Oz Cirumnavigation
Mitchell River
Our next major destination was to visit the Mitchell River for some serious fishing and crabbing, and to climb up to the Mitchell Falls, but after a 10 mile trip up the narrowing river with it's high rocky cliffs, and negotiating the rock bar partly covered, our enthusiasm quickly waned as we were to tie up at a spot that must have had clearly had one of the biggest crocs in the Kimberley lying on a flat rock.
This fellow was ginormous (see pic) and had to be 5 metres long if he was a centimeter.
Crocodile occupying our landing spot
By this time we had gotten into the routine of picking our tidal currents for our departure NE to the next anchorage, and tried to do a distance of about 30 nm, and 4 to 5 hours traveling to allow some fishing time on arrival.
We also came to the realization that our fuel would have to be carefully managed as we had not bunkered since Fremantle. We decided we would reduce our burn from 24 lts an hour down to 16, and seek 12 lts if we did shorter legs with favourable currents from behind.
SKIE topped up to 8000 lts in Fremantle by filling the two main tanks, but not the two smaller forward tanks that hold an extra 500 lts each. In hindsight this was an oversight expecting that we would probably top up in Broome if needing to, but this turned out to be difficult for a small boat as it could only be done at high slack water at the end of a long commercial wharf, so we let the opportunity go knowing that we still had Wyndham 100’s of nm further north up our sleeve in case we were found wanting, although taking us off the track to Darwin and adding extra miles.
However I tried transferring fuel from the forward tanks finding one empty, and the other with a bonus of about 400 litres that was put in over two years ago which I thought had been used. The forward tanks do not have a fuel gauge or sight glass, and are put there for seriously long voyages such as crossing the pacific from the US to French Polynesia which is a distance of 2700 nm.
The idea is to transfer this fuel back into the main tanks when space is available. We concluded with 2000 lts left on board we could get us to Darwin with 30% in reserve, but only if we cut down to using a burn rate of 16 lts an hour.
Another issue that held my attention was water production and consumption, as 6 people on board really chews it up, so we made water everyday from our RO watermaker which needs the genset on, which of course burns fuel as well. I have had much trouble in the past with my Village Marine watermaker, so a plan was put into place that if we couldn't’t make water we could still get to Wyndham or Darwin without dying of thirst, or heaven forbid having to knock off all the beer supplies.
One interesting thing was to observe how do 6 people get on in a small boat together. What eventuated was that our wives were heavily into consuming books, while the guys were usually running the bridge and planning routes, taking watches, and often just shooting the breeze on how we could improve on the boat.
We all had our favourite places to go to on the boat for some solitude and private space, and the rule of only eating together for the evening meal, and catches catch can for breakfast and lunch has worked out very well. If you are hungry at anytime you feed yourself from what we have in the pantry or fridge.
Tony was the head chef and bore the brunt of preparing and cooking the evening meal which was always fabulous. We often joked about the rule we made that if anyone complained about the cooking they would have to take over the job, and that if say someone said that the food tasted like shit, they must remember to add “but well cooked though” to save becoming the new slave to the galley.
Croc I hit on the head for coming too close to the inflatable