Darwin, Australia

Darwin (Wednesday, July 17 to Tuesday, July 30)

Well we finally got to Darwin after a very long passage from Bundaberg – probably somewhere between 1800 to 2000 miles – all long day hops from Bundy to Seisha and then three short passages from Seisha to Darwin for the last 800 mile stretch, including the Gulf of Carpenteria crossing.  Almost every cruiser that we spoke to said that they were exhausted – what a haul!

On top of being exhausted, we had boat and body parts to fix plus the normal provisioning, laundry, fueling chores for the upcoming passage to Indonesia with the Sail Indonesia rally.  The jib sail was an easy repair but the “body” part was more onerous.  Poor Dennis had fallen hard on his rear/tailbone when we got to Wigram Island.  This injury triggered a painful sciatic nerve condition from his tailbone to his foot plus a severe outbreak of psoriasis.  The pain did not let up and was quite severe.  The doctor had xrays and blood work done, initially thinking that Dennis might have a form of bone cancer – we anxiously waited a week for the results and fortunately, no bone cancer was found and the doctor gave Dennis clearance to continue on sailing from Darwin to Kupang, Indonesia.  At this point, Dennis had been in severe pain for nearly three weeks.  About all of Darwin that Dennis saw were doctor offices.

Fortunately, Jim Pearson flew in on Friday, July 19^th and joined us on the boat on Sunday, July 21^st.  Jim was very helpful during this period with provisioning and boat chores – fortunately we were able to take a few nice walks along the scenic Darwin coastline and MaryLee was able to swim in Fannie Bay (with no croc’s).

While in Darwin, we anchored in Fannie Bay in front of the Darwin Sailing Club where most of the Sail Indonesia activities occurred.  The club had nice facilities; including restaurant, laundry, showers and trailers for the dinghies (Darwin has huge tides).