14 August 2010
A nothing morning again today. I refer to the wind or lack of it. We motored across Princess Charlotte Bay seeing nothing, seeing no one. Even the VHF remained silent. No brisk trade wind sailing conditions for us today but the forecast is for 15 to 20 knots later on this afternoon. What a wild and desolate place this is, which is of course is its great appeal. The Great Dividing Range, which has, up until now been hugging the coastline, has dived inland and is seen from afar as a series of hills, as it circles the great delta plains of this vast 30nm expanse of bay. We are sailing up the Cape York Peninsula. From here to the "Tip", as Cape York it is popularly known, we expect to have strong south easterlies to carry us on and around the top. This second overnight passage since our departure from Cairns, will take us to Margaret Bay around Cape Grenville our last and thirteenth cape on Australia's north eastern coast. Just as we had hoped by one o'clock the wind had filled in from the south east, the engine was silenced and Voyageur was creaming along under full sails. Understandably we are all now a little nervous when we use the engine since the snagging of the prop on the way to Lizard Island.
From here on in, it is considered inadvisable to go in the water due to the danger of salt water crocodiles. Off Eden Reef we come across a prawn trawler fishing fleet, five strong. They seem to be much diminished in numbers. We saw twice as many last time around. The next thing we see is the rising plume of smoke from two huge bushfires on the mainland, I suspect a not too infrequent sight at this time of the year. So there is life on this planet after all. There are but two settlements between Cooktown and Thursday Island, a distance of some 400nm. One an Aboriginal settlement on the Lockhart River and the other, a European one based at Portland Roads.
During the course of the next twenty four hours we have five capes to pass, Cape Sidmouth, Direction, Weymouth, Fair Cape and Cape Grenville. We day sailed the entire passage from Cairns to Cape York with Marian Tims of "Alera" as our guest. Now due to time constraints we do not have that luxury but nevertheless we have still managed to stop at the locations we thought were well worth revisiting. At the time we considered sailing up the east coast of Australia to be a unique and special experience. Now, reliving it for the second time, it is no less different and we are so happy to be able to share it once more, this time with Peter.
Once again, I have grossly overestimated our provisions and we have far too much food to use up by the 18th our rally rendezvous date on Thursday Island. Never has a crew eaten so often, so much and so well......
Susan Mackay