Gulf of Carpentaria to Cape Wessel

     Our next passage was the 330 miles across the top of Gulf of Carpentaria.  This passage has a reputation for short steep confused seas making for an uncomfortable voyage.   We left at about noon to catch the flood tide under Prince of Wales Island which gave us a good push for a few miles in the light winds. When we pulled up our anchor, the chain links had hundreds of 1cm size clams in the links, which took awhile to remove and toss back in the sea.   By 8pm that evening we had a reef in the main as the wind picked up and were moving along nicely.  Soon the seas started to get more confused causing a rough boat motion though not too bad.  By midnight we had 2 reefs in main and making great speed.  Saw 5 ships go by in the night.that were all on the same course, it appeared that if you kept just south of a direct line to Cape Wessel from Seisia you were out of the way and could relax.

   By noon the next day we had done one of our best days, 136 miles in 24 hours. We got buzzed by a large white and red customs airplane.  They called us up on the radio and said "calling yacht just buzzed  by airplane".  They wanted to know our vessel name, port of registration and next port of call.   They then checked up on us every day until we neared Darwin.   We had a pod of dolphins come up to our bows several times and swim back and forth under the bow obviously just playing. Sometimes they would do it for 15 minutes or so and then tire of our slow speed and zip off.
Late the next night the winds got a bit light and the seas eased a lot making for nice, but a bit slow sailing.
Later the next morning the winds picked up again and our last night out was somewhat uncomfortable  again but we were almost across.  We are far enough North to see the Big Dipper now in the North sky, the scoop is facing down or the pour water position, I believe back home it is up. Also saw our first flying fish on our decks a sure sign we are entering the tropics again.

We arrived at Cape Wessel near dawn  and by the time we sailed around the cape and down the West side two miles to Two Island Bay it was about 8am.  We dropped anchor in 20ft  at 11 05.325S    136 43.280E.  This a a very remote spot in Australia's Northern Territory, with no civilization anywhere near.  We went ashore after a bit of a rest and had a walk on a long beautiful beach, where we bumped into the crews of a couple of other boats and just sat in the sand and had a long chat.  Everyone is laid back and in no hurry.
   We spent a total of 3 nights here and really enjoyed it, it was our nicest stop between Seisia and Darwin.
During a walk on the South side of the bay you can walk for about a mile out to the South Point along big rock slabs that make for easy walking and beach's.  We saw about 25 wallabies and one smallish 3 meter crocodile and found several nautilus shells all along this stretch of waterfront.