‘The disembodied VHF radio call had actually come from a plane’ – Lu Heikell

While most people talk about the bustle of the Great Barrier Reef, the vast solitude of Australia’s remote northern coast proves delightfully remote for Lu Heikell

‘G’day Skylax. You haven’t done many miles today!’ Our greeting from the Aussie Border Force team rang out clear on the VHF radio.

We hadn’t seen another vessel for days, and so the cheery voice, sounding so clear it could have been alongside, gave us quite a start.

When you ask people about cruising Australia, most talk turns to the Great Barrier Reef, the Whitsundays and the like. What you don’t hear so much, but is unsurprising given its vast size, is that outside the popular sailing hubs, you will likely be on your own for large stretches. And so it was for us.

Cairns had been kind to us as a place to get some repairs done and spares re-stocked, and as a base to explore a small chunk of this continent by car. With Skylax fettled, we headed north on our next leg up to Cape York – the northernmost tip of Australia – and around to Darwin.

The disembodied VHF radio call had actually come from a plane, not a ship. We had taken daily VHF radio check-in calls all the way up to Cape York from the border force vessels, but now, some way west of the cape, air surveillance had taken over.

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It was impressive to realise that they could not only identify us, but also took the trouble to work out how far we had sailed since they last saw us. They were right though – we hadn’t made huge progress in light winds and with a bit of current against us. Still, we weren’t in a hurry and, unusually for us, the fishing was good.

The trip up to Cape York had been magical; day sailing inside the reef in flat water, dropping the hook where we fancied. Meeting the occasional fellow cruiser became an event rather than an expectation. As this was in pre-Starlink days, we relied on our trusty SSB and Pactor modem for long-range comms.

The ‘Sheila net’ daily radio check-in gave us a window into other cruisers’ lives, and we were often relaying messages from Western Australia to New South Wales. We followed the progress of a rally up to the Louisiade Archipelago in Papua New Guinea, and yachts ahead of us heading to Indonesia. All the while without a soul in sight.

At one barrier island anchorage, we almost dropped the hook on top of a sizeable saltwater crocodile. I shared our encounter with the 10ft ‘salty’ on the net, and the wonderfully dry reply came back, ‘That’ll be the baby then’. It really was unlike anything I had experienced before.

We even had a Crocodile Dundee moment when relaying a radio message from Gus in the Kimberleys to his wife Linda in Sydney: ‘I am a bit low on fuel, but all is well …. and tell her I love her!’ When the net wound up for the day all we could do was catch up with that day’s Ashes test cricket courtesy of ABC – mixed blessings.

We ticked off places on the chart that read like a walk-through of Captain Cook’s voyage from nearly 250 years ago. The familiar sounding Cookstown, Flinders Island, Portland Roads and Endeavour Strait. Mighty footsteps to follow in.

In all, it was just over two weeks of cruising from Cairns to Darwin, a trip of 1,500 miles. It felt like more – in a good way. That it turned out to be one of the most remote parts of the world we encountered in our round the world trip was a revelation.

I was recalling this passage during the hurly-burly of Cowes Week. Such a contrast between the relative silence and solitude of north-east Australia and the boisterous tacking duels on the Solent. To be able to enjoy both is something I treasure.

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