The Flinders was a nice spot but we decided to get some miles under our belt and after securing the boom we left at about 10 am for the far North, travelling overnight to a place called Margaret Bay, a distance of about 200 miles. Once away from the Flinders the wind increased and we were soon using only a small fore sail to make our way North. There is something about dusk which affects seas and wind. As the temperature drops the wind increases and the sea gets more choppy. Just when you want to eat. After a few hours the seas settled and the moon came out about 9pm. Having a near full moon is always encouraging even when you have all the modern devices like radar and AIS. AIS is a particular boon. Ships have AIS transponders which transmit their name, location and course. This means that we can see that a large ship is coming up to about 40 miles away. We had been able to receive their transmissions for some time now but now we transmit ours as well. This has the great advantage that the oncoming ship sees a large dart on their navigation screens showing our little boat. The dart is the same size as that of a large ship. Coming up North ships follow a channel inside the barrier reef which gets narrower the further North you go. It also has corners as the channel winds through the reefs. There seems to be an iron rule that ships meet you at turns in the channel. The AIS transceiver means that we sometimes see ships move to deliberately avoid us up to 20 miles away, just as we do the same.

Apart from ships, mostly bulk carriers taking iron ore and coal to China there are numerous small fishing boats. These generally don't have AIS but have lots of lights and it can sometimes be quite confusing working out where they are fishing.

After Flinders there is little of great attraction in the scenery. Low cliffs with white streaks of silicone guard the land. The land itself often aboriginal reserves seems to be mostly wilderness and scrub. Incidentally in the second world the white population of the area were all evacuated to Brisbane in case of a Japanese invasion. It was feared that the Aborigines would support the Japanese so they were forcibly relocated with families and communities broken up.

The fishermen work in relatively small boats resupplying from mother ships and you see their boats anchored off the reefs during the day, resting before a night's fishing. During the day they drop crab pots. We planned to drop some but it means dinghying up the croc infested mangroves with your pot baited with cat food, and we have only been stopping overnight. Also we have been told that crocs have somewhat of a love affair with outboard engines and dingies and not to venture out in the dingy without a gun! Incidentaly in Cairns there is a company called Catch a Crab which takes tourists, Japanese basically out to drop crab pots and return the next day with delightful mud crabs. Only problem, the mud crabs have been fished out round Cairns. So what they do is before the Japanese return pop back and put some mud crabs caught further North in the pot. Joy on the faces of the Japanese tourists. The only problem is that apparently the guy who runs it sometimes has a little too much to drink and forgets to take the bands off the crab claws. Ooops.

It must take a rugged kind of individualist to want to work up here as a fisherman. You hear them talk on the radio with the complaint of fisherman worldwide "Plenty of fish but we're stopped from taking them. You just need to know where to look. Its all politics. The politicians just want to look good" they claim. Advising another boat about going ashore, "Yeah there's two or three crocs over there but I'd be more worried about the sharks".

We arrived just after midday at Margaret Bay, where a line of about five fishing boats where anchored waiting for the evening. The anchorage faces a beach and mangroves - prime croc territory but we didn't see one. We did wonder could one climb aboard? After all we had a sealion come for a sleep in the cockpit in the Galapagos! Anyway there were no croc incidents and we left the next day with the strong winds warning finally cancelled.

I looked over the boat's side as we were sailing along and saw about 200 white eyes apparently staring back. The islands around here are home to thousands of small black birds who sit on the sea and then suddenly take off in a cloud. A bit like the mutton birds you see North of New Zealand. Their eyes have a white ring round them. Red eyes in the dark are crocodiles. We have a theory that seeing a dolphin is a good omen, and we met a friendly bunch of Australian Hump backed dolphins and got a glimpse of a dugong. The photo is of the dolphin - best we could do.

So we are now sailing North with our gennaker out, and having to use an engine occasionally to keep our average speed over 6 knots. The next anchorage, Escape River is full of buoys for a pearl farm so we are keen not to arrive in the dark. From there the plan is to head over the top tomorrow, rounding Australia's Northern most point.