Truant Island
Truant has a lighthouse, but otherwise no human infrastructure. The seas were getting pretty big by the time we got there and we were happy to duck behind the island for protection from them. As we made our way to the beach at the far, northern end, we saw several sea turtles. Two of them were engaged in starting up the next generation.
We found a spot in seven meters depth over sand and dropped the anchor there. There was still a little swell making its way around the island, which varied between pleasant and annoying, depending on where we swung and the height of the tide. The beach was beautiful, clean, white sand, but the swell was making a big surf we knew we'd never be able to successfully negotiate in the dinghy, so we had to content ourselves with looking at it from the boat. We did notice several big tracks going between the grass line and the water. One of them was obviously a croc, but the rest seemed to be from turtles climbing up to lay their eggs. We scanned the shore periodically with binoculars, but never saw any of them. We know they prefer the cover of darkness, but we were hoping to catch an early bird.
After our second night at anchor at Truant Island, we had become pretty tired of the constant swell, which we now decided was 100% annoying. We waited until about an hour after dawn and headed out.
Our sail was almost dead downwind to a gap in the long string of the Wessel Islands called Cumberland Strait. The current goes ripping through there four times a day at speeds of up to twelve knots. That can turn the whole area into a real nightmare of whirlpools and big standing waves. There is a much more "famous" gap further south along the chain – the Gugari Rip, otherwise known as the 'Hole in the Wall' which is a much narrower pass, but our route and plans meant we were better off using the more northerly pass.
Our plan was to arrive at the end of the northwest-bound ebb, just before slack water. That would give us a little push through, with wind and water both going the same direction. My intent was to leave early enough that we could use as much jib as we needed to make our arrival work out correctly. Once we were underway, however, it was clear that we were not going fast enough to make it, even with full jib. We rolled it up and replaced it with the spinnaker. That took care of things nicely. Now we were going to be an hour early, which will be easy to fix on the other end.
When we got to Cumberland Strait, we found it a little choppy as water from both sides was rushing to the gap, making for confused seas. Closer in, things smoothed out considerably. As we entered the narrowest part, the depth went from 115 meters to 25 meters to 75 and then down to eight. That's where the current really picked up, flushing us through with a five knot push. The seas were flat, although there were eddies everywhere. They weren't strong enough to overwhelm our rudders and make it hard to steer a straight line through. We had doused our spinnaker five miles back. We were worried that if there were big waves or strong eddies, we could get turned sideways enough to collapse it or get it wrapped into an hourglass, which would make a bad situation even worse. In truth, we probably could have left it up and delayed starting the engines, but we would rather be safe than sorry.
Timing makes for an easy passage through the Cumberland Strait
Once through Cumberland Strait, we made a turn to the south and anchored at the nearest bay on the northwestern tip of Guluwuru Island. We anchored in four meters over a flat sand bottom. Cradling us was a mile-long semicircle of smooth sand, made pristine by the previous night's high tide. There was a small gap and then another long island to the south acting as a breakwater. Ahhh, there was no swell here. We were going to really enjoy that.
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