Fai Tira blog Sunday 26^th September

Portland Roads over the top to Red Island 10:50.89S 142:21.75E

We arrived at Portland Roads after another great sail.  There were three prawn trawlers anchored in the bay two of which were moored back to back and looked as if they were mating.  The pilot book informed us that this was a small fishing community with a telephone box.  After dropping the anchor we launched the dinghy picked up the crew from Chisel and ventured across to the beach.  There were a family of aboriginals there.  The men were spear fishing and the women were minding the children who were swimming in the croc infested waters! We headed off to see what we could find, and low and behold there was a cafe (closed) and a couple of guest houses, the telephone box was out of order.  Portland Roads played a significant role in the Second World War it was a staging post for the American supply chain.  They had built a large jetty there, now demolished, and a huge airfield which is still in use but only by the Royal Flying Doctor Service and small commercial aircraft. Nearby were a couple of old relics.  (No I don’t mean John and myself) there was a single cylinder engine and a sign explaining the role this site had played in the war.  After a short walk and a chat to the cafe owner we headed back to the boat and bumped into and chatted to a couple of flying doctors who were visiting the local aboriginal settlement at the Lockhart River.  We returned to the boat to eat and watched the prawn boats leave to do there over night work. 

The next morning we set off for Margret Bay, which is just around the corner from Cape Grenville. We followed the shipping channel up the coast and didn’t encounter one big ship.  No we encountered TWO big ships one coming south and one going north.  They were converging on the narrowest part of the route between Fisher Island and Inlet reef and guess where we were, right in the middle.  I called up both ships on the VHF and confirmed they had a visual on Fai Tira and asked them what their intentions were.  As we were in the middle of the channel we acted like sort of a traffic island with the north bound container ship passing to starboard and the southbound tanker passing to port.  I had an interesting conversation with both the pilots on board, giving me very polite!! advice of where I should have been.  Both ships passed simultaneously with only a few hundred yards separating us all.  The Automatic Identification System (AIS) which we I installed before we left Dartmouth is one of the best bits of electronics we could have.  In fact one of the pilots was praising the use of it by small sailing craft as he went past us in the middle of the night via the VHF.

When we arrived at Margret Bay there was a another prawn trawler who was  unloading it’s catch to the “Mother Ship”.  As we dropped anchor they both headed off.  We stayed the night, and most of the next day, as this was to be our stopover, to time the tides right for our transit of the Albany Passage which is a narrow channel between the mainland and Albany Island.

It was about lunch time when we left for an overnight passage through the reefs, still in company with Chisel, to time our arrival at the Albany passage at low water which would give us a favourable tide.  The wind overnight increased and we had to reduce sail to the size of handkerchiefs to make sure we didn’t arrive to early and before daybreak. As it turned out we arrived as the sun poked its head over the horizon.  We past through the passage without a problem and headed for Cape York which is the very northern point of mainland Australia. With fantastic sailing conditions, and now in the company of Blue Magic and Jackamy who had caught us up, we rounded the Cape and headed down the east coast to Red Island in very gusty conditions. We watched both the bigger boats pass us, and with only a short distance to travel we arrived at Red Island and its mainland township of Seisia. When we arrived we were greeted by an Australian sailor who had been there since February.  He was really helpful and full of information, we invited him onboard for a cuppa whilst he told us all about the local community.  Seisia is the end of the road for the numerous 4x4 vehicles that tour the cape. After a while he went back to his own boat and we headed for the local well stocked supermarket. We re-stocked on all essential supplies except for Beer and Wine as there wasn’t a bottle shop for miles. In the evening we walked around town and watched a local aborigine catching a huge shark on the jetty before he let it go. We then walked to the campsite cafe which has internet but it was closed, so we headed for the fishing club where there was a couple of market stalls selling trinkets, so we had a couple of beers and talked to the locals.  Unusually there was a game of French Bowls going on. I would to loved to have joined in but it was one set of toys I hadn’t put on Fai Tira. So It was off to bed after a quick planning meeting with the Chisel crew.

Next stop Gove after a 350 mile sail. 

Sorry we haven’t been in contact with anyone recently, and the important events we’ve missed, it is a bit remote up here.  NO Mobiles or Internet. Even the coin boxes didn’t work.

Bye for now.

Pete, John and Dee.