Darwin – August 2021

As we draw so deep, 3m, our anchoring spot was very far out.

Met S/ Y Omaha from Finland again. We first met them in Easter island back in 2019. They were on they way from Tahiti to Reunion island but broke their boom and got special permission to stay and fix things. Great to see them again.

To get ashore with your dinghy is rather interesting. The tides are huge, up to 8m. To drag a dinghy up without a good set of wheels is impossible. What we were told was that there is a little trolley that you can use, plonk dinghy on it, drag it as high as needed, dinghy off. Simple? Yes but still bloody hard work.

Must admit that this once when we left the dinghy high, thinking it’s good, went to the yacht club and after more drinks than we thought we would have, came back to a dinghy bashed about full of water. As quickly as we tried to empty it, the waives sloshed in more. I was getting quite desperate. Eventually a young couple offered their help and we got it tipped sideways and emptied. Phew!

Another novel way to get ones dinghy up.

We were waiting and hoping on news of Indonesia opening it’s border……nothing. We thought of plan b and c as cyclone season was coming and you can’t stay in anchor. Go into a marina? Monsoon, rainy and hot…..or leave boat, go back to U.K…

At this point we also met 3 Swedish boat waiting for the same thing. One boat had triplets onboard so great for Alice and Charlie.

There is this sand spit in the bay and in low tide you go there and have bbq and fun. Tide comes in, you leave. So Ozzie style, a little crazy, I think😀

We also got our second Covid jab. This time I felt absolutely fine. We also booked James in for his. Great to get that all done.

Hired a car few times, a lot of shopping, stocked up on wine, went to a water park and found this great jet ski club where you could use their pool.

The army museum was very interesting.

As was this waive pool, photo from internet.

Still waiting…..

Met few people who we talked to about Indonesia. We were getting so desperate that we thought we sail straight to Thailand. Long way but the kids were up for it. No way was I going backdown to Brisbane. Nothing against Brisbane, it was just time to go.

Finally we got the great news that Indonesia was opening. We had all the paperwork in place so now it was the mad dash for rest of fresh food, pcr test, laundry and keeping an eye on the weather. Which by now didn’t look to good. Very late in season.

Finally on the 30.9 we went to the fuel dock, checked out and off we went. We left together with S/ Y Sans Peur and Black Duck.

Good bye Australia. You have been so good to us. We have totally enjoyed the English side of life, music, easy shopping, libraries, friends, tv and housesits.

We headed out in perfect weather, sunny and no waives but yet again, little did we know what was going to break and of course we knew about the wind……