Yesterday morning (Sat 28th) we were up at 3.45am and were on our way a few minutes after 4am heading for Cape York, along with Te Wai Pounamu (a kiwi boat), Keshi (an Australian catamaran) and later on Musketelle and Celin (Norway) joined us. Started off with a lovely sail with 15-20 knots of wind but as the day got on the winds increased but we also had the tide running against us which slowed us down a bit and the seas also got bigger. We arrived just outside the Albany Passage at 4pm and into lovely calm water. The passage was great and at times hit 9.5 knots going through with the wind and tide in our favour, which is why we left so early. Unfortunately it was pretty murky so the photos I took won't be that inspiring. Once through the passage the wind hit us and we had planned to spend the night in the bay just around from Cape York but as it did not look very inviting we carried on for another 10 miles to Simpson Bay which is further down the coast on the mainland behind Possession Island. Seven or eight of those ten miles were in rather blustery conditions (35 knots) and we were consistently doing 9 knots plus and at times hit 10.6 knots!! Finally arriving at Simpson Bay at 6pm. We were feeling pretty weary after sailing for 14 hours and having sailed just over 100 miles. Needless to add we were in bed pretty early for us at 8.30pm.

This morning we up anchored just before 8am and headed off for the 10.8 miles to Seisa as we had to work the tide as part of the shipping lane is quite shallow. Had a good sail down until we got to the shipping lane when we had the wind and tide against us. Anchored just after 10am and two other yachts, Sea Bunny & Street Legal had arrived here yesterday.

Went ashore here this afternoon and had a walk around - the soil is red and even the road is red! Diesel and petrol are both well over $2 a litre here. Supermarket was closed for stock taking so will stock up on some fresh fruit and vegetables tomorrow. Have no vodafone service here and the two telephone boxes here are inoperative. It is an aboriginal town, which services the inland town of Bamaga. There are heaps of aluminium dinghies and boats all along the beach and lots of them were out fishing in them today just a few metres off the shore. Seisa takes it name from a family of Saibai Islanders who settled here in 1947, arriving aboard the lugger Seisa. It's name was dereived from the first letter of the names of the six brothers, these being Saguakaz, Elu, Isua, Suni, Ibuai and Aken.

Street Legal organised an early barbecue ashore for us yachties in here - Musketelle, Keshi, Sea Bunny, Celin and us. Te Wai Pounamu spent last night at Cape York and as they draw 2.5 metres, they were too late to be able to get in here so will come in tomorrow morning.

It looks like we will leave here on Tuesday to cross the Gulf of Capentaria to Gove which is 350 miles so we will have at least two if not three nights at sea. That will be a bit of a shock to our systems.