Monday 16th October 2023 – On passage to Darwin

At 02:30 I gave up on trying to motor sail and rolled up the genoa and flattened out the main sail to stop the sails flapping as the wind had dropped to almost nothing.

As we got closer to Darwin, we started to see many large ships, all of us converging into the main shipping channel, so I had to be very vigilant and make sure I was not on a collision course with any of them and to give them all plenty of sea room.

We arrived in Darwin, out front of the yacht club in Fanny Bay at 05:30 just before sun rise where I dropped the anchor. We had done 250 nautical miles since leaving the Berkeley River and it had taken 35 hours averaging 7.1 knots/hour. In total we had gone 579 nm.

At around 08:30 on the rising tide, I pulled the anchor, and we headed off to Bay View Marina, seven nautical miles away, entering the lock at around 09:20. After I had secured the boat, we spent the rest of the day packing up and cleaning the boat. For dinner I took Claudia to a Thai restaurant where we had a very nice meal.

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Sunday 15th October 2023 – On passage to Darwin

We motored through the night in very calm conditions until a bit of breeze came up in the morning and we were able to sail again with 7-8 knots directly from behind.

I had fish for lunch, and we saw many banded and olive sea snakes as we gently sailed along at 5- 5 1/2 knots. In the late afternoon I had a nice cool shower on the back step and around 16:15 the wind dropped off completely and the sea glassed out, so I had to start the engine again. We discovered a stole away onboard, a cicada had hitched a ride with us back to Darwin.

It was very hot and humid all day. At 19:00 I checked the fuel level and we still had 120 litres, so I poured in the last 5 litres remaining in the last jerry can as we motored towards Darwin through the night.

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Saturday 14th October 2023 – Berkeley River - On passage to Darwin

I slept in again, getting up about 09:30. We are leaving today, Claudia is very busy cooking, and I am busy getting everything in order, checking weather, tides etc. I want to have a swim at the rock bar before departing the Amphitheatre around 16:00.

I am planning to cross the sand bar at the mouth of the river around 18:30 and then head straight off to Darwin. The weather is looking good for the passage even though it is blowing quite hard in the river now. It's always an anxious time when you are about to depart on a long ocean passage.

We had a beautiful relaxing time at the rock bar before departing the Amphitheatre at 16:20.

It was a 15 nautical mile trip back down the river to the river mouth and we had no problems crossing the bar when we arrived at 18:30. When we got to Riverly Island, I hoisted the main sail and rolled out the genoa for a beautiful beam reach sail in 16 knots of wind just as the sun was setting.

We had a lovely sail averaging 8-9 knots for about 47 miles until the wind dropped to about 6 knots around 02:00 close to the Black Tip gas facility and I had to start the engine to motor sail.

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Friday 13th October 2023 – Berkeley River - The Amphitheatre

I had a terrible sleep as it was so hot last night, so I didn’t get up till 09:00, and then we made yummy pancakes for breakfast. It was another very hot day today.

There were lots of thread fin salmon cruising about, cicadas buzzing and pheasant coucal’s whoop whooping in the mornings and late afternoon. After breakfast I started the water maker and filled both water tanks, then I pickled the water maker and put everything away. I refuelled the dinghy fuel tank and put 75 litres of diesel into the main boat fuel tank.

There were no clouds today, so the batteries are getting a good charge from the solar panels. I wanted to go swimming, but Claudia wanted to cook, but in the end I won. We spent about 2 hours at the rock bar cooling off and washing clothes, we had a lot of fun and it was very relaxing. I had a bad fall after slipping over, but luckily nothing was broken.

Claudia cooked one of my mangrove jacks for lunch and it was really delicious. We went fishing after lunch and I caught a large brim, a trevally and Claudia caught a barra couta. I lost another fishing lure, but luckily, I found it again floating nearby. When we got back to the boat, I repaired the dinghy davits, and we had a lovely meal of glass noodles and honey chicken & mushrooms.

Once again, it was so hot we couldn’t get to sleep and at midnight we had to get up and sleep in the cockpit for a couple of hours.

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Thursday 12th October 2023 – Berkeley River - The Amphitheatre

I got up at sun rise to go fishing. I caught quite a few fish (cod, trevally, jacks, couta) and lost another 4 lures, but nothing decent to bring home. While I was out, I saw a small stingray swim past and a large crocodile checking me out for dinner.

After a breakfast, I cleaned the water maker intake strainer and ran both engines for a few hours to try and charge up the house battery bank. It has been overcast for the past couple of days and we are not producing enough solar energy to charge them even though I had turned off the second freezer a couple of days ago.

Ironically, after lunch all the clouds disappeared, and it became very hot and muggy. The cicadas were very loud as usual, and the wind was gusting quite strong.

There were strange birds high up on the cliffs in this area that make this very unusual whoop whoop noise, that sounds a bit like monkeys. I’m pretty sure they are pheasant coucal, a type of cookoo.

pheasant coucal

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-7OaEAt_U8&t=36s

In the afternoon we went for a dunk under the waterfall and then on up to the rock bar to cool off for a while. The tide was quite low, so I pulled the dinghy up to make a barrier between the water and where we were in the rock pools as a precaution for any crocodiles.

After our swim, I went and burnt some more rubbish, then I went fishing. The fish were biting well this afternoon, and I caught about 6 mangrove jacks and a large brim, and I kept 3 or 4 of them for dinner.

While cleaning the fish on the back steps, several large bull sharks came out of nowhere and ate the fish heads that I threw over. They got very agitated and angry with every carcass I threw in. When I had finished cleaning the fish, they were swimming about with their dorsal fins out of the water circling the boat looking for more food.

After washing down the boat, I leant over to scrub the cutting board in the water and just as I had finished, one of the bull sharks took a lunge at me coming right out of the water snapping its jaws at me, while another shark bit the fibre glass bottom of the dinghy. And to think we were worried about the crocks!!

It was a very hot night tonight, and it was very hard to sleep, even with all 3 fans going.

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Wednesday 11th October 2023 – Berkeley River - The Amphitheatre

When I woke up the river was completely glassed out and looked magnificent, so I went out in the dinghy and took some amazing photos. There were hundreds of large jellyfish swimming in the current, they surrounded the boat and were interesting to watch as they swam past us.

After messing about with a few boat jobs in the morning, I put the water maker on and while the generator was running, I decided to switch on the battery charger to charge the house battery. Before filling the water tanks, I washed all the salt off the windows, saloon roof and deck. As this was a noisy process, we headed off to the nearby waterfall for a swim.

I drove the bow of the dinghy under the waterfall and we both took turns underneath it until the dinghy was full of water and needed to be bailed out. It was so nice. I then tied the dinghy to the rocks, and we climbed up the rock wall and walked upriver to the lily ponds and went for a lovely swim in the clear cool water for a couple of hours.

We had a great time there, but when we got back to the boat, I discovered the power plug had shaken loose and fallen out of the generator while we were away, so we had made very little water and the battery charger had further discharged the house battery. Bugger !!

When I started the water maker again, it was surging and not producing much water. I checked the intake filter, and it was very dirty and needed replacing. With a nice new filter, it was once again producing about 180 litres/h.

After dinner I had a relaxing time drinking red wine while lying on the tramp looking at all the stars, seeing the odd satellite or meteorite.

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Tuesday 10th October 2023 – Berkeley River - The Amphitheatre

It was a bit of a slow start today. The plan was to move from here and head upstream to a new location. After breakfast I fixed the port bilge pump that had a cracked housing, then later we both went up onto the platform under the waterfall and had a lovely cool shower and did our laundry.

We had fried chicken drumsticks for lunch, then after lunch I once again spent an hour or two trying to find out why the autopilot is not receiving information from the chart plotter without any success.

We cleaned up the boat, and on the high tide I removed the line holding us to the waterfall and we headed off upstream to the Amphitheatre about 9nm away, arriving around 16:45.

Like the King George River, the Berkeley is a magnificent river and in a lot of ways is even more beautiful.

I went ashore to make a fire and burnt all our rubbish and saw the stones Bruce had put around our fire in the same place back in 2019.

After this I went fishing and caught a small cod that I let go and saw a 3m crock high up on a ledge. There were lots of bugs at night here, but thankfully no midgies.

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