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.

Track Sirocco’s progress

https://forecast.predictwind.com/tracking/display/Sirocco