It's a long way from the Wessels to Port Essington especially without a mainsail. It took us two days and two nights, arriving just after midday. We timed our arrival so that we would go through the Bowen Straits with the tide. The straits divide the mainland from Croker Island. They are quite shallow so we were quite surprised to meet a small ship coming the other way with a prefab building on its deck. Around here there are a lot of fish farms and pearl farms. So you occasionally see a prefab on the otherwise empty coastline. The coast itself is featureless but not drab. There are no significant hills, just long flat lines of narrow sand backed by either mangroves or trees. In Port Essington where we finally anchored the coastline is percolated with occasional low cliffs, no more than 12 feet high. The cliffs are often coloured a deep cadmium red, and sometimes a white silicone colour. They penetrate the long pencil lines of white sand and trees creating interest in what would otherwise be a totally monotonous ooastline. Port Essington is often described as scenic which it is. Not beautiful but quite dramatic. It's a deep inlet into the promontory which forms a large natural harbour. You have to snake your way around numerous lines of small black buoys marking pearl oyster beds. The buoys are very difficult to see but eventually we got to the anchorage which was delightful. The sea was flat, there was little wind and we were able to recover sitting on the trampoline between the hulls.

We decided since we were on mud to deploy one of the crab pots, complete with a tin of cat food and some of the many fish which had landed on the trampoline during the passage. Next morning - yes - one small shark and one mud crab. We threw the shark back and it's crab for lunch.

We are now heading out of Port Essington picking up the tide once we leave,to a bay further West. We're going to wait there for the next tide to give us hopefully a push in the right direction. The plan is that we will arrive in Darwin tomorrow late afternoon - all being well