This is the latest tale of traveling adventure, for previous logs visit the archives. If you are new to Bad Latitude and wish to get a better idea of the whole adventure then it is best to start at the very beginning. The logs are updated when we get the chance, due to the erratic nature of sailing it is difficult to know exactly when we will be able to update the site, so for this reason we have the update alerter which will inform of any update via e-mail.

Issue 5 - 02/09/2001 Fannie Bay Darwin NT to Gove (Nhulunbuy)

We eventually set off from Darwin on the 25th of August, with a full complement of seven crew plus the skipper Pete and enough provisions to get us to Cairns, plus our fresh produce - milk, vegetables and bread etc. As soon as the fresh produce runs out we have to make our own bread and use powdered milk as we will be well off the beaten track well away from the local Woollies.

We decided in the end against an overnighter for our first trip, so we set sail for Escape Cliff - one of a few doomed settlements along the Northern Territory coastline. The passage itself was nice and straight forward 1-1.5 metre swells 10-15 knot (knt) breezes. A couple more short passages followed in the next couple of days; we would basically get up, make breakfast, haul up the anchor (well the windlass does) and sail for the next deserted cove or bay.

On the 28th we arrived at Port Essington - a hopefully named place that hosted another ill fated Victorian settlement called Victoria. We decided to take a look at the ruins there, which are on aboriginal land, so a quick dinghy trip to the ranger station housed at the mouth of Port Essington for permits was in order before we set off into the inlet to take a look.

This place is really off the backpacker trail being only accessible by boat, Cornish roundhouses looked bizarre amongst the bush that was slowly reclaiming the settlement. Reading the brochure published by the ranger station Victoria was settled in 1838 by the British. After a hopeful start the settlement soon became beset by problems. Supplies were inconsistent to the colony, the climate was harsh and wrongly thought of - when the area was first surveyed it was in the wet season water was thought to be abundant, this wasn't the case however. After producing food on a meagre subsistence level for 11 years the settlement was finally abandoned in 1849. Many of the settlers died, and their graves are still intact.....

We had been on the go now for four days and still hadn't caught a single fish! We had been trolling three lines from the yacht with no joy, but it was at Victoria that Brian bagged the first - a two foot long baby shark!

After a couple more anchorage's, Danger Point and Malay Bay we decided to do an overnight passage to help us reach Gove more quickly. We split into four watches, each watch doing three hours. Tracy and I did nine till twelve, we saw nothing but it was really great to be scooted along by 5 to 10 knt breezes under a full moon. This beats work!

The next day the Skipper had to time the tides exactly in order to time our arrival at the famous 'Hole in the Wall' , a thirty metre short cut through the Wessell Islands. We needed to arrive at slack tide as the narrow constriction between the islands can force the current speed up to 9 kts which if the tide is flowing with you can loose you all steerage and you would be at the mercy of the current. Pete did his sums correctly however and we arrived bang on slack tide and coasted through the first bit of land we had seen for a couple of days, Gove was now in sight (metaphorically speaking!)

Our fishing had improved considerably on our approach to the Wessells, with an abundance of Tuna and a few Spanish Mackerel. It was coming into Gove that we had the biggest surprise though. I noticed a load of thrashing about three metres from the stern, I then saw a Sailfish tailwalk alongside......we'd hooked a Sailfish! Kim and I hauled it in and noticed it hadn't been hooked at all, two half hitches around it's beak were all that secured it to us! We also noticed it had damaged itself on the line, with a huge slash under it's dorsal. We quickly decided to get it aboard - all seven foot of it! Food for a week!

We eventually arrived in Gove on the 2nd of September, many beers and steak were consumed at Gove Yacht club in anticipation of the largest challenge of the whole trip - crossing the Gulf of Carpentaria, Australia's answer to the Bay of Biscay.

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