Paradise – Horn & Thursday Islands, Torres Strait & Seisia
16-19 August 2019
Continuing on our Lap of Australia on Paradise – The Torres Strait Islands are in the centre of the windiest trade wind in the world. Tides are fickle and can be unpredictable. The Arafura Sea to the west and the Coral Sea to the east experience different tidal ranges and times. There's also the confluence of tidal streams running around TI to deal with. We caught up with some other boaties who have been waiting for weeks for a weather window to move. Heading to Horn Island was not a problem for us. I even caught up on baking, but heading back to the mainland was not so pleasant, and it was a slog getting back.
Horn Island was our opportunity to refuel, and it was a bit of an effort getting 350L by jerry cans, it took nearly 3 hours to do!
We welcomed Pete and Kiwi Kim to join the Paradise adventure. They have their own sailing boat "Stormy Petrel" but love to join others. They recently returned from Noumea after sailing there with the Go East Rally.
We made a quick day trip to Thursday Island to do some sight-seeing at the Fort and the museum, and it's always interesting to get a snapshot of the local history.
All the Wessel Vessel's were waiting for us at Seisia, and it was good to catch up with them again. Seisia is very popular with 4WD traffic terminating here after the long trek up the Cape York Peninsula. It's also an excellent place to reprovision given the shop is across from the beach. The ladies couldn't believe that we bought three trolleys worth of food. It has been a while since we have been able to shop. The fresh produce is way too expensive though, as an example the plums are a staggering $27/kg. I don't know how the locals can afford to buy fresh food.
See our next post, heading down The Gulf.