Day 43, Year 3: Cape York to Seisia
Date: Saturday, June 21, 2008
Weather: Overcast with Drizzle; Winds SE Variable
Latitude: 10 degrees 50.908 minutes S
Longitude: 142 degrees 21.757 minutes E
Location: Seisia, Queensland, Australia
Total Miles Today: 20.44 nautical miles
The weather is definitely dominating the scene and all decisions we are making right now. I really wanted to stay at Cape York another day so I could climb to the top of York Island, but that didn’t happen. A huge high pressure system, a 1041, is moving east across Australia and causing havoc everywhere. Neither Mark nor I ever remember hearing about a high pressure system greater than a 1036 since we have been in the Pacific, so this one is what they call a BFH-BIG Fat High. We have had drizzle
off and on all day, so our twenty mile trip from Cape York to Seisia was not as nice as it could have been. But visibility was okay and it wasn’t raining hard, so no complaints mate. When we heard on the net this morning that boats that left Seisia to cross the Gulf of Carpentaria in the past couple of days are getting pounded with 35 to 40 knot winds and 6 meter breaking seas, a little drizzle was fine with me. We have heard that you should never try to cross the Gulf of Carpentaria during spring
tides. These are the tides around a full or new moon each month. Neap tides come around the half moon which is next Thursday, so we are going to pay attention to what the old timers and fishermen say and wait to cross. They also say that you should go south from here about three days or 120 miles before starting the westward cross. So we are going to do that as well. We had hoped to go straight across the Gulf to the Wessel Islands that extend northward from the western coast of the Gulf of
Carpentaria, but instead we will be stopping in the small outpost of Gove and then head through a pass in the islands that extend northward in order to continue our trip west to Darwin.
I’ll bet you are asking yourself just where the Gulf of Carpentaria might be. If you look at the continent of Australia, you will see a pointed peak on the east side. That is Cape York. Then there is a dip before the next hump of land. That is the Gulf of Carpentaria. Our destination of Darwin is on the far side of the next hump. Just north of where we are now is where the Coral Sea from the east coast of Australia meets the Arafura Sea that runs across the top of the continent. Evidently
there is always a struggle where they meet, so that is why it is wise to head a little further south into the Gulf before starting the crossing.
Seisia (say-shuh) is a very tiny little northern outpost, but it has great amenities. There really is no town here, but there is a campground for those who venture this far north by land and the campground has a laundry and a little restaurant. There is a BP station for those who need fuel and there is a very nice little grocery store. We were shocked that it was so well stocked with fresh veggies and most everything you could want-except pretzels. Mark loves pretzels as a snack and they are
just really hard to come by in this part of the world. There is a library here with internet and a clinic that are open during the week, and there is a little town, Bamaga, not far away that has a small hospital. Patrick and Margaret arranged a ride with someone and went to the hospital in Bamaga to have a doctor take another look at Patrick’s hand. It is healing nicely, but the doctor would like him to come back on Monday for one more look before he heads off to Darwin. Patrick and Margaret
had another bit of bad luck today. When they came in to anchor, they somehow hit another boat in the anchoring process and broke one of their stanchions. The other boat was Oz. Steve on Oz was trying to help them with anchoring, but there is a wicked current in here and things went pear shaped (as Patrick would say). Both Aqua Magic and Oz were part of the Class of 2005 that went through the Panama Canal together. There are not a great number of us that transited from Panama early in 2006 that
are here in Australia. Some are already in the Mediterranean, some are headed for South Africa, and some are still in the South Pacific. So those of us who are here will always be there to help one another.
