Blog 28. Friday 14 June. At sea. 20.04.15S 148.35.94E
Alcedo
David Batten
Fri 14 Jun 2019 04:14
Dawn breaking as we leave Woodwark Bay, with Venus still showing and very little wind.
Needless to say, the weather is suddenly better for being anchored off coral bays and for snorkelling and lazing around in the sun. Not so the last 2 days, when we have had considerable cloud and more wind.
Nara Bay was beautiful and the the Cockatoos very tame, as we had been led to believe:
Lots of Cockatoos to welcome us to Nara Bay. Ship’s Boy not happy with their little calling cards when they had left.
Nara Inlet was a settlement of sea fairing aboriginals and it is still a special place for them as testified by the notices and recorded memories of some of their descendants.
David and Bill listening to the recordings of the families of Nara aboriginals.
The one cave you are allowed to visit that still has some of their original paintings
We moved the boat down the inlet after visiting the aboriginal site and anchored in Refuge Bay behind the reef that help protects it from the south easterlies. The bay has very good holding and gives good protection from all wind directions. It is pretty devoid of fish life, but we did see an eagle, an Osprey and a Brahminy Kite and one kingfisher.
The bay also has some interesting rock formations.
Yesterday we motor sailed to Woodwark Bay, a huge bay with a very shallow head, so we experimented with going a bit closer to the beach with the keel up. As you can see, not that close!
We also made contact with Stuart and Ann Letton of Time Bandit, friends from several rallies including the Caribbean 1500 and part of the World ARC and who we also saw in New Zealand. They are doing the Indonesian Rally and are a few hours ahead of us, also making for Cape Upstart.
More good news is that the Indonesian Consulate in Sydney rang to confirm they have received our Visa applications for Indonesia and to collect the fees. As they have our passports, we were relieved to hear from them and feel there is a good chance of finding our passports and the Visas in Cairns when we get there!
For now, we are continuing to motor sail in fine weather with the fishing lines out.
Very hard work this fishing business!
Alcedo
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