Yacht Delivery Blog

We're almost through the Torres Strait and hoping to reach the Arafura Sea this afternoon, as long as we don't have to struggle against more tide. We had a nice ride last night with a few extra knots of speed, but we're paying the price for that now. Yesterday we had a couple of interesting encounters. First, we had some visitors who flew over and announced themselves as ABF (Australian Border Force). And we had to quickly check in with them and confirm our last port, next port and registration number. Interestingly we've been having issues with authorities not being able to see the name of the boat when they check our AIS as for some reason its not transmitted. ABF knew the name! Then, we had some other visitors who swam around but didn't announce themselves – they appeared to be false killer whales. It's a little unnerving navigating through the Torres Strait. There are scattered reefs and islets for hundreds of miles, and we're essentially using a tablet ...

Well, after a few days of calm since leaving Port Moresby, we've finally made it to the entrance of the Torres Strait. We'll be passing Bramble Cay soon and weaving our way through the reefs and islets. It's a bit of a navigational challenge with all the tankers and container ships, but we're keeping a sharp lookout. Hopefully, the current won't be too strong against us. On the bright side, the moon is getting fuller and should be full in a couple of days. That will be a welcome sight as we start heading towards Sorong. A full moon will help us keeping an eye out for Indonesian fishing boats as we get closer. Last night, we noticed a lot more ships on the horizon, all heading towards the same waypoint as us. It seems like a popular route. The wind was pretty light last night, only around 2 knots, but it picked up to a whole 5 knots this morning. The weather models suggest we might have a few more days of these calm conditions. This was taken at midnight and shows ...