After three weeks free cruising, Australia’s famed Great Barrier Reef, stopping at the famous Early Beach enjoying one of the whitest sand beach in the world, White Heaven Beach, all the 22 boats have finally arrived in Darwin.

On arrival boats were temporally berthed on the welcome dock at Cullen Bay marina in order to get treated by the Aquatic Biosecurity divers, who inspected the hulls. Once the hull treatment done the boats were allowed to finally move to their respective marina either staying in Cullen Bay Marina for the biggest one or staying at Tipperary Marina for the others.

Darwin marking half way of the Rally, participants sailing all the way since St-Lucia had the opportunity to meet with new boats joining or re-joining after a year break from World ARC 2017/18 on Wednesday for the optional dinner at Seafood on Cullen, also a good opportunity to get all the crew together after having free cruised independently for the last weeks.

2018 World ARC in Darwin – Boats welcome dock – photo © World Cruising

We would like to wish a warm welcome to all the crew on Influencer, Matt, Rob, Nicky and Sydney joining the rally all the way to St-Lucia as well as Steve and Anita on Timshel re-joining the Rally after having spent 1 year sailing and visiting around Australia.

With all the crews reunited, the official programme started this morning taking participants onto a slightly different cruise than usual on the Adelaide river to see the jumping crocodiles. There participants spotted some crocs including the famous 5.5m, 80 years old saltwater jumping croc Brutus, became famous for catching a bull shark on the river. During the cruise participants also spotted wild birds and buffalos.

2018 World ARC – Darwin – Jumping crocodile – photo © World Cruising

Enjoying the wildlife they just saw, some participants decided to plan their week end to go and explore the Kakadu National park before getting the boat ready for the start of next Leg taking them to Lombok on Tuesday.

by World Cruising