So far the anticipation has been somewhat greater than the event. The Arafura Sea lies between Australia’s northern coastline and Papua New Guinea and then Irian Jaya.
We left Thursday Island at a cracking pace with good wind and current and flat seas. The water was an unbelievable turquoise colour, much like you see in Mexican silver jewellery and we sailed out of the Torres Straits at a comfortable 8 knots with just the heads’l and mizzen. At that rate the 770 naut. mile passage to Darwin would over in 5 days. Why can’t it always be this good!
All too soon the dream conditions returned to varying levels of normal. The good winds continued for a few more days, then dropped to 7- 10 knots. This old lady doesn’t even show up for work unless you can show her 15. But we kept reminding ourselves to relax, and we did, even when we were ghosting along at 2.5 knots.
At that pace we don’t skim through the water either. We kind of wallow through every wave. It’s uncomfortable sailing and Sandy and I have both found our poor old bods aching all over like the second day after starting back at the gymn. You have to hold on, pull yourself up, let yourself down, brace against every jolt, 24/7. It’s exhausting!
The sea changed colour too. We’re used to the various shades of blue, green and indigo, but this time we could add greeny blackie inky to the list. It was very strange. The water wasn’t dirty at all. In fact it was beautifully clean, but it had an ominous darkness to it. In my fountain pen youth we used to get blue/black ink. This was green/black, but clear.
But we’ve had our highlights too. Dolphins joined us again. It seems like such a long time since we were seeing them regularly. We’re also back in flying fish territory although not as many as before, and none landing on the deck for bait. Sandy has reeled in a variety of lures with the business half missing. There is some big stuff out there. One gave us an exciting moment when we heard the reel run out. She was up in a flash and the fight was on. Sadly the line suddenly went limp. He’d taken the lot, including the only lure that has shown real promise. In these waters red seems to be the magic colour.
We had another moment of excitement when the radar alarm went off. We set 2 alarm zones, the outer one at 6 miles and the inner one at 4. We quickly saw the dot on the inner circle and were puzzled that something could have come through the outer circle without triggering it too. A quick look through the binoculars showed it was an aircraft flying low over the sea, coming straight towards us. It must have been descending but still too high at 6 miles, and low enough for the radar at 4.
As it flew low over us we could make out an official ‘sticker’ on the side, but not what it was. I made sure the vhf was on channel 16. Sure enough a few minutes later we got a call.
“This is Australian Maritime Border Patrol calling the ketch on a westerly heading. We’ve just done a pass over your vessel. Over”
We responded, gave our name, port of registration, number of persons on board, last port of call, and destination. And that was it. Just doing their job. They wished us well for the rest of our journey. I guess we don’t fit the profile of a people smuggler vessel.
Our other highlight was last night’s sunset. The sky had little cloud but what there was took on interesting colours. As we watched the gold disc slip below the horizon, there it was, that elusive green flash. Many people never see it. This is our third time and was the second best one. The best was still at Lady Musgrave Island. The first was in the Pacific and we thought it was great at the time. We’d never heard of them before sailing and were very skeptical. But they’re real and only seem to happen over water in certain conditions, whatever they are.
Until next time...