Lacrosse Island

Perched in the mouth of the Ord River, Lacrosse Island marks the start of the “Kimberley Experience” for this trip. The coastline changes here on the Ord River, with the sandstone layers of the Kimberley now apparent.

Between here and Port Keats is the mouth of the Victoria River. The Victoria has a huge area of intertidal mudflats and creates tidal flows through the whole Joseph Bonaparte Gulf. It is easy to follow the coastline from Darwin along to Ditji Beach which is just south of Port Keats, but from there to Lacrosse, the Victoria River mouth provides no further anchorages.

We did just that, sailing south from Port Keats until the wind dropped in the afternoon, so we anchored offshore for the night, before progressing on to Ditji Beach, sailing hard on the wind in a fresh breeze that . We had figured that we would not make it to Lacrosse in daylight hours, so decided to leave in the afternoon and time our arrival for the following morning, so spent the day preparing for the overnight journey later on. The forecast SE breeze would mean a beam reach the whole way, and while it began still fresh like the morning, it began easing through the evening. We began the crossing reefed, both genoa furled and mainsail reefed down twice before having to drop the main altogether, trying to keep the speed down to avoid arriving in the dark, but as the breeze eased to 15 and then 10 knots, sail area was increased again until we were again under full sail and big moon, and sailing a direct course over the lines of sandbanks that run out from the Victoria River channels straight towards the light on the north end of Lacrosse Island.

We had timed arrival perfectly, dropping sail in the river and motoring in to Turtle Bay and anchoring out of the strong tide still flooding in. After a rest, we had a walk around the rocks at the south of Turtle Bay, and found evidence of crocodiles and turtles along the beach where the fresh water lagoon was draining over the sand, Later in the afternoon, a dinghy trip around to the bay to the south was rewarded with a couple of threadfin salmon.