"Tiare Taporo III" at Port Essington Lat. 11 degrees 09.1' S Long. 132 degrees 08.4' E

Well, today is a red letter day. We had been persuaded by Bill on "Kularoo" to come with them today on a 51 mile leg to Port Essington which is a real jumping off point for Darwin. This entailed a 0500 start from Valentia Is. to arrive here in daylight. The first leg of 8 miles was due west to the southern end of Bowen Strait which is a mostly fairly shallow 15 mile stretch of water west of Croker Is. and the mainland further to the west. Just as well we have the chartplotter because the physical landscape features are so devoid of individual character and low lying that they are not visible until about 5 miles (or less) off. If one was dependent on compass bearings it would be difficult indeed because usually there's nothing obvious to take bearings of. Even approaching Bowen Strait just after dawn gave no indication of the navigable pass up the mainland coast until we were almost upon it.
However, at the waypoint we turned onto the first compass bearing (314 true) full of foreboding as to the likelihood of there being enough water under us. However, we needn't have worried because at times there was over 80' and sometimes around 20'! Then we worried until the depth slowly increased again. The other concern was the tide which is significant through there. But again we needn't have worried because apart from a fairly constricted area where the current was 2.5 knots against us (and we used the engine) the rest of it only had a maximum of 1 knot against us and we sailed the whole way with poled out genoa and single reefed main prevented on the other side (goosewinged). Then as we exited the northern end of the strait the wind piped up to 25 knots so we went head to wind to further reef the main - then set sail once more. Even with this much reduced sailplan we were keeping up with "Kularoo" - often only 100 metres separating us. Mostly the sea was fairly flat as we were in the lee of Croker Is. just about all the way to Danger Point where we started to head west again after taking care to round Sandy Is. no. 2 on its outside. All quite shallow and quite bizarre to be rounding a major point or cape in 30-50' of water. Not like the rocky crags of Cape Brett with its 200' of water close in.
Then it was a straight downwind run to Smith Point which marks the eastern entrance into Port Essington which is a very large inlet 18 miles long. There's a nasty reef with breaking seas off the point to which we gave a wide berth - about a mile. We were achieving over 6 knots with our small genoa and double reefed main in over 20 knots of wind. The coastline remained very low lying and absolutely featureless so it was only the charts and chartplotter that gave any indication of the deep inlet round the point.
When we turned for the run in we then had the wind on the beam and we fair steamed into Essington almost gunwhales under! A fitting end to a most successful day. The anchorage is a bit rolly but it's a means to an end and tomorrow we are going across to the Coral Bay Resort where apparently you can swim in their pool for $25 per boat and have lunch for $25 per person which we are looking forward to.
Civilisation again at last!! Darwin just round the corner.
Cheers and love from us........
Jim and Jean
www.tiaretaporo3.blogspot.com

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