn something new every day! With a new impeller installed properly our engine was back in the game spitting out water like a mini fire hydrant. A second happy dance ensued! It was still possible that there was something more serious wrong with our engine (e.g., a faulty water pump) but we had achieved the proverbial state of cautious optimism that we solved the problem this time. After another carefree day at sea 😖 Jill prepared one of our favorite meals for dinner — Mongolian tofu served over rice noodles — which we enjoyed after (we can’t lie) stronger than usual G&Ts. Sometimes you just need to go wild!
With cautious confidence that we had now resolved the issue causing our engine to overheat, on June 25 we set out from Portland Roads to Horn Island. This would be a 24 – 26 hour sail. There was really no place to anchor between Portland Roads and Horn island other than an anchorage that was just too close to Portland Roads to make sense for a stop. For the record, we don’t particularly care for passages that are just 1 – 2 overnights. As you know from reading our blog, when we do an overnight passage, someone has to be up and at the helm 24/7. We do this in 6 hour shifts — 6 hours on and 6 hours off. That first day of a passage you are just not tired so it is hard to force yourself to take the afternoon siesta that is really critical if you have the night watch. Then, after your night watch is over it is very difficult to unwind and go to sleep. This is particularly true when you have an intense watch with squalls requiring frequent changes to your sail plan — exactly the conditions we experienced on this particular overnight sail. After a few days though, your body adjusts. That afternoon nap comes easy and your body is trained to fail asleep on demand as soon as your watch is finished. Once your body is in tune with the rhythm of a 24/7 passage that time at sea can be very magical. As we have said before, the night sky is just spectacular — it takes on so many different personalities depending on cloud cover and the phases of the moon. We have come to appreciate and savor our multi-day passages. They leave an indelible memory of a oneness with nature that goes right to your core.
But back to our 24-26 hours passage because, as noted above, that is generally not one of those idyllic experiences that makes you glow. To the contrary, the lack of sleep has you arriving at your destination exhausted and cranky. (You definitely do not want to take a look at yourself in the mirror!) You just want to collapse into bed. You certainly have no desire to deal with an emergency. Unfortunately, we have come to realize that we don’t get a vote on when things go wrong. So, naturally, that meant that we had another engine issue when we restarted it upon our arrival at Horn Island at approx. noon on June 26. This time the overheated engine alarm didn’t go off. Rather, Jill in a “trust but verify” mode after 2 impeller failures in 6 days, decided to check the water output from engine exhaust before she proceeded up to the bow to get the anchor ready for deployment. To her surprise and dismay, the exhaust was not shooting out water. Without water circulating through the engine it was just a matter of time that the engine would again overheat. Once Jill reported her finding, Zack turned off the engine and we would again be faced with the challenge of anchoring under sail. This time the added complication was that the small anchorage on Horn Island was crowded. That meant that there was no room to really maneuver and, quite simply, it would not be prudent (in fact, it would be downright irresponsible) to anchor there under sail. Instead, we contracted the local port authority and spoke with the ever so kind Belford. He helped us identify nearby alternate anchorages we could try. He couldn’t personally vouch for their holding — because he had never anchored there — only that they were permissible anchorage fields and he had seen boats anchor there successfully. Without much choice, we picked one of the spots and dropped anchor under sail. Though we wish we hadn’t had so much practice, we must admit that we were getting quite competent at anchoring in these conditions.
So we are anchored — now what. After having replaced 2 impellers we felt that we were out of our league so we called back our mechanic John. He instructed Zack to remove the impeller and then initiate a video WhatsApp call so he could look at the backing plate in the unit that housed the impeller. John immediately noticed that the backing plate was scored. It looked almost like an old LP record. Of course, we had no idea that wasn’t normal. The grooves were so pronounced that they looked like they were supposed to be there. Apparently NOT. (Later that evening we had a conversation with a friendly ChatGPT bot who confirmed that a back plate with scoring was very bad and could definitely cause the impeller to not rotate properly which would adversely impact water flow and, in turn, cause the engine to overheat.) Based on what he observed, John recommended that we replace not just the impeller but the entire unit — the raw water pump. Fortunately, we had a spare so this was doable. Once again Zack was on the floor of our boat with half his body in the engine compartment. And, once again, he executed the repairs like a pro. Following the replacement we restarted the engine and the water was flowing out of the exhaust — this time with even more force that we had observed after the impeller replacements. Hopefully, that was a good sign.
Of course, nothing is ever that simple. Though John felt fairly confident, he couldn’t rule out that the back plate scoring wasn’t a “chicken or egg” situation. Specifically, he said it was possible that the problem is actually some sort of blockage in our water intake on the bottom of the hull. Perhaps there was something in there that was working like a flap to periodically block the intake, preventing water from getting to the raw water pump. If that happened, the raw water pump would overheat and that could have caused the scoring he observed. He didn’t think it was a high probability cause for several reasons including the fact that our boat was up on the hard from 2 weeks at the end of March and, again, for a week in May, so anything in there should be dead. (The biggest concern was that a small oyster got in through the strainer that blocks the intake and had grown over time to create the blockage. Again, that was unlikely, because the oyster would not have survived Che Figata’s time on the hard and, therefore, could not have grown to a size large enough to block the intact.) Still, John couldn’t rule it out and suggested that we consider having a diver go down and take a look.
After talking it over though, we all came to the conclusion that having a diver take a look wouldn’t tell us anything. The water near Horn Island is murky from all the sand churn caused by the waves crashing on the nearby reefs. A diver wouldn’t really be able to see anything. The only way to to get a decent visual would be to have the diver remove the strainer which was not advisable. If he dropped it underwater and couldn’t locate it we would be stuck in Horn Island. We definitely did not have a spare. On top of that, to be very transparent, this diver looked a bit sketchy. As Zack likes to say, he looked like someone out of central casting. We were connected to this “commercial” diver by our friend Belford with the port authority. When the diver arrived in his skiff to introduce himself he had a cigarette dangling from his toothless smile — we are not quite sure how it stayed attached to his lip as he talked but it did — and seemed to be very unclear about exactly what we were asking him to do. And then he told us there was be an “alligator” and “shark” surcharge to his rate so he would invoice us $350-$400 AUD for his 10 minute dive down to look at the strainer. In short, though it might make us feel better to have a diver go down and take a look, all things taken together — the inability of the diver to effectively look up beyond the strainer and clean anything out, his marked confusion about the task and his alligator/shark tax — made us realize that we would not gain anything other than false comfort. As a result, taking a pass seemed like the most logical decision.
After replacing the water pump and having our “consultation” with the diver, we headed over to the regular anchorage under engine power. It continued to work fine and we anchored relatively easily. So here were settled at Horn Island. The next question was how long would we stay. To get to our final destination, Darwin, we would be doing a 24/7 passage that would take us approximately 5 days across (at times) open ocean with strong currents on the north coast of Australia. We needed to carefully look at the weather forecast and select the right weather window to sail in winds from a favorable direction and avoid winds that were too heavy or too light. We also needed to look at the tide tables to pick a departure time that would have us flowing with, rather than against, the currents. Following our own look at the relevant data, and our consultation with 2 weather routers (as well as the ever so kind Belford on the tides), we settled on leaving the afternoon of June 30. That gave us 3 full days on the island and we had no trouble keeping ourselves busy.
Before we talk about how we filled our time, a few words about Horn Island and its adjacent island, Thursday Island. Horn Island is a small 20 square mile island in the Torres Strait which is off the NE Coast of Australia. It has a population of just over 500 residents, most of whom identify as Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait islander. There is little on the island other than a small regional airport. Once you arrive on the island, you can stay there in one of the few very rustic “resorts” on the island or take a private plane or ferry to the other islands in the Torres Strait. Horn Island is rich in indigenous history, WWII relics, untouched beaches and nature but there are few amenities on the island beyond a general store, small grocery store, churches and a community center. You definitely don’t go there for the night life (though we did enjoy several dinners on the island). Thursday Island, reachable from Horn Island by Ferry, is the closest Island and the “hub” for the 20 communities spread across the Torres Strait. As a result, though it is much smaller than Horn Island (it’s a tiny 1.4 square miles), at 2,800 residents, its population is almost 6 times greater. With its larger population base, Thursday Island (or TI as it is referred to locally) boasts more amenities. (Now we sound like real estate agents!) It is still very “small town” (there is nothing pretentious or touristy about TI) but on TI you can find a larger grocery store, “Australia’s Top Pub” (that’s self-proclaimed though we ate lunch there one day — they had a vegan Schnitzel (it’s an Australian thing) for Jill — and it was quite good), a hardware store, a few boutiques and 2 small but mighty bottle shops! (Time to replenish the gin!) As you might imagine, very few international travelers make their way to Horn Island or TI. Visitors were mostly comprised of Australians who came up from the South for a tranquil and laid back warm weather getaway during their winter and yachties, like us, passing through to get from Point A to Point B — most heading to Indonesia from there or some headed to Darwin as an Indonesia jumping off point. (We were in that latter group.) No one stays long.
As we said, we had no trouble keeping busy. Our first day anchored off Horn Island we took the ferry to TI to do laundry (no laundromat on Horn Island) and reprovision for the passage to Darwin. We really just needed to replenish the perishables and, thankfully, the fresh fruits and vegetables were bountiful and beautiful. The “laundromat” on TI was located in the R&F Self Service Store. The eclectic R&F somewhat defies description because it doesn’t easily fit into one category — maybe a cross between a dollar store and a large walk in closet with a few isles created by metal shelving overflowing with an indiscriminate assortment of household items and bric-a-brac. Oh, but they also offered car hire services and a limited selection takeaway food items. A one stop shop for all of your TI needs! At any rate, you walk down the narrow isle furthest to the right of the store, hang a right and you there, on your left, you find a back room which houses about 5 washing machines and 5 dryers though at the time of our visit all the dryers were out of service service and appear to have been that way for some time.
We planned to take the ferry over to TI on our second day on Horn Island to hike up to the Green Hill Fort but we never made it off the boat. (At least not until dinner). Instead, just for the fun of it, we started obsessing about our engine. Did we really fix the underlying issue when we replaced the raw water pump? With a ~5 day passage to Darwin in our future we were worried. If we needed our engine at some point during our passage — a highly likely event — it had to work. We were not going to be in the sort of place where you could just hail a tow. So we spent the morning and into the afternoon calling friends who have had some experience with our engine (thanks Ruud!) as well as doing more internet sleuthing including some very refined ChatGBT inquiries. Of course, we discovered additional probable causes for our engine failure including a possible faulty thermostat. (We didn’t have a spare one of those.) Honestly, we drove ourselves crazy and, rather than giving us some comfort that we had probably remedied the problem (which was the original intent of the exercise) it just opened up a new world of possibilities. Finally, as cocktail hour approached, we both recognized that our exercise had long passed the point of productivity and we just needed to take an educated leap of faith that our engine would get us to Darwin. Staying on Horn Island where there were no marine mechanics was simply not an option.
Having spent the better part of our second day in an engine repair research death spiral we were determined to get back over to TI for our last full day to do the hike to Green Hill Fort. It was built in 1885 — during a period of hostilities between Britain and Russia — to provide strategic coastal defense for the area. We were anxious to take in the views from the top of the fort (which were spectacular as always) and learn more about the fort’s history. We are not going to say that our day of analysis paralysis was a good thing but sometimes things happen for a reason. This time it was because we met the loviest threesome, Anna, David and Ray, crew of SV LG, on the Ferry to TI and ended up spending the day together. Along with Ray, Anna and David (a married couple) are circumnavigating Australia (including Tasmania) in their catamaran — a trip that will take them a year. Seeing the 3 interact you would think that they are lifelong friends but you would be wrong. Theirs is a great story of serendipity. Long story short, Ray is best friends with Anna’s cousin though they never met through that connection. Anna’s aunt brought them together. Anna’s cousin kept telling his mother (Anna’s aunt) about Ray’s planned solo circumnavigation around Australia. At the same time Anna was filling her aunt in on her and David’s similar circumnavigation plans. Anna is still working FT as a teacher for the blind so David would largely be doing the trip solo with Anna joining him during school holidays. With Anna a little worried about David’s solo sailing her Aunt suggested that they get together with Ray. They met 6 months before the trip, immediately hit it off and embarked on this epic adventure. As they say, the rest is history. We had great fun exploring the Green Hill Fort with them as well as joining them for lunch at one of TI’s many fine eating establishments 😄 and chatting over the course of 2 ferry rides. Naturally, our day together culminated with sundowners and nibbles on Che Figata. We were so sad to part ways knowing that our paths would not cross again during our respective sailing adventures.
The last ferry from TI back to Horn Island leaves at 5:15 PM so though there are more food establishments there than Horn Island ( 3 vs 1) we didn’t stick around to have on TI during our visits. Instead, to give our cook a reprieve (Jill prepared all the meals from Port Douglas to Horn), we dined out on Horn Island at the Wongai Beach Resort. Though the name conjures up an imagine of a place for vacationers — and there were definitely guests at this low-key no frills report — being the only place on the island land to grab a sit down meal, it was also the place where locals gathered to have a beer or enjoy a dinner out. As we hung around the bar to order our pre-dinner G&Ts, many locals (overhearing our accents) made a point of striking up a conversation with us. They all wanted to know what we were doing up there. Friday night, which was “Parmy” night, was particularly fun. Apparently, “Parmy” is a thing in Australia. On Parmy Night the Wongai Beach Hotel served Parmy (aka chicken Parmesan) 6 ways — many of which defied our culinary imaginations. There was Classic Parmy, Hawaiian Parmy (you guessed it, toss in some pineapple), Mexican Parmy (served with salsa, red onion, red pepper, melted cheese, jalapeño and topped with sour cream and guacomole), Spicy Zinger Parmy (served with sriracha mayo, bacon, burger cheese, melted cheese and sriracha sauce) and finally, the Parmy of the week. We never got that far down a menu because as we were waiting in line to place our order a local told us that we had to try the Mexican Parmy. With that strong endorsement Zack could not make another choice. (Jill politely declined and ordered an Asian salad). With all the fixings the food on the Mexican Parmy plate was quite literally bigger than Zack’s head (and he has a large head)! Judging by the impressive dent Zack made in the dish, it is clear that he gave it two thumbs up.
On our 4th day (June 30), it was time to depart for Darwin. We timed our departure with the tidal stream push west to give us some extra speed. The only time that would occur in daylight was around 1 PM so that made our lift off decision easy. With bated breath we started our engine at just after 1 PM and rejoiced when we saw that it was still kicking out water. Up came the anchor and we were on our way! We had strong winds from the S/SE our first full day making the initial 24 hours quite lumpy but at least we were sailing along at a good speed, averaging just over 7 knots. The big seas (and the queasiness that came along with them) didn’t help with sleeping the first night under sail but, as usual, by the second night our bodies were beginning to adjust to a sleep on demand schedule and we both felt pretty good on the start of day 3. The winds also died down, which in turn calmed down the seas a bit, but remained in the 20-25 knot range most of the time allowing us to maintain a good speed, often 8+ knots. It was a pretty par for the course passage with some spectacular sunrises and sunsets (our feature photo for this blog entry is a particularly dramatic sunset that made the horizon look like it was on fire) and some wonderful night skies. The only real “excitement” was when we were broadsided by a rogue wave that shot water into our cockpit with great force and, unfortunately, into our master cabin where Jill was sleeping under an opened hatch. She had been lulled into a false sense of security by the more manageable waves and opened it to get some fresh cool air during her nap. Off came the comfortable, sheets and mattress pad which were all drenched! Washing our salt water saturated bedding would be just one more job to do when we arrived at the marina in Darwin. Unfortunately, Zack’s iPad was another casualty of the wave. It was in the cockpit, which was also flooded, and is currently a brick. Zack is very sad that he now needs to purchase the latest, greatest, iPad technology. After all, his iPad is our back up navigation system so we can’t skimp, can we? The fact that he loves his video games has nothing to do with it.
Our winds continue all the way to midday on day 5 of our sail — just about 20 hours before our arrival in Darwin. As the winds slowed, so did our speed and we were at risk of not arriving to Darwin at our target time. This wasn’t just a matter of convenience. Due to the significant tide shift in the waters around Darwin (there can be a 20 foot variance between the height of the water at low tide and high tide) the marinas in Darwin are behind locks and you have to enter the locks when the tides are high so there’s sufficient water under the keel. With our 6.5 foot keel the best time for us to enter the lock on our arrival date (Saturday, July 5) was 9 AM – 3:00 PM. Though that was a big window, after sailing for 5 days straight just the 2 of us we didn’t want to take a chance that we’d have to wait another day to get into our berth. So, despite strong trepidation, on went the iron genny to propel us towards our final destination. And to be clear, the winds eventually died down to just 5 knots at times so we really needed the engine assist. Without it, at best we would have bobbed along; at worst we would be pushed backwards by the strong negative current. We won’t keep you in suspense: our engine performed beautifully for the rest of our journey. Still, we remained on edge during that last 20 hours, constantly watching the engine’s temperature gauge for any sign of overheating and listening for the sweet sound of water being expelled from our exhaust. We reached Darwin thoroughly exhausted but without incident on July 5 at around 10 AM. (We were greeted by the local dolphin gang which always brings a smile to our faces regardless of how tired we might be.) With so many things that could have been wrong with the engine given the multiple overheating events we felt very lucky that the raw water pump replacement seemed to do the trick. This is one of those situations where we both felt that sometimes it is better to be lucky than good. Of course, we are not leaving anything to chance and have already lined up an Cracker Jack engine mechanic to do some preventative maintenance as well as look at and resolve some of the issues we uncovered when we were trouble shooting the engine overheating.
As we finalize this entry, we have been in Darwin for 2 days and have already made a dent in our very long to do list. (We won’t bore you all by reciting the litany of tasks. Suffice it to say that it includes all the things you need to do when you get ready to leave your boat for 6 weeks plus the additional things you need to take care of when you are about to embark on a 10 month sail that will take you across the Indian and Atlantic Oceans to many remote parts of the world. Gulp!) We are still at the stage where the number of new items we are adding exceeds the number of completed tasks so the list seems to grow even as we tick things off but we expect that to reverse tomorrow. It will be nip and tuck but we have 6 days until our flight to the USA and it will all get done. It always does! And our reward for completing our self-imposed assignments is a trip home when we will get to visit all of our children and their families, both sets of parents, some of our siblings and many of our dear friends during our coast to coast, 5 state, extravaganza. We can’t wait! We will likely post our next blog entry when we return to Darwin in early September with our awesome nephew (and new first mate), Dax, and are about to depart for Indonesia — the official start of Part 2 of our circumnavigation.
0 Comments