I woke at 5am, and hurried to pack and to meet up with the vessel. I had switched my radio on again, and soon I heard the captain’s call if I was underway. Yes, I am, and it will take about 15 min more and I would be there!

The vessel has a bow which could be lowered like a ramp for landing cars or such on flat beaches. They could open it on the open sea as well, and I had a convenient landing “beach”!

When I climbed out, I dragged my kayak just a little half afloat on the ramp, and it was raised soon to the horizontal with my kayak sitting high and dry in the air! How convenient! Later the launching went the even better way: I was climbing already in my boat, and was carefully lowered then into the water to eventually become easy afloat! For not rolling over before I was fully afloat, a better held onto the deckhand’s hand…thanks!

I entered the vessel, and got greeted by Captain Paul and his crew of three lads. He provided me with full bladders of fresh water, some oranges and a quick hot shower! Thanks a lot for the unexpected hospitality in the middle of nowhere!

The whole pit stop took less than an hour, and after some pics we both went into different directions. They were headed back to Darwin, I kept on paddling noth-west.

Later, in the bay before Cape Londonderry, I was viewing another small motor vessel, seemingly a fishing cruise. This would have been my next water option…

The wide reef area on my map and chart between Cape Londonderry and Cape Talbot turned out to be sandy and flooded so no problem for me and my kayak. It was flat water, and somehow boring…but at some point I was trailing a swarm of large fish behind me for about 10 min…I wondered what they were thinking of me…being their mother ship?

And a 2 m shark was scared to death when he first passed my bow, and then got chased away by my slapping paddle on the water…I’d rather have NOT another unexpected shark bump into my kayak! On shallow reef areas like this I always close my spray deck…you never know what is going to jump into my cockpit or bump into my stern and capsizing me again…

Close to Cape Talbot I was eventually pulling on a lovely sandy beach for the night…just to run into fresh water buffalo apples on a fresh trail…but no sign of the animal. I still keep my gas stove handy all night to chase away sneaky curious unwanted animals…

Text message from Freya via satellite phone:

13.46 126.45 Cape Talbot. 60km, 6:00am to 5:00pm. A small naughty croc watched me launching. Only 5 meters away. Got water and shower from commercial vessel this morning.