Sunday 28^th June, 0800 local time.  S10:46:843 E142:18:802

We finally made it to the northernmost tip of mainland Australia – just 2692 nautical miles from leaving Tasmania!  It’s beautiful up here – very different from what we’ve seen so far  (not that the rest hasn’t been beautiful) -  and the weather has been much better i.e. sun and no rain.  The wind still howls but today it’s down to ‘normal’ south-east trade winds of 15 – 20 knots.  We’ve visited Possession Island where James Cook claimed possession of the east coast of Australia for King George III in 1770 before he scurried off to Batavia (now Jakarta) in Java to effect (reef damaged) repairs to the Endeavour.  Bet he was glad to leave these reefy seas! 

We have just set off across the Gulf of Carpentaria for our 48 hour (ish) sail to the Wessel islands further west (about 350 miles).  It can get quite rough going across the Gulf as it’s quite shallow and with too much wind the seas build up with a very short, very steep chop – not nice.  The forecast is for lighter winds for the next couple of days so keep your fingers crossed for us.  I’ve taken the magic pill!

I’ll post our position on mailasail each day around this time if you want to follow our progress.  http://blog.mailasail.com/sy-supertedv not promising on any comments!

All the best

Jean and Matt

xx