Thursday Island to Darwin

Hello Again from the rather warm and slightly humid Northern Territories

My last post finished as we had just arrived at Thursday Island. It is a small Island between Horn , Hammond and Prince of Wales Island but is the administration centre for the Torres Strait Islands. Horn Island is recommended as the better anchorage with protection from the southeast trade winds. We dropped the anchor only to find we were dragging so up it came again for us to reset it. Well in doing all that the anchor chain guide snapped – a small steel thing - so we were rather stuck, and far too close to yet another super yacht. We told him our problem and he was OK with that as he was moving on that evening – lucky for him as we weren’t going anywhere and during all of this the anchor set. It took the rest of the afternoon for us to change the anchor guide. Alec delved into his ‘ton of spare parts’ box to get out a new one. Thank goodness we had one and it was only because someone else had broken theirs and told us to carry one. Otherwise we would be pulling the anchor up by hand which would be rather hard work.

Cairns to Thursday Island

Hello To You All

Well we are heading North (in the not so distant future we will change direction and head west). As I start this letter it is the most beautiful day – like most we have been having – with the sun out and the temperature a lovely 30 degrees with a cooling breeze off the sea. The water temperature today is a barmy 29 degrees. My fishing line is out and Alec is navigating our way between coral reefs, cays – small low islets composed of coral and sand sometimes with scrub or mangroves and maybe the odd coconut palm growing on them - and islands - with more vegetation . It is just beautiful, and to date our chart plotter and maps are all accurate. We have just had a little black and white sea bird land for a rest.