Blog by Vanja

The Northern Territory has been on our travel roadmap for a long time but living in Newcastle, there was always somewhere cheaper and closer to holiday. So thanks corona virus for finally getting us here.

While in Darwin, we do on occasion go for a sail to explore nearby islands and bays. The coastline is wild, beautiful and extremely inhospitable looking with vast areas of mangrove bordering scrubby bushland.

Living on a boat in a city that we never intended to visit is a strange place to find ourselves. Where to from here I wonder?

Now if you’re wondering what clearing into Australia as a sea arrival looks like, wonder no more. It’s actually not that complicated, all it takes in the time of corona is an Australian passport, an email to Australian Border Force before setting off and a phone call once you arrive.

After everything that's happened, the days in our little turquoise paradise are numbered and swimming in clear waters will be a long lost memory once we get to Darwin.

A few days of sailing later, we are in the Kai islands, where pristine beaches, crystal clear blue waters and our new friends Storyteller await.

Blissfully unaware of the impending doom, we sail west from Papua as planned - destination Spice islands roughly 400 miles away. We enjoy the calmest four day passage we’ve ever had with sunrises and sunsets over glassy seas and curious sea creatures our only company.

To go or not to go to Triton Bay in Papua was definitely the question at the beginning of March 2020 as we finally admitted to ourselves that we couldn’t in fact stay in Raja Ampat forever. Triton Bay is where you go if swimming with whale sharks is your thing, in other words a truly once in a lifetime opportunity to meet the ocean’s gentle giants. Worth a detour?

We spend our second month in Raja Ampat making short hops between its many islands, mainly motoring in glassy seas and most definitely avoiding overnighters. But first we return to Sorong to renew our visas and provision - again.

Oh the sweet relief of arriving to a postcard perfect island after a long stretch in a dusty Indonesian town! Twenty four hours after leaving Sorong, we are anchored in Wayag at the northern end of Raja Ampat, the Mecca of Indonesian diving and snorkelling. Not only do we manage to get here in record time but contrary to our usual Indonesian voyaging experience, we sail almost the whole way.

I shouldn’t be too tough on Sorong - it’s a decent city with supermarkets, fresh food markets, good transport and of course delicious Indonesian food. If our stop had been for provisioning only, I would happily give it a 10/10.

Our plan for Christmas is simple. Get to a quiet anchorage on a tropical island loaded with a bunch of fresh groceries and booze, then proceed to eat and drink it all in-between various water activities. Not much different to our usual cruising plan, but on this special occasion we don some Christmas hats.

If you are thinking of cruising to Indonesia and are considering Biak as your check-in port, do yourself a favour and make it one. It’s a bustling town with everything a cruiser could possibly need within a short walk or ride away. Now according to various blogs and guide books, some Indonesian officials apparently may need ‘greasing’ and can be slow and or difficult.

48 hours after setting off from Ninigo, we motor into Vanimo harbour around 9am on 16 December, right on schedule (this never happens so I remember). Vanimo is the first town we visit on mainland PNG.

Travelling in 2019, the mystery of even truly remote places like Ninigo is somewhat compromised by the multitude of cruising blogs raving about it. Our little three boat flotilla may therefore have arrived with expectations on the high side as we anchored inside Heine Atoll, a dreamy lagoon just to the north of Ninigo.

Tunung was meant to be an overnight stop on the way to Hermits but proved to be a gem. It’s a small island just off New Hanover with a locally owned surfing resort. It’s worth noting that it incorrectly shows up as Dunung on various maps. The surf on the reef looked amazing and that’s coming from a surfing ignoramus.

We arrived here after an overnight sail from Kokopo. Of course, just as we were approaching the Albatross channel entrance in late afternoon, a squall came out of nowhere and now we were putting away sails in 25knots and trying to enter in poor visibility and strong wind. The alternative was to wait out the squall in open water overnight which really did not appeal.

Well the three day adventure ‘across the Solomon Sea’ as I so romantically put it in my previous post, sure proved the most trying yet. Weather forecasts were duly pored over before departure of course and 3 / 4 forecasts had us sailing very comfortably with 15 knot winds on the beam pretty much the whole way. Perfect, right? WRONG.

Budibudi evokes strong emotions for me. Lying smack in the middle of the Solomon Sea, remote and exposed to nature’s whims as it is, I can’t help but feel anxious for the beautiful and welcoming locals we have befriended here. It’s an atoll ...

At Panapompom island, we anchor in a quiet lagoon after an easy sail despite the torrential rain that seems to follow us. This is definitely our favourite spot so far even though the weather has been a bit temperamental...

We sail away from Panasia island as planned on Saturday morning and land at Brooker island only a few hours later (love day sails!). We anchor in the main bay thus ensuring we are visible from every single hut in they village...

As we approach Panasia, the sun is about to start setting behind its tree-clad limestone cliffs. Entering its lagoon therefore is an experience we don’t care to repeat. The ‘channel’ ...

Wow things have been intense. After a five day sail from Cairns, we arrive at Bramble Haven, a little atoll roughly in the middle of the Louisiades archipelago, just east of the PNG mainland. Reaching our destination was...

The trip so far can best be characterised as a series of highs interspersed with many ‘what the hell are we doing’ lows...

We move onto the boat in late April 2019 and spend a busy month rushing around simultaneously packing and unpacking, fixing boat stuff, selling unwanted possessions, cleaning and various other tasks which keep both of us preoccupied from dawn to dusk.