It started out great. There was plenty of wind and a fast (in this case, the flood) current, both from behind, which shot us through the channels between the Torres Strait islands. The islands blocked any swell, so we were left with flat, fast sailing on a beautiful sunny day.
The passage across the Gulf of Carpinteria presented some mixed sky views
We passed the last shipping channel buoy about an hour before the flood switched to ebb. That put us off of the shallow (10-15m) shelf and into the wider and deeper (50m) Gulf. That turned our five-knot flood into only about a 0.3 knot ebb. From there, the plan was to sail fast until about the halfway point while pointing a few degrees upwind of our destination. Both things would act as a hedge against the wind shifting unfavorably or unexpectedly dying during the crossing.
We had no problem going fast. The wind was right on the beam in the mid-twenties. Even with a superfluous reef in each sail, we were still streaking along quickly enough to get across just after dark on the second day if our speed held. Just after dark is still dark, so we had no plans of trying that.
As our course was almost perpendicular to the Queensland west coast, it didn't take us long at all before we had over a hundred miles of sea to windward in which the waves could build. After a few hours Begonia was rolling and lurching like we were on an actual ocean passage. That made moving about and sleeping difficult, which left us both looking forward to the far side of the Gulf.
By Day two, the winds were consistently ten knots above the forecasts, which meant our reefs were no longer superfluous, so we had to put in a couple more so as not to disrupt our theme. The winds heaped up the waves from uncomfortable to annoying. At one point or another, everything we hadn't bothered to stow properly found itself on the floor. The decks were constantly being covered with spray and, worst of all, the helm seat was getting regular splashes.
We were still going way too fast, so we rolled up the jib entirely. This does more than just reduce our total sail area by a certain amount, since the airflow coming off of the jib is directed into the mainsail, thus increasing its power. That slowed us down by a couple of knots, but we needed it to be more like five. With about forty miles to go, we decided we needed to heave-to for a few hours.
This unfortunately gave Maryanne a really boring night watch because she had nothing to do other than keep an eye out for other boats and make sure we didn't drift into anything. It was like being Captain of a parked car.
At midnight, when it was my turn, we still had a couple more hours left of being hove-to. I used the time to make some strong coffee and to review anything I needed to know about Gove. I had initially planned the super-safe arrival route in from the north around Bremer Island via the channel for big ships. It looked instead like the passage through the gap between the mainland and Bremer would be fine if the currents weren't too strong.
We were seeing AIS targets again for the first time since leaving the Torres Strait. There were three big ships and a small catamaran, all at anchor in or near the harbor. Then from about ten miles behind, a tug and barge popped up on the display. The guy seemed to be heading for the gap as well. I had just got us moving again and was about to call him on the radio when he called me. He confirmed that he was heading that way and asked for as much room as I felt safe to give. He also said, “If you're going that way, you'd better get moving. It's pretty tidal.” I figured he knew what he was talking about, so out came the full jib. We were now going to get there about the same time.
Almost. He passed us just before the narrowest/shallowest point. After the tug went by, with about a mile to go, the current was sweeping us toward the gap through flat but swirly water. Then the current slackened. Then it started going the other way. Standing waves formed behind us to each side and then across the whole gap. Then they started a slow march westward as they built. I was able to keep Begonia ahead of them, but just. The moon had set by then, so I could only see them by their bio-luminescent crests and of course, the sound. The current increased to around five knots. The adjacent land was starting to block the wind, so it got to where the only time we were making forward progress was when surfing down the face of the wave behind us. That wave was getting bigger and closer by the minute. I spent two hours with gritted teeth watching our four-steps-forward, three-steps-backward progress. My worry was that the increasing current would sweep us back into the breakers behind and we would either have to ride them out for hours, or risk turning sideways to them to escape the area.
One long and productive surf got us across the shallowest point into the deeper water beyond. The current slowed considerably there, disintegrating the waves into so many whirlpools. Our speed doubled and then tripled and before you know it, we were back to fighting a piddly little 0.5 knot current. The good news was that the transit had taken so much time that we wouldn't need to heave-to again.
Maryanne had slept through all of my drama and woke to us sailing smoothly over flat water. We did a couple of tacks past the anchored ships as the sun brought definition to the land around us, then we dropped sail and motored the rest of the way into Gove Harbour.
The bauxite factory and dock dominates Gove Harbour
We found space in a big bay filled with widely spaced boats on moorings. Gove has no marina. Surrounding the bay is a thin strip of low land, which is dominated by a big processing plant to the west. Everything in the whole area, including all of the other boats in the harbor, is covered in red dust. It gave the place a bleak feel that was also quintessential Outback Australian. The Northern Territory is the least densely populated district in the third least densely populated country in the world (only Mongolia and Namibia beat it! - Thanks for the fact checking to Julie S). The population is just under 250,000, which is about the same as Wyoming, the least densely populated state in the U.S. The Northern Territory, however, is the size of Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico and Montana combined. {Maryanne: For my British Friends, the NT has a population just a bit more than Peterborough, yet the size of the state is almost 6 times the area of the UK}. This nets a population density of just under one person per five square kilometers or one person per two square miles, one fiftieth that of New South Wales.
Gove is not a town per se, but a peninsula in Arnhem Land on which the Aboriginal town of Nhulunbuy resides. Nhulumbuy is NT's fifth largest settlement at just under 4,000 people (Behind Darwin, pop. 142,300, Alice Springs, pop. 27.900, Palmerston, pop. 27,600 – a Darwin satellite, and Katherine, pop. 6,100. Just behind Nhulunbuy is Tennant Creek, pop. 3,100). The Northern Territory has a total of only seventy-three pubs. Twenty-eight are in Darwin. Gove has five.
Also on the Gove Peninsula, and taking up most of its real estate, is a giant bauxite mine. The mine has a system of conveyor belts, which run for miles across the landscape to the single ship berth at the harbor. There, the ore is poured off of the end into giant freighters while others anchored nearby wait their turn.
Once our boat was secured at anchor and checklists complete, we went ashore to the Gove Boat Club to clear in officially. We had needed to sail to Gove as our first Northern Territory port in order to check in with the police for our Queensland/Northern Territory border crossing for Covid19. The officer who met us was completely unconcerned about our virulence, considering our route. We were worried they would be a little edgier as it was just two days after two men were caught arriving here from a Covid hotspot. He explained that their situation was different. They had arrived by plane from Canberra after driving from Sydney, then they lied on their forms about it. They are now quarantining at their own expense at a mining camp outside of Darwin, plus the cost of getting them there.
We asked the officer if there were any crocs around. “No, not here.”, he said, “There's one that lives on the beach over there, but not around here.”
The “beach over there” was not on the other side of the bay or anything. The beach he pointed to was on the other side of the breakwater protecting the dinghy dock. He might as well have said, “Don't mind that croc by the mailbox, he never comes onto the driveway.” Maybe we should start planning the Gove Triathalon, then.
When we were done with the police, we went to the office at the Boat Club. There, we met Sarah, the manager. There was something off about her. Then I felt an uncontrollable urge to get defensive. Wait a minute... I'm the only American in this village! Nope. It turns out I'm not, so is she. She grew up in Baltimore, Maryland. She met a nice Australian bloke while working in Las Vegas and, yadda yadda yadda, after a big fishing trip, she lives here now with him and their giant dog. From her, we learned what all of those people we see along the coast are called. In America, we call them fishermen or fisherwomen. We would have guessed Australians would call them fishies, in the tradition of truckees and bikies. Nope, I guess that could be confused with fishy, so it turns out they are called fishoes (the plural of fisho). All of those mobs of mates in the tinnies are fishoes.
Sarah was so nice it made us almost uncomfortable. She gave us two cards for only one deposit and then practically helped us carry our laundry to the machines. When we were trying to figure out our options for getting to Nhulunbuy to provision (cab, bus, rent a car), she eventually decided it would be quicker and easier for everybody if she took us in her ute (the Aussie abbreviation for Utility vehicle, i.e. truck, SUV) We made plans for a ride the next morning.
We piled into the truck and on the ten-mile, dusty ride in to town, she gave us the whole skinny on where we would find everything and where was a good place to have lunch. After a bit of shopping, we tried finding the cafe Sarah had recommended, but it was not on the list of the five the town offered. Perhaps I remembered the name wrong. We called her and she explained that our outdated map had called it what they used to call it, not what it's called now. Then she offered to take us there, so we didn't have to walk the mile in the heat. Well, how nice!
Nhulunby Town went mostly unphotographed
Then she said she meet us in ten minutes. She had just finished hanging laundry. That's right, she came all of the way back from home into town just to show us to the restaurant (The Refinery Cafe, run by New Zealanders served some delicious lunches!). Treating her to lunch was the least we could do. After returning us to the stores to do more provisioning, she did a third round trip to pick us and our groceries up, all while insisting she had nothing better to do with her day, which she surely must have.
The Gove Boat Club does dinner on Thursday to Sunday nights. We were planning to leave early Friday, but there was no way we were passing that up. That would be one pub down, only seventy-two to go. Sarah was there, serving beers to the widely spaced clientele with a smile. Her husband, Hayden was also there, finally finished fixing things for the day. It seemed most of the rest of the people within five miles were also there as their chef had a bit of a reputation. It was well deserved. The food was very good and clearly portioned for hard-working miners, not powder-puff boat types.
Hanging out around the boat club
After our meal, we spotted Rachel and went over to chat for a bit. We had met her on laundry day when we tried to nick her pillowcases. We were taking ours off of the line when we noticed we had too many. Rachel was sitting at her ute in the adjoining campsite, so Maryanne walked over to see if our extras could be hers. She came over and after much head-scratching from all three of us, we couldn't agree on which were whose. We eventually took five random ones and gave her the other three.
Rachel was with her husband, Mick, a commercial fisherman. They were on an extended holiday all of the way up from the South Coast. Mick could have been in a movie playing a character called “Mr. Australia”. He was built like he had spent a lifetime lifting hundred-pound things, was so tanned that he was half red and spoke quickly in an accent that Maryanne and I both had to concentrate on to follow. He and Rachel were also super-enthusiastic about everything. He loves his job. She loves her job (teacher). They love their house, their town, their neighbors, traveling and most especially, all of the interesting people they meet along the way, including (or especially – we couldn't tell) us! They made us promise we would look them up when we sail by sometime next summer. How could we not?
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