Slingshotting
03 June 2011 | Darwin
michael and jackie
Well we finally made it. The last stage of the journey was round Cape Don and then South into Darwin. We left Port Essington and moved to a smaller bay called Popham Bay. It's just North of the Cape. We then made lots of calculations with tides and figured out that if we left around midnight we would have the tide helping us round Cape Don, and then helping us again as we left Van Diemens Gulf and passing between the Vernon Islands. Leaving at around 11 pm the stars were stunning in a bright sky. The sea was dark black in contrast, but full of flashing bursts of phosphorescence. Van Diemens Gulf is a bit like a bath tub into which water flows in and out from both ends. This means that if you time it right you can get help from the tide coming in through the North entrance and then further assistance from the tide going out through the Southern exit. It's a bit like spaceships using the gravitation of planets to slingshot through the galaxy. In the distance behind us we could see a lot of light but could not work out what it was. Surely there were no houses out here. It soon got larger as the cruise ship, Dawn Princess charged past us. By this time we were averaging 8 knots as we headed down from the point, hitting a comfortable 9 knots at time in fairly flat seas. The tide was giving us an average 2.6 knots. This went on through the the night, dropping off just before dawn. Then as we got to the Southern end back up again with the ebbing tide and we rocketed into Darwin now with a slightly bumpier sea. We arrived at Francis Bay just after 3pm and anchored there. Because of the big tides the marinas here are protected by locks, and boats often have their seawater intakes disinfected so as not to pollute the closed waters. Luckily we just had to sign a declaration that our boat had been recently antifouled and that was it.
The following day we wound our way up the creek to Bayview Marina. You weave around lots of moored boats up a shallow narrow channel lined with mangroves. Many of the boats have obviously never moved for a long time. Some of them are more like houseboats, full of domestic equipment, herb gardens, and bits of bric a brac. The narrow lock gates opened and in we squeezed. Our previous experience of locks was Panama - this was somewhat narrower with only a few inches on each side.
Bayview is a pleasant spot, quite a long way out from the CBD but the lockmaster kindly lent us his car to get around. The company provides him with one, he explained, so he doesn't use his own.
We're now busy getting rid of all the salt off the boat. I don't think we have ever had so much salt - all the ropes are completely rigid!