Lowana Comes to Darwin

By Russ Swan

What compels someone with almost no experience of sailing to go and buy an eight-ton, thirty-foot cruising yacht? Especially when its located not only in another city but in another state!

Why would someone like that risk sailing the boat home on a 1,600-nautical-mile voyage, even if it meant facing the daunting prospect of sailing through hundreds of miles of the largest reef system in the worldacross the infamous and fickle Gulf of Carpentaria and the open waters of the tropical Arafura Sea?

This book has an often humorous description of events in an easy-flowing journal style. The progress of the voyage can be followed closely with map illustrations and photographs, and the descriptions of day-to-day-to-day events provide a wonderful insight into what life at sea on a cruising yacht might be like. Rich passages describe equipment failures, rough seas, being caught in torrential defiles, airless days, wondrous anchorages, sites of historical interest and scenery . . . and how a man became a sailor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Xlibris AU
• Release date: Feb 16, 2017
• ISBN: 9781524521905

Russ Swan

Russ Swan is an Australian born in Longreach in central Queensland of Australia. In his younger days Russ worked in sheep-shearing sheds and a law-courts office. He was called up for National Service in the Australian Army, serving in the Vietnam War and followed with an Army career. After discharge he drove taxi-cabs for a while before joining the Northern Territory Police where he continued to work for 19 years. Russ is a cruising sailor with several voyages completed in Australian and Indonesian waters. He's also a freelance travel-writer and author having published magazine articles and another book “A Tanimbar Experience”. A third book is currently being written as a sequel to “Lowana Comes to Darwin” and books on other voyages are also planned. Russ still lives in Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia.

Book preview

Copyright © 2017 by Russ Swan.

Library of Congress Control Number:   Pending

ISBN:      Hardcover      978-1-5245-2192-9

      Softcover      978-1-5245-2191-2

      eBook         978-1-5245-2190-5

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the copyright owner.

Lowana Comes to Darwin is a factual account of a sailing voyage from Mackay in Queensland to Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia in September 1993. The views and opinions expressed are the author’s own.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Thinkstock.

Rev. date: 01/28/2017

Xlibris

1-800-455-039

www.Xlibris.com.au

755930

Table of Contents

About The Author

Authors Note

Introduction

The Decision

Preparing For Sea

Away At Last

Townsville To Cooktown

Cooktown To Hay Island

Hay Island To Thursday Island

Thursday Island To Gove

Gove To Darwin

Epilogue

Glossary Of Nautical Terms

Glossary Of Terms

Charts Section

Photos And Captions

About the Author

Russ Swan is an Australian born in Longreach in central Queensland of Australia. In his younger days Russ worked in sheep-shearing sheds and a law-courts office. He was called up for National Service in the Australian Army, serving in the Vietnam War and followed with an Army career. After discharge he drove taxi-cabs for a while before joining the Northern Territory Police where he continued to work for 19 years.

Russ is a cruising sailor with several voyages completed in Australian and Indonesian waters. He’s also a freelance travel-writer and author having published magazine articles and another book "A Tanimbar Experience". A third book is currently being written as a sequel to Lowana Comes to Darwin and books on other voyages are also planned.

Russ still lives in Darwin in the Northern Territory of Australia.

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Authors Note

Welcome to the first in a proposed series of stories about actual voyages under sails.

They originally consisted of notes taken during the trips and then later typed up to be put into a photo album. The resulting photo-journals were meant as a permanent reminder of the trip and to share the experience with family and friends. Later stories included additional sailing notes as a reference source in case I ever returned to an area, or if any other sailboat skipper needed information about a place I’d visited.

I’d thought that only people with an interest in the sea would appreciate them but I soon discovered a surprisingly widespread interest. Associates and work colleagues read them enthusiastically and kept asking for more. I was astonished to learn just how closely readers followed events and progress with the available charts and photographs.

Some people had made comments to me about turning them into a book but I wasn’t all that convinced. In my view they were just being polite. Then one day I showed the story A Tanimbar Experience in its photo-journal format to a good friend and neighbour Mr Dave Fields.

Dave happened to be a freelance journalist as well as a published author. He knew what he was talking about and I knew I could respect his opinion. Dave not only encouraged me to publish the material but also showed me how to improve the text.

I would like to thank Dave for his voluntary enthusiasm, friendliness and practical assistance in getting started and thus bring these stories to you. Also to my wife for her support and to the many who have stiffened my resolve when I needed it.

- - -

Introduction

Suppose your only sailing experience consists of an introductory sailing course and a week’s holiday bareboat charter sailing. You are the new owner of an 8-tonne, 30-foot cruising yacht but it’s not only in another city it’s in another State. Suddenly the reality of it closes in. You must make a decision about how you’re going to get it home. The options are to truck it, get it delivered or sail it.

The first two options are unrewarding and just too mail-orderish. Nothing could be gained from it except a depleted bank account and it would be necessary to start learning how to handle the boat through trial and error after it arrived.

That leaves sailing the 1,600 miles of the Australian coastline from Mackay in Queensland to Darwin in the Northern Territory. It also means facing the daunting prospect of getting the boat safely up through the Great Barrier Reef, across the fickle Gulf of Carpentaria and the open coastal waters of the Arafura Sea

(See Chart 1 - Voyage Area).

At the time I was the owner of the yacht but had no real sailing experience, especially in open waters or indeed any experience in handling a boat of this size. The second member of the crew also had no sailing experience. The command of the vessel was therefore relegated to an experienced yachtsman who’d travelled this particular route before.

The story briefly describes the transition from landlubber to yacht owner and mariner, the trials and tribulations of arriving at the boat and getting it ready for sea, the day-to-day events during the actual sailing and the places visited. It includes captioned photographs and charts which allow readers to closely follow the expedition.

The book regularly uses common navigational terms such as miles and knots, therefore a brief explanation of distances, speed, boat lengths, depths, wind directions and compass directions in included at the back of the book.

Non-sailors or those unfamiliar with things nautical will obtain a better insight or understanding if reference is made to the Glossary at the back. Its intention is to help the reader gain a better appreciation of some of the factors involved that limit or enhance progress when travelling under sail on the sea.

- - -

See Photo 1

The Decision

What makes one decide to take to the sea or seek some other form of adventure? Is it something already inside us? Or is it just a combination of circumstances?

Perhaps there’s a little bit of yearning for exciting activity sitting somewhere deep down inside of all of us. In a few people I guess the drive for adventure is simply there - like Jesse Martin who accomplished the extraordinary feat of sailing around the world alone at the ripe age of 17. For others it may come about because of a series of events at precisely the right time in their lives.

I was raised in an outback country town a long way from the ocean and didn’t have any particular love for the sea, at least not that I knew about. Joining the Army meant a move to coastal areas where a passion for saltwater fishing developed, resulting in a lot of time in small boats out on offshore waters.

Eventually this grew to be a bit tiresome and I was getting jaded with fishing clubs and association meetings. Something else, some other challenge was needed but what? A flying lesson couldn’t ignite the spark and a turn or two at water skis just wasn’t enough so I kept fishing.

One day a work colleague told me he’d just bought a 64-foot vessel in Fremantle, Western Australia and asked if I would help him bring it back to Darwin. I agreed