It was with the utmost relief that we sailed out of Fannie Bay and away from Darwin. It was time to leave all the covid/lockdown rubbish behind us. I felt incredibly grateful that we were able to escape in this way.
Over the next four days we made our way down the east coast of the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, stopping at Fog Bay, Cape Scott and Dooley Point. We mostly sailed, although several afternoons the wind died out completely, leading to us switching the motor on for a couple of hours to get to our anchorage. We spent a day at Cape Scott, walking along the long deserted beach.
During these days we saw no other people and no other boats, although we did have a visit from some dolphins, which is always very special.
The landscape was flat and fairly uninteresting, with many small fires burning along the coastline. The sunsets however, were magnificent. Since the ocean was now to our west, the sun was setting over the water, and with the smoke from the fires still lingering in the air, the colours were extraordinary. I hoped it was just a taste of what we could expect on the west coast.
Crossing the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf would be an overnight passage, a distance of 120 nautical miles. We needed to time our trip so that we arrived at Reveley Island, outside the Berkeley River around high tide. We had been hoping to sail the whole way across, to conserve our diesel supply, but unfortunately, it didn’t look like the wind gods were on our side this time. After sailing along very slowly at two to four knots for the first five hours, we switched on the engine to negotiate some shoals, and then found that the wind direction had changed, sitting squarely on the nose. And there it would remain, although light, for the rest of the passage.
And so we motored across the Gulf. The best thing about the light winds was the extremely calm sea state. I felt fine and didn’t take any sea sickness pills. It was so calm, I was even able to read a book, unheard of for me on a passage! We are obviously becoming a lot more comfortable with the idea of overnight sails, because we approached this one without any major preparations or anxieties. Learning from our last long passage, we decided on shorter, four hour watches each.
After an early dinner (of not very great pre-made pizzas) we stood on the bow together to watch the sun go down. Then I went to bed while Matt did his first shift from six to ten pm. I was on watch from ten until two am, a very uneventful shift that I spent listening to music and singing along to songs. It was quite pleasant actually. Matt was back up at two am and I gratefully retired downstairs to bed. It was during this next shift that we crossed the 129 degree line and officially entered into Western Australia. We had already changed all our clocks back so that we would be working in the one time zone on all our devices, as it was important to get the tides right entering the Berkeley River.
I emerged at 5.45am to find first light dawning, slowly creeping across the sky. About 15 minutes later, the glowing, shimmering red orb of the sun pushed its way through the soft pastels streaking across the bottom of the sky. It was a magical sight. Up in front of us we could see the towering cliffs of the Kimberley. Where all there had been was flat ocean for miles and miles, now we could see these impressive towers appearing to rise straight out of the sea. The sheer red cliffs, lit by the new light of the sun, had a glowing quality. It was truly striking, and was a very special and quite emotional experience for both of us. Here we were, finally, approaching the Kimberley at sunrise in our own boat, and it seems as if it will be just as spectacular as promised. A memory we will both hold forever.
Soon though we needed to turn our attention to the task at hand – navigating the shallow entrance of the Berkeley River. We were both feeling a little apprehensive and nervous about the depths and the approach. Although we had entered waypoints from a guidebook and another yachtie into our chartplotter and planned to follow the path they created, there was no guarantee that we’d be on the right track and that we wouldn’t hit the bottom on the falling tide. The tide had turned about an hour before we started our crossing.
Matt steered us along the meandering route and I stood on the bow, ostensibly to be looking out for sandbars or other obstacles, but I couldn’t see anything in the murky water. Matt was expecting to have plenty of clearance under our keel. That’s not exactly what happened though!
Slowly, slowly, we edged our way along the track, and on several occasions the sounder showed less than a metre under us. This was not at all what we were expecting and we were tense with nerves. The charts showed that we were in a channel of around 1 to 1.5 metres depth at zero tide, so with the 3.6 metres of tide we should have had ample depth. This was early in the crossing. There was still the bit the charts showed as zero depth to navigate. What on earth would those depths be like?? We knew that there were several huge sandbars out there, but were we on the right route to avoid them? We couldn’t tell. It was a leap of faith, and we just had to go slowly slowly and feel our way in . We twisted and turned, following our waypoints and the crossing of the entrance took around 30 minutes.
After slowly winding our way in, and coming perilously close to some rocks at one stage, we finally crossed into the river and found the deep water. We had arrived!! We were in the Berkeley River, in the Kimberley. Huge relief, along with extreme excitement and satisfaction washed over us. What a truly special and magical place we found ourselves in. We could not wait to soak it all in and explore further.
But first, coffee, breakfast and a nap were in order. We were in no rush. We were determined to slow right down and appreciate all that we could in this ancient and magnificent place. And we were to spend the next eight days doing exactly just that.
When you arise in the morning, think of what a precious privilege it is to be alive, to breathe, to think, to enjoy, to love.
Marcus Aurelius
Cool Change 