A Decision Made - Berkeley River

Monday 27^th May 2013

A Decision Made - Berkeley River

In the morning light

Up early as usual to listen to the radio sked. We were in luck this day as MrJ was able to get through to SISYC boat Wirraway of Sydney that was on the Queensland coast, giving them our location as Berkeley River. No one else we could hear and then the skip faded out.

Waiting for the day

MrJ had worked on replacing the control switch for the winch but this did not solve the problem. I was soon to find out, while trying to haul the anchor to leave the Casuarina Creek anchorage for the mouth of the Berkeley River, not far from where we first anchored when we had come in. How many days ago?
After an effort of poking, prodding and manually turning we managed to get the winch to work some of the way and the rest we did by hand and then headed down stream and this time the winched worked for most of the anchoring. To me it felt like that the winch needed to have a bit of load on it to be able to go; without any pressure the silly nothing just would not do a thing.
MrJ had taken AR in a large circle before deciding where to set the anchor down. He does this so that we are able to see if there are any obstructions or obstacles like rocks or sand bars in a swinging room.

Boab Tree on the cliff

While I busy myself with the cleanup in the galley, make the bed and do the weekly clean up of the three heads (bathrooms), MrJ is up on deck pulling the winch apart. At times he did call for my help with getting a couple of tough bolts on or off but otherwise we both go on with our own chores.
Sitting down with a welcomed cup of tea, MrJ says that he could not find anything wrong with the winch that it was beyond his expertise. He felt that the motor might be stuffed! My stomach sinks!

Did this mean that we would have to go back to Darwin; we have only travelled a couple of hundred miles and there is an awful long way to go? Or do we go on and baby the winch?

We weigh up the pros and cons........................................ and decide to keep going.

Moving down stream

We are anchored inside the mouth of the river. Towards the other bank a little ways in front of us there was the old boat that we had seen upstream a few days ago. It is the same old ketch that had sailed out of Darwin Harbour a day or so before us and now we seem to be keeping company.

On board AR we had a small wireless radio that we had bought in Queensland. Most afternoons I turn this little radio on to see if there are any stations in the area. The radio has FM, main wave and short wave. Sometimes in the evenings, on the short wave we manage to pick up a few stations, mainly Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian or Pigeon English from Port Moresby in New Guinea. A couple of times we have picked Radio National out of Port Moresby but not for long. This morning I was lucky enough to pick up a station on the main wave. It was broadcasted to the East Kimberley’s, for the Aboriginal communities. It sounded like it was based in Brisbane but must have been skipped up here on repeater stations. One morning we did manage to get ABC WA for a short length of time and we able to get some news and weather, all land based of course.

The day ends on the Berkeley River

This night I could sit back to enjoy the peace and quiet; watch the evening sky develop and unfold into a magical sunset across the still waters of the river. Kai’s Birthday; he would have been at school today.