Great White Hunter Strikes Again

We left Seisia on Thu 9 Aug with light winds.  We admired the bow wave of the Thursday Island ferry as it sped past.  We took photos of them as they took photos of us.

Thursday Island ferry 

               
  This was the day we were going to start using our new, very expensive wind vane self steering.  Wind vanes and auto pilots are given names as they make up for extra crew.  We named the wind vane Yorso as in "you're so vain" the song.  Well, it didn't work and Ian finished up calling it Yorso Stupid.  

In the meantime, Ian had set a line out, as he did when we weren't in the green zone (you can't fish in these zones).  The next thing Yorso problem was forgotten as we had a strike.  The Great White Hunter battles the Spanish Mackerel.  Who will win?  The Hunter?  The Mackerel? The Hunter?  The Mackerel? The Hunter?  The Mackerel? The Hunter won!!!! 

The mackerel measured 1.2m from nose to tail.  We portioned the meat into 16 generous meals for two.


Well, we mightn't have self steering but we had plenty of fish.









Ian had to steer all night as I was unable to.  We were hoping that Ian could sleep through the day while I did the helm.  Unfortunately,  he just couldn't get to sleep.  

As we were halfway across the gulf with no land in sight, there was no hope of anchoring anywhere and we had to sail on.  There was no choice but for me to overcome my night vertigo as it was out of the question for Ian to do the whole night again after so little sleep. 

I took on the dusk into darkness shift to ease the transition.  It's amazing what you can do out of necessity.

That night the winds picked up and we managed a good 7-8kn which is a great speed for Winkali.  However, the next day the winds continued to strengthen until they were around 30kn and the swell built up to beyond the fun stage.  As we were both exhausted by then and we had reached the western side of the gulf, we battled our way to Marchinbar Is which is in the Wessel Is group at the top of the gulf.






 We anchored there for two days and nights till the winds started to abate.  The island looked fantastic to explore but as the wind was still up to 25kn, we didn't dare to take the dinghy across.

We could only look at the uninhabited island from Winkali.








It took another 3 days and nights to sail to Darwin.  The winds eased off as we went and by the last day we had to motor sail.  We were grateful to have Scotty (our Autopilot) aboard to take over while we motored.  He is good in calmer waters but can't handle the rougher seas which is why we couldn't use him earlier.

We're in Darwin now for a week.  Will write another post before we leave for the Kimberleys.