South Goulburn Is. Lat. 11 degrees 31.3' S Long. 133 degrees 23.6' E

This is the final push towards Darwin. Yesterday we left Elcho Is. in the morning and sailed all day through the Arafura Sea north of the Crocodile islands (which have lots of unsurveyed water within them) and on to the Goulburns - 150 odd miles in total. We left on the morning of the 26th. and arrived here non stop after an overnight sail today (27th.) at 1430. A mixed bag of sailing. We had light conditions when we left and then the wind came up a little and we deployed our secret weapon (the UPS). This worked well for a while when we were on 293T for 45 miles but then when we changed course north of the Crocodiles and came around onto 268T the wind piped up and went NE. By then it was dark and all we could do was sail NW in winds which freshened to 20+ knots. We were hooning along under single reefed main only when after a few hours the wind started moving SE again and we were able to lay the channel between North and South Goulburn. Off the northern Crocodiles we had to avoid some shoals in the dark which thanks to the chartplotter we did. But it's a surreal feeling watching the depthsounder in the dark tens of miles from anywhere for shallow water. It went from 100' down to 40 or so but then soon went back down finally to 150'. We had a brisk sail all night and at dawn were 50 miles from our destination. Still blowing and we were on course. Some discussion with "Kullaroo" ( an Australian catamaran we sailed in company with) about the best approach to the Goulburns because strong tidal streams are a feature of this coast. We worked out that we would in fact approach the channel between the Goulburns around midday which was when the tide started to ebb in our favour so that worked out well. Tides are all important round here.
We couldn't see the Goulburns until about 5 miles off as they are the usual low featureless islands but the chartplotter guided us in. We anchored very thankfully after not much sleep and lots of rolling. The water is cloudy and discoloured - much the same colour as the South Is. alpine rivers when the snow melts. But all fully surveyed around here and the anchorage is secure. On to Valentia Is. tomorrow (42 miles) and Darwin 4 days later. The trip from Cairns is a marathon and we will be very glad to be finally there in Darwin. One more major challenge and that's the tidal currents in Van Dieman's Gulf before Darwin. Timing is everything but we think we have it sussed. The tidal range is 6-7 metres and the marinas are behind locks to keep the water in!
Message from Jean: Happy birthday, Jo and hope all is well with you and the boys. Love to hear from you or them sometime.
Lots of love from us.............
Jim and Jean xoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxoxo

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