Lizard island and towards Darwin, August – 21

Lizard Island is stunning. The shades of blue is spectacular. Lucky for us, only 5 boats so plenty of anchoring space.

No wifi so one has to hike about half hour to a specific rock called Telstra rock. Beautiful views so the pain to do this was ok.

Sat up there for couple of hours downloading weather, updating FB and the kids got more movies.

At sundowner we headed for the beach for few drinks and meet the other boaties. Great source for information about how to do the next leg of our trip.

Next day we hiked all the way up to Captain Cooks look out. As unfit as we are it took awhile but not to much moaning.

Saw lizards and the view is stunning.

We saw a weather window coming up so got ready to leave again. Chris got the new autohelm chain fitted and last checks of weather. It was going to be blowy and the waives a bit big for my liking but it was only going to get worse later in the week.

We left very early in the morning. It was still dark and blowy. Heading to Flinders island group about 80 nm. We had a very fast sail, averaging 9 knots in speed. Brilliant.

We got to Stanley island just perfect for a sundowner and a beautiful calm anchorage. Didn’t go ashore as we were leaving again early following morning.

Next day we sailed on to Morris reef. A tiny speck of an island with a big reef around it. Normally probably a beautiful place but it was blowy, grey skies and big waives. Again didn’t go ashore.

Didn’t even get a photo so this one is from internet.

Next stop was Portland road. On the charts it doesn’t look like it’s going to give you any shelter but it was much better than I thought. 3 boats in there, never went ashore….

The next morning as we were ready to leave, ( please to say it wasn’t at stupid early hour) and Chris was pointing forward to take the anchor up I did as instructed. Chris kept flapping his arm in a forward motion at the front of the boat, I shouted I am in forward…..something was wrong…..we were going backwards….tried backwards, still going backwards, forward, still going backwards. The gearbox cable had snapped. Can you imagine if that would have happened when we were anchoring? Bloody hell. Lucky Chris was able to fix it but now we were racing against daylight. The next stop was Margaret’s bay and we got there just in time.

We were knackered. Decided to stay an extra day and get washing done, have a rest and bake bread.

The next stop was Adolphus island on top of Australia. Left at 4.30am, great sail and a very good anchoring place. Never went ashore as we were moving on the following morning but this is from google earth.

The sail to Posession island wasn’t long but blimey what a shit trip that was. Howling at 40 + knots with big waives it got very uncomfortable. I was wondering if the island was able to give us any shelter…..lucky it did. It was a relief to get behind it and anchor….

Stayed for couple of days waiting for the wind to calm down but before that happened it broke our wind generator. Seriously?

The next leg of our journey was a 2 day sail to Wessel island. Hellish first night with big waives and Hans steering all night. The following day and night was beautiful. We had now left Queensland behind and entered Northern Territory.

As we came around the corner to the anchorage the waives got really big and ugly. I couldn’t even look at them. Overfalls, wind against tide, like a washing machine….it slowed us right down and I thought we were never going to make it. I sat there in the cockpit doing a mantra quietly under my breath….please calm down, please calm down, please calm down…

Took a breather and stayed for two night, never went ashore as now we were well and truly in crocodile land.

We had another 2 day sail to Cape Don that went well for a change so kept reading and sleeping.

Cape Don is a good stop before you continue down this channel to Darwin. Had to get up early to catch the tide but the waives were still ugly and messy.

It was a long day but how exiting it was when we saw the skyline of Darwin. We had moved very fast from Lizard, sailed about 1200 nm and happy to be here.

This booby got a free lift for two days and as a thank you shat all over the solar panels….

These sharks lives in Portland bay anchorage….

Fish we caught

Now it was a waiting game to see if Indonesia would open its borders again….