Across the Gulf at last

Courtship flight of Sea Eagles at Gove Harbour.

We finally left Gove Harbour on 17th Oct. 

'Easy Rider' with Rob and Henma and 'Casper' with Barbara and Wayne left before us.  We decided to leave after we enviously watched them motoring out of the harbour.  A quick look at the BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) site on the computer showed a better weather prediction than they had the day before.  We had to return  our amenities key and retrieve our $100 deposit so after our last shower for the next 4 or 5 days, we returned the key, removed the squid which had jumped onto our deck through the night, upped our anchor and were away.

Early morning before lights out at the refinery

When we came across the gulf from east to west it took 3 days and 2 nights.  We had good winds in our favour then so we knew it would take 1 to 2 days longer going into the wind and swell. 

We were hoping to get to Seisia but would go to Weipa depending on how the wind played.  It was Seisia for the first 2 days till the weather turned on us on the last night.

Ian had just managed to fall asleep at 2 in the morning.  Scotty the auto-pilot had broken a belt so I was at the helm.  A few spots of rain had started falling so I was ready to race in, close the hatches and grab a raincoat should it get any heavier. 

For the next half hour, it remained the same with the wind picking up to 15kn but nothing to get alarmed about

until. . . . .

a mighty whoosh!

Rain bucketed down and the wind speed jumped to 25kn.

I was alarmed! ! !

I leapt out from behind the helm to grab that raincoat (even though I was instantly wet) and close the hatches without waking Ian. As I did so I slipped and bumped the throttle.

The motor screamed, I screamed and Ian woke up.

After Ian got everything under control, we headed to Weipa which was closer at that stage.  

I made a radio call to 'Casper' and was rewarded with a response.  We had  radio contact with them and 'Easy Rider' on the first day and apart from a relayed message through the Customs Aeroplane, hadn't been in touch since.

'Casper' had just anchored at Weipa and we found out later that 'Easy Rider' had found an anchorage just south of Weipa at Boyde Point.

It was good to know that we were all across.  The other 2 boats wanting to make the crossing from Gove Harbour, were both still waiting for parts to repair their motors.

Yikes! Those pointy things hurt!

Brown Boobies were once again guarding their channel markers as we entered Weipa.  It's good to know that some of our tax dollars are put to good use, by putting Booby-proof spikes around the lights on the channel markers.  However, Terns are immune to them :) and there is usually a Tern on the top of each marker.


Weipa is a modern town and has all the services you could need.  We needed a replacement belt for 'Scotty' so Ian called 'Raymarine' to see if we could get one in the near future.  Yes, they sent one express and it arrived the next day.  Not bad considering we were in a remote area.

Lesser Frigate-bird

 We were fascinated each evening by thousands of Frigate Birds which congregated and spiralled overhead.  The air was thick with them soaring on the thermal air currents which must have formed the same time each day.  During the day there may have been the odd one or two about but I suspect they were off following one of the many trawlers for an easy feed.


These birds continued to fascinate us when we arrived in Seisia on 26th Oct.

There we were able to see them display their kleptoparasitic behaviour.  They will harass another bird which has caught a fish until they drop it.  From observation at Seisia, the dropped fish is often missed by the Frigate-bird and nobody gets it.

Although they sometimes steal fish from other birds, mostly they catch their own.  Their main diet is flying fish and squid.  They are excellent flyers and they have the largest wingspan to body ratio of any bird.  The drawback is that, like the Albatross, they are not very good at moving on land, nor can they take off from a flat surface such as water.  Therefore, they can't dive into the water but can scoop their prey up with their long hooked beaks.

Like so.

Ian and I were kept happily busy recording the antics of the Frigate-birds versus the Terns near the Seisia jetty which is the home to millions of sardines.

Tern dives in to catch his fish.

Tern happily takes off with fish.

"I say, that looks like a nice fish you've got there".

Tern drops fish into water.

"I'll have that thank you very much"

The fish got away.

  

I mentioned that there are literally millions of sardines around the wharf at Seisia.  

The water is thick with them.

The great white hunter and his trusty assistant went fishing - with little mini hooks and tiny little lures.

It was fun. The locals catch these little fish to use as bait for much bigger fish. 

The trusty assistant wondered if they were any good to eat and set about to find out.

There was about one small forkful each side, full of tiny little hair-like bones.  I didn't bother to cook any more of these.

Action at the Seisia wharf

Taken from under the wharf - Winkali on the left, Casper on the right.

Casper frames the setting sun.

We'll be at Seisia for another couple of days waiting for favourable winds.  Rob and Henma with 'Easy Rider' were here when we got here so it's been a small reunion.  Another couple, Cheryl and Bob with their yacht 'Bittersweet' who we know from Cairns are also here.

Its interesting to note, Casper, Bittersweet and Winkali are all mono-hulls designed by Joe Adams.

Easy Rider is a Lightwave catamaran.

We will be hiring a 4WD for the 8 of us and venturing to "the tip" while we're waiting for the wind change.  By the time we get to Cairns, there should be a whole Armada.

                                                                                                             

  

                                                         

Baking Bread

We headed out for Seisia optimistically on 5th Oct.  I sent Krista (my daughter) a happy birthday message for the following day as I would be out of range for phone calls by then.

We motored out of the bay, past the bauxite refinery loading wharf where we were greeted by the eerie spectacle of a ship engulfed in steam.

 I would tell you what they were doing if I knew.

After passing the last channel buoy, the sails went up.  We needed to go east but as the wind was coming from that direction, we had to settle for north-east.  After a while we tacked to south-east and so it went that day, zig-zagging our way eastwards.

As the day went on, the oncoming swell got bigger and the wind got stronger.  

Ian said, "this is ridiculous".

I agreed.

It was 2 o'clock in the afternoon, we had been sailing for over 7 hours and had only progressed about 25nm.

Dalywoi Bay at Cape Arnhem seemed like a protected anchorage when you looked at it on the map, so our new heading was south. 

Tuna and Terns compete for the the schools of bait fish which whip the waters into a frenzy.

 We arrived at Dalywoi Bay about 5 o'clock to find that it wasn't as sheltered in reality as it was in theory.  Well, too late now, it was going to be a rock and roly night. 

Swell turns into surf as it meets land at Dalywoi Bay

About 8 o'clock that night we see another boat anchor further up the bay.  I thought it might have been Rob and Henma who had left for Seisia on their catamaran "Easy Rider" the day before us.  Ian didn't think so.

As we left the next morning, the VHF radio sprang to life. 

"Is that you sneaking off Winkali?"

It was Easy Rider!

They had had enough of the rough seas also and it was back to Gove for both of us.

"That's funny", say the Brown Boobies sitting on their  channel marker, "didn't we see you guys leaving yesterday?"

That evening we had 'sundowners' with Rob and Henma and discussed options for weather breaks to get to Seisia. 

It is now a week later and the wind is gusting up to 20kn in our sheltered harbour.

Sundowners have been on Easy Rider every other night - there are advantages to having a roomy catamaran.

We have stocked up on books and movies and there are now 5 boats waiting to go east.

I have been honing my skills at bread making.  I started on Foccacia  and Naan bread.  Then bravely tried making bread rolls.  It takes time but it's getting better.  I bought a loaf tin and some Lauke Bread Improver from town.

Take a look 

A Week in Gove Harbour

Weary and in desperate need of a shower, we arrived at Gove Harbour on the afternoon of Thu 27 Sept.  

After nosing our way through the floating residences in the bay, we found a particular bit of water that was just right for anchoring in.  Ian dropped the anchor and stood there for some time observing, just in case we had made a mistake.  Good, all was well.

Time to grab our towels and shampoo as well as our growing collection of rubbish and head to shore.  The Gove Harbour Boat Club is open Thu - Sun  so we were in luck and took out a one week membership for $10 each which entitled us to facilities we were in desperate need of.

I think we got our full value after that first shower.  They must have been getting ready to call the police to get us out.

Smelling socially acceptable, we went and had a meal in the boat club.  While there we met John and Barbara who were on their way to Darwin.  

The following day, we caught a bus into town (Nhullumbuy) to restock essential items.  We thought we would hire a car for a day as we needed to buy 4 jerry cans of diesel.  The bus driver told us that hire cars were $300 a day so we decided to do without the extra diesel!

As the bottle-shops didn't open till 2 o'clock, we needed to kill a bit of time - it was only 10 o'clock.  Lucky we ran into one of the others who had caught our bus.  He informed us that we would have to get a Liquor Permit to buy alcohol and pointed out the office where we could obtain it.

It was starting to look like there was not much you could do in this part of the world without a permit for whatever it was that you wanted to do.

So, off we went to the liquor permit place.  
"Are you in here for a Liquor Permit?" asked the friendly lady in the office.
"Yes", we said enthusiastically in unison.
"I'm sorry, but you'll have to wait.  The lady who issues those has been called to Darwin and won't be back till Monday."

We got our groceries, missed the bus by ten minutes and would have to wait for another two hours for the next one.  Our groceries wouldn't survive that long.  We got back to the boat club minus $35 for the 10 minute taxi ride.  Living isn't cheap in this town explained the taxi driver.  He told us how much he would like to go to Cairns.




This video goes for about 8 mins.  Ian appears in it for a short while as I pan around the audience, the rest is The musicians.


Saturday was AFL grand final day which was to be followed by a jam session at the club.  We sat through the last quarter of the match so we would be in time for the music.

Ian was impressed with Shane's skills on the harp.  I took the video camera and added a movie to You Tube titled Gove Harbour Jam Session.  



Sunday was NRL grand finals so it was back to the club to watch it with  John and Barbara.

Monday arrived at last.
We could get our Liquor Permit.
We could get alcohol.






We went for a walk around the wetlands behind the township between getting our permit and waiting for the bottle-shop to open.














A Brolga shows us how quickly he can fly away when he sees a camera.

                                                                                                                         


I managed to get a photo of this dragonfly before he realized he had a camera pointing at him - and flew away.

I went in search of a subject that wouldn't fly away.  This flower took my eye.  It belongs to the Morning Glory family.

Tuesday and we're still here.  As has become a way of life, we are waiting for the right weather to continue on to Seisia and down the east coast.

Peter and Shannon who are friends of John and Barbara had arrived.  They needed diesel too and managed to hire a car for $65!  They kindly gave us a lift into town so we could fill our jerry cans too.

That afternoon they were going in to Yirrkala Art Centre with John and Barbara.  

Having missed out on the Elcho Island Art Centre I was keen to have a look too.  As they only had one spare seat in the car, Ian decided that he had things to do on the boat and I should go along with them.

We were warmly welcomed to the centre and shown to a small theatre where we watched a short documentary on the centre and early history of Yirrkala.
Although a new building is in the process of construction, the present centre is quite spacious and well laid out.

There was many, many pieces of art, each very intricate in their designs, some required more than one artist to complete.  They were all constructed from natural materials, the baskets made from pandanus and grasses, dyed with natural dyes gathered from soil and plants.  The paintings done on bark, with ochre and other colours gathered and made by the artist.

Many other pieces of art, all requiring much painstaking work, patience and a ton of artistic ability with a story behind each one.

A short movie of the Art centre starring our new friends.

A great day was topped off by an invite to John and Barbara's 'Murrundi' for dinner where Barbara spoilt us all with a family favourite.  

  

John and Barbara departing on 'Murrundi'

Shannon and Peter make a picturesque exit
 on 'Tryphena"

 

Great food and great company, we were sad  

  to see them go the next day, leaving us hoping for a wind change.

          

A scaly resident  drops by to see what's for breakfast as we bravely watch.

                                                                                                      

Leaving tomorrow (we hope)See you at Seisia.