Matt here. Jess and I will be sharing the blogging and video updates from this trip onwards. So, do not worry, Jess will still be writing some of these! 

My welcome back to Salt Lines was in the steamy heat of Darwin. As I arrived, Salt Lines was resplendent in the sunlight, nestled alongside Silver Fern in Cullen Bay Marina. Cullen Bay Marina is enclosed behind a lock to maintain a constant level of water in the marina versus the tides which can reach 8.5m. David, Jess and Ken (Chief mate for Silver Fern) were there to welcome me back after my family jaunt to Europe (Thanks to Phil for taking the helm for the first two legs).

Stepping aboard Salt Lines, Jess was making final preparations for our departure the next day. Salt Lines was looking fabulous. She was clean, well organised and ready to go. Our crew were due to arrive on Sunday in preparation for our departure on Monday morning. The evening was spent on Silver Fern with Dave, Ken, Jess and I finalising our passage plan over a take away Indian meal.

After a hot and humid night spent onboard, Jess and I started on the couple of outstanding jobs, replacing the engine bilge pump and unblocking one of the heads. The bilge pump was a relatively easy fix, although it took twice as long as planned which is the general rule for all boat jobs. The head however proved particularly tricky to solve. Jess had already cleared the blockage, disassembled the manual pump, serviced it, rebuilt it and refitted it. Despite all this and several more attempts to make it flush, we ran out of spares and were unable to source any locally before we departed. We had no choice but sail with one working head until we make it to Broome where we could have spares shipped in.

Our crew started to arrive late morning as we welcomed back our circumnavigators Sandie, Sally and Kingsley. Who were closely followed by some of our OSE repeat offenders, Karen, David, Sharon and Alan and our new recruits Barry and Peter. With our full complement of crew onboard, we had our pre-departure briefing before joining the Silver Fern crew for dinner at a local restaurant. It was an excellent selection of seafood, meats, salads and sweets that had all of us coming back for more, in my case, possibly too many times! 

With some of the crew staying in hotels for the night, we reconvened at 0800 the following morning for our final preparations before departure. Jess went below to find something for one of the crew and quickly came back up on deck to see me. “Matt, you had better come and see this..”. I followed her down below, into the bunk room where she had a couple of the sole (floor) boards up. The entire bilge forward of the mast was full of water. We quickly set about emptying out all the items of equipment stored in there and tried to trace the origin of the leak. 

The only two options I could think of were the through hull for the water maker or the transducer, both of which were completely under water. Rallying the crew, we grabbed our mobile whale pump, created a human chain and started to pump it into buckets and pass them up to be tipped over the side. 

Whilst this was going on I noticed water coming out of the vent hose from the black water tank which was hanging loose in the forward bilge. Fortunately, the tank was only full of salt water and nothing else. After some deduction we established that by closing the startboard head outlet, the flow stopped. Not having enough time to establish the root cause, we continued to manually pump the water out for about an hour until the bilge was dry.

On reflection I believe that the black water tank had overfilled with salt water from the heads, started to vent through the hose which should have been pointing into the centre bilge which has its own bilge pump, and created a siphon which kept drawing water and pushing it into the forward bilge. On the upside, it was a great team building exercise and it did demonstrate to the crew that the whole forward bilge can be full of water and we will still float!

Shortly after our minor crisis, we followed Silver Fern into the lock to exit the marina. I have been through many locks on canal boats in the UK, but taking a 42 ton yacht through one was a slightly different prospect. We gently motored back and forth in the flowing water waiting for Silver Fern to exit. As the lock gates opened, and I lined up our approach and the lock looked considerably narrower than it actually is. With the engine in neutral we were being swept in at 2kts by the out going water flow. Salt Lines performed admirably at the slow pace allowing us to gently come alongside to the port. 

With some acrobatics from Kingsley and some swift securing of the bow from Sharon and David we were ready for the water to be drained. It is a strange sensation sinking down inside a lock with concrete walls towering either side of you. Within a few minutes we were level with the water outside and the gates to seaward swung open. As we motored out, Silver Fern was already taking on fuel at the dock so we continued out into clearer water to run through some sail handling drills.

After Silver Fern had cleared the dock, we came alongside to top up our diesel and petrol tanks in preparation for the journey. Shortly after we headed out to catch up with Silver Fern and begin our journey. The wind unexpectedly filled in to about 18kts, so we quickly hoisted our main sail with the first reef in and set course to clear the passage into open sea. 

As the crew settled in for the evening, Sharon and Karen prepared pork loin and coleslaw for dinner, with a marinated Tofu option for our vegetarian / vegan friends. After dinner, we sat down for our evening weather and night watch brief to discuss the plan for the evening. 

The crew were already working in three watches, rotating every two hours, so they were prepared for an evening under sail. After a stunning sunset, the clear skies provided a magnificent vista of the stars that is only visible from the sea, far from the light pollution that coastal cities provide. Throughout the night we switched between motoring and sailing on relatively flat seas, a perfect start to our adventures to Perth.

All the best, Matt.