E24 – HORN ISLAND TO FRIDAY ISLAND
Eating Tropical Lobster!
Before heading out from Horn Island, after giving up waiting for our Indonesian agent to obtain our Indonesian Visa’s, it was time to cook up the awesome Painted Cray we got from one of the locals at Horn Island.
Friday Island
We motored the short distance to Friday Island and had a supercharged tide racing us along towards the destination. I had chosen Friday Island as a jump off point for our crossing of the Arafura Sea towards Gove with the eventual destination being Cairns where I hoped our Indonesia visa’s would finally be sorted and we could clear out from there.
The tide runs hard at Friday Island, so we often lay to the tide and not the wind, but it was mostly calm enough and certainly a beautiful place to gather steam before the upcoming 3 day crossing.
Rescue drill
That night we listened to a rescue practice drill involving a helicopter and a container ship where they winched a medic to the deck of the container ship and recovered a patient and the medic to the helicopter. Fascinating to listen to.
Australian Border Force
Next day, we explored the sand beach at Friday Island while Australian Border Force passed and checked all the vessels in the area. As we were ashore, we checked with them via a portable VHF we had taken with us and they left satisfied. Over the next 2 weeks, we were to see ABF many times in the remote areas and had at least daily overflights from their Orion aircraft. It was good to know they were around.
