Sailing around the world

Finally made it. Sailed around Cape York today 27 May, the northern most tip of Australia.. The journey has not been without incident...

Decided that we had waited long enough for our new spinnaker to arrive from Cape Town. So left Southport – but not before watching the Royal wedding on a fellow cruiser’s boat. Yes, the one with the telly. We sailed via the inland waterway route and stopped first in the Broadwater channel to wait for the correct tide. Part of the route is very shallow and with high tide it is not a problem for us. Next night we were at Tangalooma a beautiful spot in Moreton bay, 15 miles opposite the river entrances to Brisbane but up anchored and headed for the other side of Moreton bay at midnight as the wind had swung south west and made our anchorage uncomfortable to say the least. Here near the Scarborough marina entrance we could at last have a restful night. Then on to Mooloolaba where we had arranged to pick up our sail, but alas, still not arrived and when it did it took nearly a week to clear customs and quarantine! The sail however is quite stunning - all black and mean but not so good using at night. We left Mooloolaba the next morning.


Stopped at Pearl bay, then the Whitsundays for a quick grocery pit stop and go. It turned out to be 4 days! We left Whitsundays in a blow 30 knots and strong wind warnings. As I went up front to organize sheets for running under the jib I noticed the forestay toggle, the stainless steel fitting supporting the front of the mast had broken right through on the one shoulder. Yikes! Fastened the spinnaker and spare jib halyards around the forebeam, lowered the boom onto the coach roof and headed back ever so gently to get a new fitting. 2 days later – all fixed although I could not get the same part, I managed to get hold of a heavier one. Lorna and I managed almost all the work ourselves. Rob from Stamper, did lend a very welcome hand though..



Left again in strong winds with it reaching its peak off the Gloucester island head – 47 knots, fortunately it was brief. Arrived at Mourilyan late on the 2nd day and stopped overnight for a break. Next stop was Cairns where I sourced 2 stainless steel bolts as I could only get galvanized ones in Airlie beach.

Then onto Port Bedford for an overnight stop.

Next was Lizard Island the Mecca of the cruises here in Aus. Many of them make this the limit of their pilgrimage northwards. Beautiful island and compares with some of best in the Caribbean, pity the weather does not always play along with its many days of rain, overcast and blowing.


Time for the buoys

Then a long sail to Seisia on the western side of the York peninsula, before getting there we decided on a stop at Escape river as we were looking forward to seeing the rounding of the Cape York by daylight and experience the magical 6 knot current from behind through the Albany passage. Alas, this was not to be. What a disappointment. It all went wrong at the mouth of the escape river. We did not escape unscathed.

We were really tired and decided this would be a handy night stop as recommended in our cruising guide book. It was blowing 30 knots or so with big roaring seas, communication was by shouting and we were both tense. We looked forward to starting refreshed the next day. We arrived at 22:30, a dark night, no moon yet and we relied totally on our electronic charts to find a comfortable anchorage.

Next minute, we hit something. What was that? It was like a clattering into skittles. Then the port engine cut and the boat stopped dead in the middle of the river still much too deep for anchoring. Here we go again. We had sailed into a fleet of black plastic bowling balls, the mooring buoys of a pearl farming raft. No warning, no lights and these hard plastic floats were strung together with line at least 40 mil thick; being black we had no chance of seeing them. By torchlight we could see that there were at least 70 of these under our bridge deck and portside hull. We were hooked solid on the port side prop. We could not free ourselves at night – at least we did not have to bother with an anchor. But, try to sleep – we were in the middle of the river, 30 knots blowing in from the sea behind us, waves crashing into our transoms and these floats making one hell of a din bashing into the hull and underside of the bridge deck.


It was a long sleepless night. Gardening at the time sounded like a very attractive option. Next morning the we were on our own, no one to help so after all sorts of plans we set about freeing ourselves by trying to untangle the string of black pearls. To add to all this excitement, this is crocodile country, every year some people get taken by crocks. When I accidentally fell in overbalancing on the transom as I tried to free yet another float I really thought the end had come. After a desperate struggle I managed to get back on board with Lorna’s help but minus my shoes. They were of no consequence in comparison with me being a tasty treat for a croc. I was a bit shaken up but soldiered on bravely. Lorna afterwards thought this very funny and it reminded her of an animated cartoon where you would run on air on the spot before dropping into oblivion. I did not even get my shoes in the water, they were lying on top of the floats, we retrieved them with the boat hook, thankfully those were the only crocs we encountered.

We launched the dinghy and hack sawed through more lines. After hours of hard physical work we were finally ready to cut the last restraining line and we would be free. There were 2 further floats under the hull wound around our port prop that we could not get to. The water was still very rough and neither of us felt like a swim with the crocodiles. So we set off with these like a newly married couple dragging debris behind their car. We should have put up a sign, “Newly unattached, just freed”

Of all the Pearl farms of the world, we pick the one with no oysters and no pearls.

We managed to find more sheltered water along the route to cut the floats free but still have rope around a prop. Not sure how we will deal with it yet but we are not inclined to set off without a fully functioning boat.

Great news, I managed to get the last few tangles off the prop from the dinghy while we are safely anchored here off the aboriginal village of Seisia. In the morning 29th May 2011we are off to Darwin.