Monday 2nd June, 2014
Great surprise this morning – Buffy has learned where to
perform her ablutions… Now she just goes
up there whenever she needs to go and the Mustang goes up to clean up after her
(well, it is her dog). Not much chance of The Mustang training me
that easily…
We had a relatively relaxing day today. Went into town to pick up Captain Backburn
for his last day in Darwin, did some banking business and picked up some new
crab nets to replace the ones that were taken. We ended up just buying four new
nets – we’ll donate the old ones to the sailors around here.
We fitted some fold-away wheels to Merv today, then
discovered at low tide that it’s better not to load him up before you try to
move him – he’s just too heavy. If we
get stuck in some heavy mud at any point later on we may have to remove the
motor then wheel him to the water and carry the motor down, but at least he’s
easier to maneuver now. Certainly beats
dragging him across the sand.
Had our first shower on board tonight – needed to check and
make sure the hot water heater works. Turns out the water is so hot we both use
cold water only. Also had to turn on the
motor again to charge up the batteries.
Even though we have the two new ones it seems the old ones might be a bit
run down. Of course, it turns out we’re
not sure how many amp hours they all are, so our battery monitor (which is set
for 200 amp hours) is probably under-reading our power on board. The two new batteries are both 100 amp hours
each, and we think the old ones are as well, but the battery monitor seems to
keep re-setting itself to a total of 200 amp hours instead of leaving it at
400. We keep changing the settings, but
it looks like we’re missing a step somewhere.
Time to RTFM.
A volcano erupted in Indonesia over the weekend, and the
skies in Darwin have been affected – we’ve had some great sunsets ...
Fannie Bay sunset after a volcano
Tuesday 3rd June, 2014 – Fannie Bay, Darwin N.T.
We had another relatively lazy day today. We took our hire car back to the shops to get
our absolutely last bits of shopping – fresh salad for the trip. We’ll be lucky if it lasts two weeks, but
salad is something we always miss when we’re away so we made sure we have enough
for a binge to start with.
The last of the laundry was done today too. It has made a
big difference getting ready this year having an extra pair of hands around...
The Mustang and Buffy the Barra Slayer helping out
with the last of the laundry.
Wednesday, 4th June, 2014 – Darwin to Raft Point
(12° 38’ 603” S, 130° 33’ 262” E)
We got an early start today and took the hire car back when
the agency opened. Stopped to get some
chicken necks for crab bait and then took the bus back to Fannie Bay. Back at Charisma we put Merv up and headed to
Cullen Bay for our fuelling stop. But first I had to get the anchor up, and
while I was reaching for the anchor rope I managed to lose my first pair of
glasses over the side… the first of many
I suspect…
The fuel dock is all automatic, so there is nobody there to
help tie up. Unfortunately there were passengers
boarding a charter boat for some sort of day trip, so we had to make sure we
didn’t kill anyone pulling in. Amazingly
it all went like a charm and the folks on shore were convinced we have been
doing this for years. As far as they’re
concerned now, Charisma’s crew are experts.
Seriously, we were both impressed with how smoothly it went including getting
out again. Buffy the Barra Slayer even
jumped out of the boat to make a few new friends – have to say that we
surprised a lot of folks by having a dog on board.
At the flash fuel dock at Cullen Bay
The fuel pumps are automatic here: insert credit card and
pump fuel. We put an extra 400 litres of
diesel into the main tank, and filled four 25-litre jerry cans with unleaded
for Merv. We also filled our water tank
and gave Charisma a bit of a wash-down with the hose to admire our freshly
painted deck for the last time. At last. Across the harbour and on our way…
so long Darwin...and thanks for all the fish...
Our first heading was directly towards the western point of
the harbour entrance, which meant we went straight across the shipping
lane. A couple of large container and
cargo ships went around us and gave us a bit of wake to ride, but we had no
trouble. The Mustang was a bit nervous
as this is the first time she has been on board around a working port. Buffy the Barra Slayer took all this in her
stride, and spent most of the day leaning over the side watching the water and
waves go by. I wonder if she’ll ever get bored with that? She even felt at home enough to have some
play time...
Tug of war... notice the poor splice...
We had a bit of wind to start with this morning, so we put
out the genoa and managed to get up to just over 6 knots, but by
about 2PM the wind died on us, so we had to motor the rest of the way. We had anticipated arriving around 3:30, but
with no wind and fighting against an outgoing tide we were lucky to get four
knots, so we didn’t actually arrive here until almost 6PM. Just in time to get a good sunset photo and to
have a couple of Charisma specials…
Mandatory Sunset photo at Raft Point
Tomorrow we might hang around here for a bit - there’s a phone tower nearby and lots of
pearl culture lines, so we might go ashore and see if we can find any signs of
life to say hello to. The Mustang has a
granddaughter turning two tomorrow, so she may be able to phone her (Happy
Birthday Shae-Lee!).
Thursday, 5th June, 2014 –Raft Point to Tower
Beach (12° 34’ 717” S, 130° 33’ 828” E)
We were having a bit of a lie in recovering after our first
night celebrations when the wind picked up and we found ourselves dragging with
the wind against tide. We headed back to
here (Tower Beach) and found a nice spot just out from the beach shacks that
was protected from the wind.
A trip to the beach was in order for a walk and to catch
some bait…
The Mustang
does the beach thing.
The view from the beach shacks.
There is no one about here, but it is mid-week. Not a bad little spot and probably worth
exploring some more. We did get an
interrupted Telstra signal last night when we sailed past but it is gone today.
There is definitely no tower or coverage at Tower Beach.
The bait was easy to obtain but any quality fish has been a
bit harder to locate. Mostly sharks…
“Just another shark” – Buffy the Barra Slayer shows
her disappointment.
We don’t need ratchets or bells on our rods anymore to let
us know when we’ve caught something. Buffy the Barra Slayer is always on the
job when we have a line out. She has
much better hearing than us although she does tend to want to get too close to
the action down on the croc sundeck… She also growls whenever she hears dolphins coming up to breathe...
We had our first call on the sat phone from The Navigator
tonight. It was a little disappointing
and dropped out twice forcing him to ring back before we gave up. I’m
sure we’ll figure it out along the way.
More disappointing is the new boat rod (purchased in Darwin) that broke
after the first fish was landed. Superglue and gaffa tape at the ready…
Friday, 6th June, 2014 –Tower Beach to Point Blaze
(12° 55’ 124” S, 130° 09’ 261” E)
We had a long day getting here with just under 60 nautical miles
on the track. On the way we were about as
far north as we were going to get and the tide was going out, so we decided to
throw Captain Backburn’s bottle overboard.
It has a note in it with a phone number so whoever finds it to ring and
tell us where it washes up.
The bottle - captain would never throw even an empty Backburn bottle overboard
The Mustang takes her shirt off to throw the bottle
overboard – just for you Dennis!
We had planned to anchor off Dundee Beach (how cheesy is the
name?) and have a look around there but couldn’t get close enough as it a
pretty featureless long sandy beach with no shelter from the wind, tides or
current. The only way would have been to
go in and sit on the keels when the tide went out.
Instead we came down to the bottom end of Fog Bay (should be
called smog bay with all the fires) and intended to anchor off the northern end
of the point.
The chart showed clear water but there are a lot of
rocks in this section. We ground into
them and upset a turtle who came up to have a look at who was causing all the
fuss. This turtle looked totally pissed
off if I can anthropomorphize a turtle (Beat the Mustang to use that one…). Speaking of The Mustang…she wasn’t very happy
about her first grounding. I’m sure
she’ll have something to say…
[Mustang: “Happy?!? We were doing over 5 knots when we hit a
rock that was big enough to stop us dead in our tracks! And the noise was dreadful! Sounded like we had grounded our keels down! Just
as well we didn’t spring a leak – this surprised me, but didn’t make me any happier
when we hit the next rock as we were backing off the first one! Some drivers!!” end of rant, but I still get
nervous as we go into an anchorage! Probably take me a week or two to get over
it, depending on how many more rocks he hits in the meantime!] She also likes to use exclamation marks!!!!
Watch out for those rocks!… looks perfectly fine to me...
With the sun setting, we ended up here which looks like a
clear patch. The Mustang wouldn’t let me
go in any closer than this but we are in a sandy 7 meters with a good holding.
It is supposed to be strong winds tomorrow so glad to have found somewhere.
There are plenty of local fishermen coming out here and
bottom bouncing on the reefs. I couldn’t
be bothered so all we caught were Sharks…
The wind has been blowing up here during the day (25+ knots)
so we decided to have a couple of slow down days while we wait for the high to move
out the bight and the wind to temper. We’ve
moved in closer to shore and have good sand over mud holding.
This life raft made it ashore here
Buffy runs to the next bit if shade and then waits for
us to catch up. She still manages to do
15 times more distance than us.
The beach at Point Blaze. There is sand to anchor in the middle of the bay...and no rocks...
I went in to gather some bait for the sharks the second day
and a couple of 4WD vehicles came up.
Had a bit of chat and then was asked if I had a permit to land as it
was his land. I said that the chart says
that this was not shown as Aboriginal land but said I would move on. The young guy doing the talking was a bit
evasive of how I obtain a permit and whose land it was. He sort of hinted at a cash settlement but I
ignored him and went back out to the boat.
A double check of the chart shows Aboriginal land in Fog Bay but not
where we were. Hmm… perhaps there were
sharks on land as well.
“Just another shark. (Their skin is Ruff)”
We managed to swamp Merv when we went for a walk so used his
wheels for the first time.
The lack of eating fish has led us to a regular diet of
tinned food. Tonight we had Spam and Spam sandwiches.
And Buffy got to finish the left overs including the baked
beans....
She sleeps outside…
She has started taking things for granted…
The smoke from the fires does help with the sunsets...
Tuesday, 10th June, 2014 –Point Blaze to South Peron Island(13° 13’ 247” S, 130° 05’ 579” E)
We got up this morning all keen to start out for South Peron
Island only to find that the batteries had drained over the last three days. Oops – forgot I was supposed to run the motor
for an hour each day. The problem is
having two fridges running full tilt all the time. Never mind. Turned the wind generator on and with the
solar panels we were only delayed by a couple of hours before we got going. Reasonably good sail down here apart from
bashing through the wind over current through the channel – kept burying the
nose in the water. By working our way
down here to go to the Victoria River we’ve had the wind pretty well on the
nose, or close to it the whole way. I can see why most yachts head straight across
the gulf to the Berkley. It will definitely be easier going back the other way.
But we made good time and got here about an
hour earlier than we had expected even though we had our delayed start this
morning.
The anchorage here is very small and only really suitable
for very shallow draft vessels (we have 1.5m), but we’re in! At low tide tonight we estimate we’ll have a
metre of water under us. Took Buffy the
Barra Slayer and the Mustang to the beach for a walk. Buffy the Barra Slayer went schizo and
covered at least 15 times more ground than we did. She had such a good time that as we were
leaving she jumped out of the dinghy to head back to shore, so she’s in the bad
books tonight. Grateful we hadn’t
actually taken off at that time, and also that her life jacket has a convenient
handle with which to pick her up out of the water!
Ball Buffy?-
Who writes the blog?...The truth is out there...
Wednesday, 11th June, 2014 –South Peron Island to
Dooley Point (13° 48’ 108” S, 130° 45’ 066” E)
Ended up having to leave the anchorage at South Peron when
the wind started out of the south blowing us back and forth over the
anchor. It made the anchorage a close
lee shore so I gave in and fired up the cast iron spinnaker at 1:00 in the
morning to find somewhere safer.
We ended up motor sailing for another eleven hours (glad I filled up the diesel tank) into a 20 knot headwind to get to this
place. We are anchored a fair way out
from shore as we are approaching spring tides.
Just after we got here the wind finally died off to a zephyr from the
opposite direction…Typical.
I took Merv for a patrol around a nearby reef with some
reasonable results. 2 deadly came through at last… Fresh fish for dinner.
There is a tidal creek just North of us and the sandy plain
we are anchored on is literally carpeted with small fish fingerlings. They are so prolific we have seen them
nibbling on any leaves or sticks floating past in the tide. The Buffmiester spent the evening growling at the dolphins circling us. A nice spot, but we will probably head off to
Port Keats tomorrow.
Thursday, 12th June, 2014 –Dooley Point to Port
Keats, Sandfly Creek (13° 48’ 108” S, 130° 45’ 066” E)
We woke up to dead calm conditions this morning - a flat sea and absolutely no breeze whatsoever except that coming from the dog (shouldn't really feed her fish I guess). We motored all the way here as conditions didn't change for sailing. It made for a nice quiet day, if you don't count the noise of the motor running at 2500 rpms. Stopped for a few hours at Dorcherty Island to wait for a higher tide so we could get into the creek. Buffy the Barra Slayer had another crazy run around and we even threw the ball for her a few times. Then we took off up the creek to our overnight camping spot. Passed the Wadeye barge coming out along the way.
This is a nice spot… There is even Telstra coverage and internet up the creek. The Mustang has been able to get her Facebook fix, and the rest of you can catch up on the blog. Put a few crab nets out and went to pull them in just on dusk - that was a mistake - this place isn't called Sandfly Creek for nothing. We did get some dinner though - three mud crabs. One of them was a very red colour and didn't taste as nice as the others (a bit bitter), so naturally the Mustang let me eat that one.
Wadeye / Port Keats Barge
This is a nice spot… There is even Telstra coverage and internet up the creek. The Mustang has been able to get her Facebook fix, and the rest of you can catch up on the blog. Put a few crab nets out and went to pull them in just on dusk - that was a mistake - this place isn't called Sandfly Creek for nothing. We did get some dinner though - three mud crabs. One of them was a very red colour and didn't taste as nice as the others (a bit bitter), so naturally the Mustang let me eat that one.
The beach on Dorcherty Island
Buffy has some dolphins to growl
at so she’s happy…
Noisy buggers these dolphins
We will head back out to the entrance tomorrow. We’ve found a shady tree on the beach at
Dorcherty Island that will do for a couple of days… There are still mangroves there so we can get more crabs, but fewer sandflies as its a bit more open.
Sunset up Sandfly Creek
