An Interesting Day at Sea

9^th March 2012 

We woke this morning surprised to see islands on the starboard side. Overnight we had crossed back inside the reef and are only about 5nm off the coast as we follow the channel up through the inside of the reef. At 8am we were passing through the Cockburn Islands. Admiring the view from our balcony, Carole looked down into the water and saw a reef shark, swimming along the edge of the ship’s wake.

 We later found out that the reason we went outside the reef in the first place was to discharge grey water, it was not because we could not have continued to navigate up the inside channel.

As we did our morning walk around the promenade deck, we could tell we were in for a treat today, flat seas, warm weather and proximity to the coast meant great views and fantastic sailing conditions. We tracked close to the shore around Shelburne bay and followed the coast north until rounding Cape York Peninsula at around 1 pm.

                                            

                                                            Coastline is close !

Atoll on port side

Eborac Island off the top of Cape York Peninsula

We are amazed at the number of islands there are off the cape, making up the Torres Strait Island group. The scenery steaming between them, sometimes very closely is fantastic and we spend a few hours on deck at the bow just taking in the scenery as we pass through the islands in almost perfect conditions.

Hammond Island with Hammond Rock in foreground

Tidal flow past Hammond Rock

We see a bauxite laden ship heading south on our port side just before rounding the Cape and a lonely trawler crosses below our stern during our morning walk.

The water depth here is shallow, and I suspect the pilot is earning his keep. From what I can gather, the Sea Princess draws around 8.5m, and the water depth is around 13 -14m, with very fast running tides (up to 8 knots at peak flow). The channel is only navigable by vessels drawing 12.2m or less.

Thursday Island ( with Wind Generators)

By around 2.30pm light misty rain sets in for an hour or so, resulting is the decks largely clearing and people getting back to relaxing.

Overall, it has easily been our most interesting day at sea since leaving Sydney.

When arrived back at our cabin, for a quiet drink and to get ready for dinner, the room steward had obviously had plenty of time on his hands and had created a few animals out of the towels and chocolates to decorate our bed.