Part One - Darwin to Sri Lanka or?

A week ago I was working on a new idea for Age-Net and my wife Beryl had just completed the booking for a short holiday in Australia to see our Son, Russell & daughter in law, Julia, and she was wondering where I might be while she was out there.    The ‘phone rang and I thought it was an old client.  “Could I bring his boat back to the UK, immediately?”   Of course, no problem, was she still in Palma, Mallorca?   A short pause, whoops wrong client, “No Darwin, Australia and you need to be here, like tomorrow”.

Now, it’s a funny thing about discount air fares.   Look in any Sunday newspaper and there they all are!   Try ‘phoning around to get one at the advertised price and you soon find that those prices are for a midweek flight next March...

Not only are there no cheap flights, there are no seats available this week anyway because ‘Not many people want to go to Darwin’   I scrub the idea of taking crew members out with me – I will try and get some locally – and ask the agent to look for a single seat, ASAP.    She ‘phones back, there is one airline with a seat available - Royal Brunei.   She quotes a price, one way, which would have paid for my wife’s holiday twice over.   The client wants me there so I bite my tongue and book it.   After confirming all the details, there is a pause and she then asks “You do realize that Royal Brunei don’t serve alcohol on board”?   No wonder they are the only airline with a seat left!

Now, to be fair to Royal Brunei, their service was excellent.   Nothing too much trouble, hot towels so often I was cleaner when I arrived than before I started!.   Food was beautifully presented and it was about as relaxing as air travel can be.   Our first stop was in Dubai, an airport that really highlights just how shabby London, Heathrow has become.   The second stop and flight change was in Brunei itself.   Again, spotlessly clean and a real pleasure to wait there which, as it happens was what we did while the aircraft was repaired!   Not much of a delay, we take off and shortly afterwards the Captain tells us that the repair was unsuccessful and we were returning because he wasn’t allowed to fly without weather radar....

The radar fixed, we set off again, not too much behind schedule except that that it is well into the night, the owner has left the boat keys with ‘Security’ who work 24 hours a day – except this particular day!    Nothing for it, it is too late to try and find a hotel, so I stretch out on the – very hard – cockpit seat and wait for the morning.   It was a very long night!

 The owner had gone off on his travels before I got to the boat, so the first thing I had to do was try and arrange a crew.   There is some urgency about this because now is the time of changeover for the Monsoon seasons and bad weather is not far off.  Typhoons and Cyclones (identical to Hurricanes, only the name changes in different oceans) are best avoided!   A few names on the yacht club notice board, but the people have already left Darwin on other boats.   A couple of people willing, but not the sort I want to sail with!

Darwin is the sort of place that actually looks the way you expect Australia to be.   Certainly, there is plenty of new tourism development after the last big Cyclone destroyed most of the city, but there are still many shops selling all the things you need in the Outback (and this is the Northern Territory) and lots of serious looking Land Cruisers with ‘Roo’ bars, spare wheels galore and tow hitches and winches that actually look used – non of your 4 x 4 school run motoring here!   Plenty of outbackers too, with skin burnt like mahogany, always in shorts and big boots.   This is also a really great place if you want a hat.   Serious hat shops here!   It is also very hot!

Sadly, there are many aborigines just sitting around in the city, it’s almost as though they have no place to go and nothing to do but sit and watch a different world pass them by.

Highly multi-cultural.   Just in the area where the yacht is moored there are at least half a dozen ethnic restaurants.   I am tempted by the Japanese restaurant but the food is more Australian ‘Turf & Surf’  than anything you might find in Japan.   The waitresses are all dressed in stylish Kimonos, but this does jar a little because one of the girls is a beautiful Australian Amazon, at least head and shoulders above all the others.   In fact, the meal was quite enjoyable but the chef admitted to me that, “Everybody eats same food now.  

The following night I decide that I should really try ‘proper’ Australian food before going back to sea. Ordered the beef rib and it comes with most of the animal still attached!   Excellent meal but the quantity had me defeated before I started.

 Now been here three days and have managed to get one crewman, a Costa Rican with a splendid name, but one I can’t pronounce, so he will be henceforth referred to as ‘Leo’ he was really looking for a yacht sailing to Thailand for the King’s Cup race series, so he may not stay with me all the way to England.   Just have to see how it all works out.   Today we did most of the provisioning at a huge Woolworth’s which was mostly a food store with a bit of hardware tacked on.   Quite unlike anything at home.

We also managed to get some extra fuel containers today (she is a sailboat but we will use the engine whenever the winds go light) so we are hoping to clear Customs and Emigration in the morning and get away.   I hope to try and make Singapore (about 2,000 miles) for the first leg, or my preferred option, dependent on weather conditions, a direct passage to Sri Lanka which is about 3,500 miles.   If we can get there we should find a slightly better wind pattern for the stretch across to the Red Sea, but that’s looking some way ahead so just keep an open mind and fingers crossed.

Oh yes, I managed to catch a real stinker of a cold – something which often happens on long flights – and I promise you, I have felt much better!   Still I hope to be at sea tomorrow and making miles in the right direction.

I will let you know how we get on, from the next friendly Internet Café, wherever that one turns out to be.

Part 2 Darwin - Singapore