Tuesday 19 September, 2006 – 17:35 by Innforapenny
DARWIN
We are now in Darwin – its bloody hot!!! The trip through the Dundas straights was certainly exhilerating. We averaged 9 knots in 15 knots of wind – the seas were very disturbed, but the boat handled it well There seems to be a bit of a stuff up with marina births, basically there aren’t any! We managed to pursuade a restaurant owner in Cullen Bay marina to let us moor the boat outside his restauarant. Before we are allowed to go in to the locked marina we have to get Fisheries clearance to make sure we haven’t got any green mussels hitching a lift on our hull so we have just spent the afternoon getting checked. It involved having all our saltwater outlets decontaminated and we are not permitted to use the generater, air con, engines, . or toilets for 14hours. Could be interesting.After having the inspection and all the paperwork in triplicate, we will be permitted to enter the marina tomorrow. The fisheries inspector said if we think they are bad, wait until we get to Indonesia.