As we awoke the next morning after rotating anchor watches throughout the night, we were thankful the conditions had stayed calm and Silver Fern’s anchor managed to hold us both in one spot overnight.

With a Sunny calm day ahead of us we were up early to make the most of the day and get the boat ready so we could carry on with the trip. 2 critical things needed to happen today. One, we needed to swap Dave’s spare anchor over to our boat. Two, someone needed to scale the mizzen mast and unhook the flag halyard from around the radar. Matt was distressed to learn we hadn’t been flying his brand new British ensign this whole trip(shock horror). So as I said…….2 critical things that needed to happen today.

As I once again went down below to pretend writing the blog, I left the men to scratch their heads on the bow and figure out how to transfer the anchor across from Silver Fern to Salt Lines. I then looked for any willing(or unwilling) volunteers to climb the mizzen mast to untangle the halyard. Thankfully there wasn’t much resistance to this as Karen jumped at the chance to get a better view! Good on ya Karen. As Frya helped to tie some of her sturdy rock climbing knots Karen was in safe hands and ready to scale the mast. She made short work of this and we left her up there for a bit so we could get some good photos of course.

The anchor was transferred and the ensign was hoisted! We were ready to go!

As we motored back to the infamous area of the previous day’s adventure, we made sure to stick close to Silver Fern. This time the tide was flowing with us so we drifted easily past the spot where all the action had happened. I tried to spot my missing anchor but unfortunately it hadn’t floated to the surface(I’m thinking I could patent some kind of invention here). Those who have worked with me before will know I’m quite good at dropping things in the water, including phones, wallets, keys, myself and now and anchor. Maybe I’m the one that should come with a warning sign!

I’m happy to say we made it to the falls today with no incidents. We soaked up the spectacular sights of the falls rushing through the narrow channel and took the dinghy out for a closer look. Our dinghy looks a little sad at the moment as we’ve sprung a leak around one of the hoses that in the past were used to attach dive tank bottles for inflation. I can assure you the rest of the dinghy is pumped up!

We spend a lovely relaxing day at the falls and departed around 1700.

Next stop Broome! for a re-fuel and a camel ride.

Till next time,

Jess :)