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Day 12 Port Douglas-Bali

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Woke up in a very hot boat and as the AC has been on all night that could mean only 1 thing, the AC unit has frozen up again.  It seems every time the boat stops anywhere over night it does this.  The fact that the temperature of the water in the marina is 31c may have something to do with it! Turned the AC to dehumidify and in 5mins it's al cleared, back to AC mode and pumping out cold air again, phew. Yesterday I booked to have the lock opened at 10:30 today so we could get out and on the quarantine dock outside the lock gates in time for our ABF appointment which is now 11:00 and not 10:00 as originally planned. Tea, breakfast, another tea and we were ready to get stuff done in time for our departure.  David washed the boat down while I wrote yesterdays blog.  Then it was down into the engine room which we have renamed the sauna, for some greasing of the shafts/variable pitching system.  This was a 2 man job as the grease gun is a little damaged and needs 3 h...
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Day 11 Port Douglas-Bali

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We arrived at the fuel dock outside Cullen Bay Marina at 08:00 spent 2 hrs filling up the boat with 3,605lts of diesel at a total cost of NZ$12,449!  She's now back up to capacity of 4,400lts for the next leg to Bali. We were ready to enter the marina at 10:30 but to get in you have to go through a lock.  Before you can go though the you have to go through an induction if it is the first time.  After our induction we went into the lock, Ben the operator slowly raised the water level by 3m, gates open and into the Marina we went, onto our berth, plug in the electric and water hook ups then proceeded to have a tidy up and dump the 4 bags of rubbish we accumulated since leaving Port Douglas.  Once that was done into an Uber and off to Coles the supermarket for a top up shop.  An hour later, A$300 lighter and 4 decent sized bags of groceries it was into another Uber back to the boat.  It is sooo hot and sticky it's nice to get into the AC of as soon as you can....
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Day 10 Port Douglas-Bali

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  A pretty chill day on the water.  I spent a good few hours sorting out admin.   Confirmed with Cullen Bay Marina that we will be there tomorrow.  Booked our clearing out with Aussie Boarder Force for 10:00 on Wednesday along with sending them copies of passports, boat rego, copy of the ABF authority to cruise for 12mths in Aus without having to pay import duty boat insurance, photo of boat and completed B333 form.    Then sent all that plus a lot more details to our clearing in agent in Indo and asked her to book us into the Benoa Marina in Bali (I was there in the Nordhavn in Dec) and arranged with her that she will look after all domestic cruising permits and clearances that the owners will need while they tiki tour around before they head to Singapore, Malaysia and finally Thailand.  80nm from Darwin and at 22:00 we got a call from another ABF plane that buzzed us and asked the usual questions - are we charter or private boat, last port of call, n...
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Day 9 Port Douglas-Bali

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Up at 06:00 this morning Sunday, after a really peaceful nights sleep at anchor.  Yet again there was an infestation of bugs in the cockpit some of them unfortunately got into the main cabin so we spent most of the day vacuuming them up as they appeared from under cabinetry.  Tiny little things. We left the anchorage just before 06:30 with calm seas and vertically no wind.  Headed south to the Cumberland Straite between Marchinbar Island and Guluwuru Island to get on the west side of them for the last 350nm run to Darwin..   The chart states “strong tide rips”.  WELL, I would call it more like breaking surf all the way across.   OMG! The photo below shows the route I had planned and the blue dotted line the actual route I ended up taking.  The swirls are a bit of a giveaway.  When I saw the surf I was ready to turn away and head back up the way we came and go around the top of the island some 30nm away but as we got closer I noticed that at e...
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Day 8 Port Douglas-Bali

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The day started off really well.  I was on the 06:00-12:00 watch and for the first 4 or 5hrs conditions were really nice, 10kts on the nose with a small swell.  Then it all went back to normal and by midday it was blowing 30kts and the sea state was unpleasant.   Around lunchtime we had an encounter with an Aussie fishing trawler who came within 600m of us out in the middle of nowhere and he was within a cats whisker of being on the right side of the No Fishing area I did have a plan B in mind and that was to duck into the long chain of islands called Wessel Islands.  We ended up in a really nice bay called Burston Bay on the northern Wessel Island. Just as we were rounding the corner into the bay with the 3D forward facing sonar on we get a call from an Australian Boarder Force aircraft.  The questions were - what is your port of registration, last port of call, next port of call, all answered and off they went after doing 3 fly by's!  Funnily enough ...
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Day 7 Port Douglas-Bali

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Now nearly midnight on Friday 13th, day 7 of this trip and to be honest I'm pretty glad this day is over.  The weather forecast lied to us.  It was supposed to be 10-15kts and 1m seas from just off the starboard bow.  Well we have had 10-20kts, 1.5-2.5m chop 45 degrees off the starboard bow but every now and then it would come round to the beam which this boat does not like, even with the highest giro stabiliser setting we have had a good few slaps and rolls.  We have had to put everything in the galley either under the table on the floor, in drawers or in the sink to stop it crashing to the floor.  I had to sleep in the saloon table area earlier as I was getting thrown around the bed and even getting airborne occasionally.   We are in the middle of nowhere then all of a sudden I get a target on the radar.  A 280m cargo ship has come out of some port in the Gulf of Carpentaria heading NW.  As I watch it closely and activate the target tracker...
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Day 6 Port Douglas-Bali

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We had a leisurely start to today, Thursday, up around 0830.  The boat had a good 'ol wash down as the heavens opened.  We also had hundreds of bugs all over the cockpit as we left the cockpit lights on as well as the anchor light just to make sure any foolhardy boaters saw us in the middle of the night.  Aussie bugs are next level!  They are massive. After looking at the weather forecast we decided to get going and head for Darwin.  It was forecast to be 15kts of wind and 1m sea on the nose which is no problem for this boat.  So we had an early lunch and got going at 12:00 Once we got back over the entrance bar to the river and around Cape York (the very top of mainland Aus) the conditions were not as expected.  We had a decent chop 45 degrees off the starboard bow which made the ride slightly bouncey and pretty uncomfortable.  This was caused mainly by the very shallow water around this area between 6-8m.  After battling our way through the...
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