Left North Goulburn Island at high tide, around 8:30am and rode the ebb tide all morning, up to a knot from behind. Fresh SE winds, up to 25 knots at times, pushed us along with poled out headsail. We saw several surfs of 11-12 knots and averaged 6.8 knots for the day. The last hour or so we had the wind on the beam, ripping along at 8 knots or so. Real sailing for a change!

The island is rather pretty, with nice bays, red rocky cliffs and sandy beaches. We poked around in the dinghy taking soundings around our anchorage and then went ashore. We still haven’t grown weary of a gorgeous sunset, often reddened by smoke from the fires on land that seem to be common here in Arnhem Land.

Yotties info: the anchorage at Valentia Island turned out to be very snug. While it appears not to offer great shelter from the SE wind there is very little fetch from the mainland and so no real sea to contend with. We anchored in about 4.2 metres on a 1.3m tide, so just under 3 metres at LWS. We interpolated the Cape Cockburn and Point David tides, which seemed to be about right – we didn’t bump at spring low tide in the middle of the night – as far as I know. Good holding in silty sand. Note that the track below includes our dinghy ride to the beach!