The strait is a narrow section of sea, dotted with hundreds of rocks, dozen of islands and reefs, typically strong trade winds (20-30 knots) equally strong tides ( up to 5 knots) not proportionally North East - South West flow. It sounds like a bit of nightmare. Although there is possibility to anchor it is not allowed to stop prior to clearing into Australia.

29 July

 Approaching the strait we noticed that cargo ships traffic was increasing, sometimes we saw 5 or more ships. We were lucky as the wind died down just as we approached the entrance to the strait. A sea bird landed on the boat for the evening, taking off at sunset. He returned the following evening, but as it made a mess on deck, I tried to scare it off the boat. I got so close to it that I could have grabbed the bird with my hands, but it wasn't bothered. The marine life is spectacular though, we saw lots of bottle nose dolphins, a shark tried to eat the lure, rays and lots of huge fishes. Graham devised a great system to get us through the straits so the actual trip was easy, despite the my worries. All the waypoints were input on the GPS and with the track mode on the autopilot the boat took care of the navigation, all we had to do is to keep an eye on the radar- for the incoming traffic- and make sure we were on track, which was done via Maxsea. Things got even easier at nighttime, with the navigation lights it was easier to identify the route. It got slightly tricky identifying the incoming traffic, the cargo ships were easy , but there was a boat towing a barge and that took some time to work it out the navigational lights. 

30th July

We arrived in Thursday Island the following morning, getting into the anchorage required some alertness, shoals and reefs to miss. Although it was early morning we had a beer to celebrate, while we waited for customs to come aboard- we were not allowed on land prior to clearing in. Australia has a reputation for being a bureaucratic country, one of the reasons we wanted to give the country a miss... So we were a bit prepared for the customs "visit": 6 people hopped on board and literally went through every inch of the boat from outside and inside, questioning about every thing that wasn't of their business. Although very friendly and polite they were looking for cues and reaction, very cunning. An hour latter they departed with  the rubbish, odd garlic, onions and $AU 240.00! 

31st July

Thursday Island is a very strange place, very red neck backwards island, there are 4000 people mostly working for customs and quarantine, patrolling the borders with Papua, from were comes most of drug and people  smuggling. There is a 1890 fort with spectacular views over the adjacent islands. The prices for everything were abysmal, so we were eager to press on. After couple of days we left for another long passage, 850 miles to Darwin.

2nd August

The trip started with not much wind, but gradually a steady trade winds came back and we had a nice jolly with 15-20 knots behind us, calm seas so we couldn't ask for more. The batteries were a different issue, they were holding less and less power, by this stage we turned the fridge off-that was empty anyway- and we had to run the generator to keep the autopilot going. What a bummer! One nice morning Graham woke up to realize the tachometer wasn't working , so now we weren't getting any charge on the almost dead batteries. The alternator had broken. Luckily we carry a spare alternator, now we had to change that whilst sailing. The alternator is located in the engine bay on a very awkward place, difficult enough to change when the boat is steady! With great difficulty Graham swapped the alternators over, but by then we were so tired that we decided to break the trip and anchor for one night. Land was 35 miles away and Coburg Peninsula had lots of anchoring possibilities.  Coming closer to land we realized that the whole peninsula is a natural reserve and anchoring is prohibited. At that stage we didn't care anymore. We just had to hope that Australian customs airplane didn't fly above our heads. This is the only country where we had the customs airplane checking on us almost every day, very comforting... Nothing better then a good night sleep, except that this was one hell of a rolly night, we wondered if we would have slept better at sea. Before the sun came up we left-customs airplane may start patrolling early- , now we just had to go through Van Diemen Passage, two more days and we would be in Darwin. Approaching the passage the current was on its peak and once we turned into the passage we also had headwinds, after 1 hour we went nowhere. Tiredness took over and we abandoned that attempt and headed to the other side of the island with the knowledge that this would mean another day at sea! And more headwinds for 100 miles. We could have anchored and waited for the tide, but both were so tired and fed up, not the best state to make good decisions. That did bring us down and even more so when we turned around Melville island and had again the same situation, strong winds and current against us. How can you get south??? The only thing on our favor was that the wind died early evening and that is when we motored like hell to get all the south and east needed. There was a lot of traffic heading into Darwin, some of them we couldn't work out what sort of ship they were. As morning came up, for our amusement we found out that we had some battle ships as neighbours! The wind came back with full blast. This was becoming a nightmare and morale was very low, we could see Darwin, just couldn't get to it. A procession of battle ships passed us, we found out latter that there was an exercise at sea involving 10 countries, now they were heading back. With some struggle we were making headway, but what worried us now was that we were on the last litres of fuel. That did eventually run out, the engine splattered and stopped. There was only 5 miles to go, sails went back up and we tacked into the anchorage. That was the fun of the day! Then anchoring by sail, it was actually the highlight of the day. Fannie Bay, the anchorage, was open and there were no reefs, so was very easy to sail in. We were absolutely exhausted: 3 weeks at sea, two long passages with no break , just too much.

08 August        Darwin

Considering that is Northern Territory, what we expected of Darwin was a real redneck outback town. Once we managed to get off the boat-very long dinghy ride to the beach- and walk around we were stunned. We haven't seen so much wealth in a long time: everybody seems to drive 4WD and live in mansions. The prices were expensive, but cheaper then Thursday Island. Everything gets shipped in so prices are higher. Next day, when we went into town, we noticed that it is a big backpackers favourite, with lots of bars, shops. Darwin didn't show signs of recession as the rest of Australia did. After spending 3 weeks here we worked out that it is to do with the mining and everybody is making money from it, directly or indirectly. Darwin is in a boom and attracting a lot of young people for that. House prices are as high as London housing market and there is a shortage of houses. We loved the city, it has the right size and people from all over the country, very cosmopolite, for Australia anyway. The Mindil market was a institution, lots of local artists playing the didgeridoo, jugglers, Asian food stalls , take your own booze and sit in the beach and watch the artists while the sun goes down over a glorious red sky. 

Contrasting with the most lavish houses are also the most dirty and run down council houses. Here are where the aboriginals live. They are most of the time in groups at parks drinking from early morning . The state of some of them is shocking, don't remember ever seeing an aboriginal working in a shop. It is shocking to see how badly the government failed and still is with the aboriginals. The worst of all is that the aussies promote their culture but the aboriginal are completely left out of it! At Mindil market the guys playing the didgeridoo  were all white... 

27th August

Almost ready to cast off to Indonesia, the dinghy together with the outboard was stolen off the beach. We left it at Mindil beach. While we were at the market somebody dragged up the beach, loaded on the back of the car and left. The drag and tire marks on the beach were the clue. We reported it to the police, knowing well that nothing would happen. The problem was that around here everybody seems to use aluminum dinghies- due to the crocs-, instead of the inflatable that we had. To find a "rubber duck" or "crocs biscuit"- as the aussies would call the inflatable- turned out to be a hard work. But in the end all sorted. So now the proud owner of a new dinghy and a second hand 4hp outboard.