OUR DUTY FREE ORDER

Aahhhh---thank heavens it arrived!!! At 3.00pm this afternoon, the duty free guys in Darwin arrived with our alcohol orders so after paying out $410, our half share in the order, we had onboard, 6 litre bottles of rum, vodka & gin! Then of course we have our home brew beer & ginger-beer, 60 litres of red & white wine & a mere 6 bottles of champagne, just for those special occasions! Will we have enough grog? That is the burning question! However, we've bought plenty of beer & ginger-beer brews so if we run out of everything else, we've always got that as a standby. Meanwhile, I think I'm going to enjoy a G&T on those hot, sticky afternoons in Indo, so I'll be thinking of you & of course, wishing you were here!

COUNTDOWN FOR THE RALLY DEPARTURE

At this stage, we now only have 2 more sleeps before leaving Darwin for Indonesia but we've been extremely busy catching up on all the last minute shopping. On Tuesday, we had a compulsory briefing at the Holiday Inn, Darwin, where guest speakers from Australia, Indonesia & Malaysia spoke of expectations of the rally. The room was filled to capacity & although we got the general gist of things, the Indonesians were very hard to understand so it gave us a bit of an insight as to what to expect with the language barrier.

Malaysia sounded wonderful, unlike Indonesia, where there are so many rules & regulations for yachties with clearing customs etc , so we'll really look forward to November when we'll arrive in Malaysia. It also sounds like a good option for leaving the boat in storage when we fly back to Australia at the end of the year, with one new marina offering free berths up until 2010, just to get yachts in there!!! Now that sounds like a bargain!

These trolleys have been at our disposal through the sailing club, ever since we've been here & I can tell you that we would've been well & truly stuck without them. The tides are quite large over here, so if you're out for the day, normally by the time you get back to your tender in the afternoon, the water is miles away. A lot of yachties have put little wheels on their actual tender, which normally works well, but unfortunately, we'd left ours in storage on the Gold Coast, so they weren't of any use to us at all! However, these trolleys have made easy work of manouvering the tender around & although at times there can be up to 50 or 60 tenders sitting on the beach at any one time, there never seems to be waiting time for the trolleys, which has been great.

The days have been busy since being here, & at last, with the pick-up of our duty free grog this afternoon, everything is finally DONE. Kay & Jim, off "Bach & Byte", had the use of a relation's ute for a few days so we were invited to pile in with them yesterday to go & do our shopping. I'd been dreading the thought of that task as my cupboards were just about empty & I knew it was going to cost me a fortune to restock. I also knew that we'd be able to buy food over there, but it was a matter of deciding which foods & stores we just couldn't do without. Anyway, after spending nearly $900.00 at the check-out, it was obvious that I couldn't do without quite a bit of stuff but the good thing is, that we won't have to spend any more money on groceries for ages---maybe even years!

There hasn't been too much socializing going on this week as everyone frantically goes about their last minute business. Radio scheds of a morning have had people still looking for information as to where they can buy spare parts for this, that & the other & surprisingly, people have even left buying their fuel until the last minute, only to find that they can't be fitted in until next week, after the rally departs! Bugger! But I guess that's just the way some people are & although they'll never change, they mostly seem to get by.

Saturday morning at 11.00am is when the fleet departs Darwin. We're really looking forward to it after nearly 3 weeks here, preparing for it, although we're not really looking forward to the initial congestion that will inevitably go with the START. Maybe we'll just hang back for awhile, then gun the motors to overtake everyone in the black of night!!

This will probably be my last blogspot for some time as I believe that internet connection will be very difficult to find, especially around the more isolated islands that we'll be visiting during the first stages. We've had our mobile phones unlocked so that when we have the opportunity, we can use a local sim card in them, but until then, we'll just have to rely on our HF radio, sailmail ,for our contact with family & friends.

FRIENDS COME & GO FROM DARWIN

Brian & Maxine from "Kinetic Energy", had travelled with us since leaving Airlie Beach in early May, so after nearly 8 weeks of enjoying their company, it was hard to say goodbye when they departed for the Kimberlies last week. But we each had something else to look forward to at this stage & with email, I know that we'll always stay in touch.

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Since being in Darwin, along with another 100 or so yachts in Fanny Bay, we've enjoyed some spectacular sunsets, so unlike the sunsets on the East Coast of Australia where the sun disappears behind mountains & bushland instead of sinking below the horizon of the ocean. With the local Indigenous people burning off the land on a daily basis, the smoke has helped produce the most amazing & colourful sunsets that I have ever seen & hardly a day goes by when I don't have the camera out to try & capture these special moments.

Our time in Darwin has kept us very busy with organization for our upcoming trip to Indonesia but we've still found plenty of time for socializing but barely a day has gone by when we haven't been on a bus trip into the CBD of Darwin to see Customs, organize visas, shop for charts, duty free goods & food etc so at this stage, where we have a week before departure, we are finally starting to relax & feel that most things have now been covered. It's always awkward without a car when you're sailing from A to B & although the bus fares up here are very reasonable at $2.00 per return ticket to where ever you need to go, the burden of having to carry huge amounts of groceries, & wine etc, becomes a pain. However, things were made a little easier for us there, when our friends, Pam & Harry, from Coffs Harbour , arrived a few days ago & hired a small car to do the touristy thing in Darwin, so we've been able to get our gas cylinders refilled & most importantly, been able to collect our wine order from the local bottle shop!

With leaving the country, we've been able to order some spirits through the duty free shop & have really taken advantage of that by going halves with another yacht in a case of gin, vodka & rum. It seems a bit excessive, especially when we don't normally drink spirits, but with wine being nearly impossible to buy over there, we thought we'd better have something to keep us going! Not to mention the 6x 10 litre casks of wine on order, along with the home brew ginger beer & home brew beer! We don't drink much----really!!!!!

Pam & Harry, being very thoughtful, decided not to stay with us for their 10 days in Darwin & without talking about it, took accommodation nearby. We were really disappointed because how can you party when you have to drive at the end of the night?! Anyway, that was overcome by having a sleepover & boy, did we party! The champagne flowed as we watched another glorious sunset ondeck & then we made up for lack of exercise, by dancing the night away until nearly midnight. Rock N Roll in the cockpit was cozy, to say the least, but we sure had fun & it was great catching up with our old friends again.

THE WESSEL ISLANDS

After crossing the Gulf of Carpentaria, in company with two other catamarans, 'Kinetic Energy' & 'Kularoo', it was time to finally relax & put that leg of the journey behind us. It'd taken us 54 hours to cover 372 miles & although we were all really tired from lack of sleep, we still felt that we needed to celebrate so an afternoon beach party was soon underway. The Wessel Islands are north of Gove & because it was such a beautiful area where we felt totally isolated, we decided to stay for a week. There was so much exploring to be done so we were kept very busy each day, walking the long, white, sandy beaches, the low scrubby inland & the vast waterways where there were heaps of fish to be caught. Of course there wasn't any diving to be done, especially with the crocodile sightings but the tidal lagoons offered plenty of fishing so we generally ate fish every day & usually had the choice of mangrove jack, barrumundi, trevallie or mackerel.

The weather, once we'd crossed the Gulf, was quite hot & the doona was finally stored so that we only used a sheet each night. The daytime temperatures usually sat around 32-34 degrees C with the humidity at 70-80%, making it rather sticky & uncomfortable. The aqua water of the bays looked soooooo inviting but with croc tracks on every beach, there was no way that we were going swimming, unless there was fresh water lagoons to be found.

We still had quite a long way to get Darwin & although we hated leaving the Wessels, after a week, we felt as though we were ready to go. Although our original intention was to explore all the little nooks & crannies along the way, we seemed to get caught up in the moment & tended to follow "Kinetic Energy", who unfortunately, had already covered these areas in previous years. So, even though we realize that we've missed a lot of great river systems etc, there'll be other times, I'm sure!

Coast Watch was on patrol every day before our arrival in Darwin & we were contacted from passing helicopters, planes or boats on a very regular basis, asking details of where our home port was, our last port of call & our next port of call. We certainly didn't mind passing on those details day after day, but I know that a lot of the yachties were over it & became quite rude over the radio. Totally unnecessary, in my opinion, but I guess that everyone is different!

Trepang Bay, which is in the Coberg Peninsula, was another favourite stop for us as far as fishing went. I actually ended up with RSI in my wrists from hauling in one fish after the other, but it was great fun & a great challenge as the mangrove jack, in particular, proved to be rather tricky when you caught them. They'd drag the line under the nearest mangrove or fallen log when they were hooked, so whether or not you actually got them in, was another thing!

We saw a few crocs at Trepang Bay & one set of tracks led right past a massive yellow buoy that had been washed up onto the beach there. It was HUGE & although it was made of a thick, plastic, it would've been a real shock to have run into something like that out in the waters, especially at night!