The sailing trip of a lifetime where the Australian Outback meets the sea

“That sea positive is imply,” our variety driver observes as my salty trio climbs into his truck, contemporary off a rough-and-tumble crossing of the Gulf of Carpentaria. After 48 hours of swift crusing – double-reefed and browsing at 14 knots forward of a 25-30 knot breeze – we wholeheartedly agree.

The downwind surfs may need had us smiling, however the gulf’s walloping, side-swiping, tidal swell comes at you from one other angle fully, giving rise to its fame because the so-called ‘washer’.

Having arrived in Australia’s Northern Territory we hitch into Nhulunbuy from Gove Harbour for contemporary provides, staring out the window on the parched Arnhem Land scrub. Our new mate – an indigenous Yolngu elder – yarns about crusing and one gnarly journey when his Indonesian spouse threw up all the way in which to Sulawesi.

“However that was nothing in comparison with the Gulf of Carpentaria,” he says, and all of us snort and nod.

The Gulf of Carpentaria occupies an incredible expanse (some 120,000 sq. miles) between Australia’s most northern tip, and what’s domestically referred to as the ‘Prime Finish’. Cyclones brew up within the gulf at the beginning of yearly, then spiral outwards in all instructions. After they abate and the south-easterly commerce winds start to blow, crossing the gulf is all a part of the journey for westbound sailors making passage from the Pacific through Australia’s East Coast to Indonesia and past.

Setting out from Cairns within the safety of the two,300km-long Nice Barrier Reef, cruisers can dally on a distant shoreline, blissfully castaway on tropical isles and barely-there sand cays.

As soon as on the tip of Cape York, a transit lane squeezes boats by way of the Torres Strait islands that pepper the hole between Papua New Guinea and Cape York. To the west lies the Gulf of Carpentaria and one wildly pitching passage to succeed in Arnhem Land and cross the Arafura Sea to Darwin.

This largely uninhabited slice of Australia will be an completely idyllic cruising floor however the challenges stack up too: huge tides, boat-stopping currents, and estuarine crocodiles that make cooling off at day’s finish a probably deadly concept.

There’s a shortage of provide factors and restricted assist when issues go incorrect, however for remote-loving explorers it’s the stuff of goals, and sailors get to realize it greatest.

From Cairns, distant Darwin lies round 1,400 crusing miles away. The journey may take weeks or months, relying on how lengthy you spend diving Lizard Island’s fringing reefs, or whether or not the barramundi are biting within the faraway Wessel Islands.

It’s a visit to be savoured if schedules permit, and one which routinely turns cruisers into extra self-reliant variations of themselves.

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Escaping Cairns

We sail out of Cairns on the again of the season’s final cyclone, loaded low with gas and meals to journey the commerce winds north. Come April, these are winds you may rely upon, blowing steadily up Cape York at 15-25 knots on common and sending yachts into hiding at day’s finish behind many stable, north-facing anchorages.

In our first weeks we make abysmal progress, waylaid at progressively extra abandoned isles. From Low Islets to Hope Islands and Lizard Island north of Cooktown, we drag our heels snorkelling luminous, blooming reefs abuzz with blue noticed lagoon rays, inexperienced sea turtles and skittish colleges of monumental humphead wrasse.

We drop anchor in Watson’s Bay in 3m of the clearest water on the East Coast, scattering jauntily colored parrotfish. When a small saltwater crocodile settles into our anchorage, Lizard Island’s park rangers declare it solely a minor nuisance, so we scuba dive the Clam Gardens and sit on the seabed watching reef sharks circling overhead.

The route throughout the highest

Girthed by 24 shimmering, white-sand seashores, Lizard Island stays spectacular regardless of being routinely blasted by a number of the worst tropical cyclones on the coast. It incongruously hosts a five-star resort, a world-class marine analysis centre, and nationwide park campsites that you would be able to pay for with pocket change.

We swim ashore and climb lofty Cook dinner’s Look. It was this peak {that a} troubled Lieutenant James Cook dinner climbed again in 1770 as he looked for a means out by way of the maze-like Nice Barrier Reef. He in flip named Lizard Island for its ubiquitous inhabitants of yellow-spotted screens, and left a contented man.

After visiting the little-known Indigenous Australian ceremonial website tucked beneath the 359m-high summit we hike previous colonies of stressed black flying foxes to faraway Coconut Seaside, and deal with a daring abseil on a dodgy rope to succeed in a shoreline affected by excellent nautilus shells.

There are additionally dinghy adventures to snorkel the Blue Lagoon, and picnics at Mermaid Cove, all of which implies we depart weeks later.

Cape York has an extended historical past of guiding seafarers north. Picture: David Bristow

Cape York cyclones

Early within the dry season, Cape York cruisers regulate their barometers for any tropical lows arriving unfashionably late in season. After they threaten on the Cape there are few locations to run, however Princess Charlotte Bay grants us refuge when Cyclone Ann crosses the coast. We plunge deep up the Normanby River and strip the decks in readiness.

Once we resurface days later – after feeling barely a breeze – we sail to Flinders Island (Wurriima) to grill our catch of queenfish and watch dugongs grooming the very best range of sea grasses on your entire japanese shoreline. We uncover shell middens and an historic spring, and fish for scrumptious flowery rock cod as crocs cruise by.

The each day catch is baked at nightfall to keep away from crocodile encounters. Picture: David Bristow

Flinders’ distant group of sandstone isles belongs to the Aba Yalgayi saltwater individuals who fished, painted and had been buried right here. The Yindayin rock artwork shelters on Stanley Island are the most effective on Cape York, and the hidden path to Tombiembui Rock offers a surreal sea view. Unmarked graves maintain the stays of a cavalcade of hermits and entrepreneurs, and you’ll wander previous previous wells to the rock famously autographed ‘HMS Dart 1899’ by the survey ship’s crew.

Rounding the tip

With truthful winds, the leap from Flinders Island to the tip of Cape York will be tackled in 4 straightforward day hops: to Morris Island (60 miles), Portland Roads (60 miles) and Margaret Bay (45 miles). All present refuge earlier than the ultimate 90-mile soar to Australia’s most northerly level and round into shallow, spectacular Frangipani Bay.

Every of those anchorages has one thing particular to supply however Margaret Bay is a favorite amongst anglers, additionally holding a doubtful fame as a beachcombers’ nirvana. We observe the wild tangle of a path that sailors have marked with sea junk to succeed in Margaret Bay’s south-facing seashore throughout Indian Head. Among the many startling array of heaped up plastic flotsam, fossickers routinely discover fishing lures and snorkelling gear, buoys, buckets, jerry cans and wetsuits.

A mild starting within the Gulf of Carpentaria – a ceremony of passage for westbound sailors. Picture: David Bristow

We use our machete to crack open a spherical of fizzy inexperienced coconuts, and spot a packet of Assorted Cream biscuits that someway floated ashore intact. As a result of we’re hungry and have a curious little one in our midst, we dare one another to pattern two earlier than declaring them inedible and leaving them for the wild pigs.

The journey from Margaret Bay to ‘The Tip’ of Cape York will be damaged up with a nudge into the Escape River, or a horrible evening’s sleep at swell-plagued Bushy Isles. Through the southeast trades, quick runs include an enormous following sea and, with an early begin, we aimed to be tucked round Cape York in time for sundown.

We’d been on the helm because the early hours, racing forward of gale-force winds gathering to the south. Out of nowhere a dory seems, tossed clear out of the water with its propeller spinning atop an enormous cresting wave. It veers in direction of us for a loopy, mid-sea dialog, sidling expertly alongside our catamaran Wild One within the heaving swell.

Over the roar of the waves we affirm two issues: sure, we’re certainly all “mad bastards” and sure, we might most undoubtedly like a few of his catch of (often $100-a-pop) painted crayfish. These are thrown over our rails as we surf recklessly at 13 knots, Dave gripping the helm whereas I race across the deck, scooping up the crayfish earlier than the ocean claims them again once more.

Catch of the day – painted crayfish. Picture: David Bristow

Moments later the dory peels away, again to its mom ship rolling at anchor behind the slenderest of sand cays. We coast with the speedy flooding tide by way of Albany Passage at nightfall, rounding Cape York to toast a ‘Prime of Australia’ sundown with buttery, pan-fried crays and the final of our chilly beers.

Aussies contemplate it a should to stroll the brief, rocky path over Mount Bremer’s low-lying backbone of rock, and stand at The Tip watching Torresian imperial pigeons in flight. At excessive tide, you may dinghy ashore in shallow Frangipani Bay to snap the signal that claims you’ve formally made it. Frangipani Bay is a magical spot to anchor for the evening, with the primary provide level since Cooktown simply across the nook.

A breezy beachfront spot settled by Saibai islanders in 1948, Seisia rewards sailors with picturesque sunsets over Purple Island and the possibility to fill gas tanks and fridges. The native service station brings a truck down to gather our jerry cans, and we seashore our dinghy and wander to the grocery store to assemble fruit, veggies, eggs and extra.

We’re lucky to be in Seisia when a bee sting turns critical and, inside minutes of creating the decision, our daughter is whisked to the closest hospital in close by Bamaga for remedy. What follows is an unnerving cavalcade of ‘what ifs’ had our boat been wherever en route and out of attain of medical assist. However our daughter quickly recovers and we wait impatiently in Seisia for much less wind, then plunge by way of the treacherous Carpentaria Straits anyway, getting whipped for our restlessness by heaving waves and 30-knot winds.

Inexperienced sea turtles graze the seagrass of the Nice Barrier Reef. Picture: David Bristow

Battling the Gulf

The sail throughout the Gulf of Carpentaria is never a delicate journey. Having sailed it six occasions in each instructions, on totally different boats and at totally different latitudes, I’ve discovered none of those journeys to be fully nice. The direct route from Seisia to Gove Harbour clocks up 350 miles – a brief passage, however with south-easterlies snapping at your heels, there’s no relaxation available.

Halfway throughout, a steep, beam-on swell generally develops to compete with a windy, following sea. Even when your autohelm can deal with it, your abdomen could not. We snatch sleep – absolutely clothed – in between tiresome stints on the helm. Brown boobies battle to land (by no means an excellent signal), and go away us at dawn with a messy, fish-strewn deck. When somebody shouts ‘land ahoy’ as Cape Arnhem is available in view, the ocean state tempers so immediately we surprise if the situations had actually been all that dangerous?

Reaching protected Gove Harbour is a mid-trip milestone. Some sailors shoot straight previous, pointing excessive excessive of the Wessel Islands. However immersing your self in one in every of northern Australia’s friendliest and distant cities is a grand perk right here, and whereas hitchhiking the 13km from harbour to Nhulunbuy, we meet mine staff and radio DJs, financial institution tellers and our Indigenous elder mate, who provides cultural orientation courses on the city’s college.

Boats push north out of Cairns when the south-easterlies start to blow. Picture: David Bristow

Impressed, we rent a automobile and drive to Wurrwurrwuy, a sacred Indigenous Australian website the place Laramirri (Yolngu) folks and seasonal Indonesian Macassan fishermen established a mutually useful camp 170 years in the past. The Yolngu created stone preparations which are nonetheless intact at present – dugout canoes and beche-de-mer fishing boats – and traded searching rights for the canoes and stone instruments that arrived with the Sulawesi fleet each December. When the boats returned to Indonesia with the identical change of winds that carries sailors at present, intrepid Yolngu males typically shared the 1600km journey and inextricably linked household bushes on either side of the Arafura Sea.

The livid Arafura

Nicknamed the Ara-furious for its fierce-flowing tidal currents, the Arafura Sea is studded with uninhabited islands, precarious reefs and nice sweeps of abandoned sandy seashore. Fishing in protected anchorages, you’ll possible have to drag your strains in after an hour or two after filling your fridge and freezer with Spanish mackerel, queenfish and tuna.

The isolation of cruising right here can shock even the boldest of passagemakers, and except you arrive with them, different cruising boats are in brief provide. There’s little chatter over VHF radio and no telephone sign except you sail shut by the coast’s scattered Indigenous cities, making Starlink a reliable lifeline.

As soon as round Bremmer Island the Gulf of Carpentaria sea state tempers abruptly. Picture: David Bristow

Swift tidal currents operating between islands decide while you weigh anchor, and these can run at as much as 9 knots by way of the well-known squeeze generally known as ‘Gap-in-the-Wall’ or Gugari Rip. Travelling towards these tides is an exceptionally dangerous concept, however while you time issues proper, count on to attain dreamy private greatest crusing speeds!

A preferred route throughout the Arafura pushes west out of Gove Harbour round Cape Wilberforce to Wigram Island, and thru Cumberland Straits to the protected west aspect of the Wessel’s Marchinbar Island. Level straight throughout the Arafura Sea to New Yr Island, or day-hop down the island chain to attractive Guruliya Bay and Elcho Island earlier than making the in a single day leap to abandoned North Goulburn Island.

Right here we wandered with nice herds of goats and hiked alongside sweeping Malay Bay, earlier than flying by way of Bowen Strait previous Croker Island to tuck out of the swell inside Port Essington on the Cobourg Peninsula.

Wild, distant and greatest explored by boat, Garig Gunak Barlu Nationwide Park presents a number of the best searching and gathering on the coast. We go mud crabbing with head ranger Robbie Threat alongside Caiman Creek. The tide is all-wrong so we collect ‘lengthy bums’ as an alternative, pulled from clear tidal swimming pools and roasted over scorching coals. Threat, a neighborhood Larrakia man who grew up on such delicacies, declares them wonderful bush tucker, however they style like mangrove mud and are actually a tricky promote. As a substitute we head again to our boat to dine on contemporary oysters and tally up all the big crocodiles mendacity on the seashore.

Estuarine crocodiles make a cooling swim on the finish of the day a very dangerous concept. Picture: David Bristow

Earlier than crusing off, we motor deep into Port Essington to discover the Victoria Ruins, generally known as Murrumurrdmulya to the Madjunbalmi folks. Northern Australia’s first and boldest white settlement lasted simply 11 years earlier than isolation, malaria, cyclones and sunken provide ships buried 1 / 4 of its pioneers. Anchor immediately off Adams Head and go away your dinghy beneath the previous tamarind tree to wander trails by way of this idyllic spot, spooking the wild Indonesian cows generally known as ‘banteng’ as you go. Though endangered in Indonesia, Cobourg’s feral banteng symbolize the world’s largest wild herd, a legacy of Macassan fishermen.

Getting the tides proper is the hardest a part of working your strategy to Darwin. Picture: David Bristow

Dundas Strait to Darwin

The hardest problem of finishing the final leg is getting the tides completely proper. Work with them and it’s a brisk run into Darwin; get it incorrect and also you’ll be handled to one of many worst sea states of your crusing profession.An unlimited quantity of water and wind will get funnelled by way of the 15 mile-long opening to Dundas Strait, making for uneven situations and robust tidal streams.

Overfalls seem the place shoals rise from the seabed, and the equalisation of various tidal ranges – 2m tides within the Arafura Sea and 7m tides within the Beagle Gulf – churn Van Diemen Gulf right into a steep breaking sea.

For an excellent, swift run, purpose to be round Cape Don simply because the tide turns westerly – about 4 hours earlier than excessive water in Darwin. With sufficient pace (not less than six knots of boat pace plus the additional two you’ll achieve from the tide), you will be by way of Dundas Straits and the Van Diemen Gulf in time to catch the flood tide and a swift journey previous the Vernon Islands into Darwin. Put together for 25-30 knot winds when the south-easterlies blow within the dry season, and plot a course that avoids any shallow patches, regardless of how tempting the shortcut might sound.

The largely uninhabited Gulf of Carpentaria will be an idyllic cruising floor. Picture: David Bristow

If the day doesn’t go to plan, Cape Hotham presents protected harbour (albeit on a reefy shore), positioned midway simply earlier than you shut on Clarence Strait. The Clarence Strait spits us out of its pitching, quickening present and the wind lastly tempers. Forward of us, Darwin’s shiny metropolis lights blaze and adrenalin ebbs away to get replaced by a brand new sense of trepidation.

After so lengthy in isolation, Darwin’s greatest dry season anchorage at Fannie Bay appears dauntingly busy. We briefly crave a slice of metropolis life, nevertheless it proves no match for the joys of the subsequent journey, and shortly all ideas flip to our passage to Indonesia.

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