Darwin 2025

SeeBeeZee on the beach at Fannie Bay with the tide out was a good opportunity to bring drums of fuel onboard in preparation for the Kimberleys

Out trip out to the Kimberley begins in Darwin. This had been planned as one possibility since before we left for Indonesia. The idea was to leave for Indonesia as late in the SE trade period as possible, and then our six month visa for Indonesia should allow us to stay away from Darwin until the cyclone season was over.

We arrived back in Australia after spending many weeks in the Kai Islands of Indonesia waiting for the right weather. The plan was to be in Darwin in early April, before the SE trades kicked in again for another year, and get ready to make an early start into the Kimberley region of Western Australia as soon as the risk of cyclones has passed. The wait in Indonesia (see the story about our delay on leaving Indonesia) meant it was actually May of 2025 before we had cleared in at Darwin. I had arrived back in Australia with a bad infection coming from my ear, cause by the burst eardrum back in Sorong last year. Medical assistance was sought at the hospital in Darwin. Surgery was recommended, and between being prepared for surgery and then being checked following the surgery, it was late July before we could head west from Darwin.

Our time in Darwin was most enjoyable. The weather in Darwin in “The Dry” is just perfect, with overnight minimum temperature around 20 and the maximum around 30 every day, with the only variation being the time of day when the overnight land-breeze swapped for the afternoon sea-breeze. Free public transport buses running past the sailing club as regularly as every 15 minutes gave us opportunity to frequently visit the city and waterfront precinct or head out to one of the mega shopping malls. Cafes and popups supply an eclectic variety of food around town, and we enjoyed our frequent tourist outings.

The huge tides in Darwin (up to 8m range) means that you have to plan leaving the dinghy on the beach, but they also made it easy to put SeeBeeZee on the beach for maintenance jobs, and we then took the opportunity to overhaul one of our outboard motors.

The 15hp starboard motor had suffered a leaky gearbox for at least a year. At Margaret Bay on Cape York Peninsula on our way north to Indonesia, we discovered the gearbox to be full of water. Instead of returning south to Cairns, pushing against the prevailing weather to get it repaired, we replaced the oil and continued to Indonesia, hoping to find a mechanic to overhaul it there. Parts were too difficult to obtain, so we kept replacing the oil and pushing on. Having made friends with Terry, a Darwin local with a lot of sailing experience and a really well provisioned workshop only a few blocks up from the beach at Fannie Bay, this was a good chance to fix it properly myself. Terry made me welcome to work in his back yard, we were able to break the motor into a thousand pieces and replace anything that had suffered from ten years of abuse.

Below are the posts made about the time in Darwin, between arriving back from Indonesia and leaving to head out to the Kimberley.

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