The only Darwin sunset cruise where you get a GoVino wine glass!

It might start on April Fools Day 2017, but it is no joke that we are giving away complimentary GoVino glasses and __sea Darwin stubby coolers along with our Sunset Fish’n Chips ticket price.  Sunset Fish’n Chips is undoubtedly the best value Darwin Sunset Cruise available, recognised both locally and around the world! Check out this quote from @cuisivin – distributor of unique and innovative wine accessories, tabletop and kitchenware products from around the world.

That’s a pretty great deal if we’re ever in Aussie we will have to come visit! @govino https://t.co/a7P5522ibJ

— Cuisivin (@Cuisivin) March 29, 2017

Our Ticket price $65 adults, $45 children and $220 for a family of 2 adults and 2 children*.  This price includes:

• One and a half hour sunset cruise adventure on Darwin Harbour
• One serve of fresh, local wild caught fish’n chips with calamari and chips from either La Beach or Frying Nemo – both local Darwin fish’n chip shops awarded for excellence
• One complimentary drink from the bar – beer, wine, bubbly, soft drink or bottle of water
• Take home stubby cooler or Go Vino wine glass that comes with your drink (adult fare only)
• Local guides with real time commentary
• Visit to sites of interest that other cruise boats don’t go – let the tide and weather conditions decide where you go.  This might be to the Fannie Bay sandbar, or you might venture up the back of Darwin Harbour to a bird sanctuary,  or you might cruise around the cruising yacht fleet in Fannie Bay, or visit our Darwin Harbour mammals if the conditions are right.

So if a Darwin Sunset cruise is on your bucket list, Sea Darwin offers both experience and value.  Our local crew are armed with stories of Darwin Harbour, and your journey will maximise what nature has on offer each day.  Combine this with fish’n chips from Darwin’s best takeaway seafood cafes, and your take home souvenir and the value is unsurpassed.  Our GoVino glasses are available in both flutes or wine glasses, and our stubby coolers where designed locally by Big Fish gear.

* Family price only available with direct bookings.

Bookings essential:   online or 1300 065 022

Book Now

Download our Sea Darwin 2017 Brochure

Visit Darwin’s Sandbar with Sea Darwin

The fluttering of dragon flies reminds us that the dry season is just around the corner.  Dry season for __sea Darwin means memorable visits to Darwin’s Sandbar.  On select days and evenings through out the year the sandbar is open for business, and for those who want to do Darwin differently the sandbar is the perfect location for weddings, parties or anything!  Not that you have to organise a special event, because if the saltwater spirits allow, we visit the sandbar on our Fish’n Chip cruise just so that our guests can have first hand experience that the __sea temperature in Darwin Harbour is really around 31 degrees.

In looking back over the years we’ve transported some very special guests, and we’ve been the chariot for awesome events on this little strip of sand that pokes it’s head out of Darwin Harbour every now and then.  There have been some wonderful weddings with specially made “rising tide” stubby coolers, lots of cricket matches, hen’s nights, corporate events and beach picnics.  We’ve taken ladies in stilettos (not a good idea), men in tuxedos (with the bottom of their pants rolled up) backpackers in bikinis (the Captain’s favourite) and international grey nomads who’ve stripped off their clothes.  Ask that Captain about that one!  Whatever the occasion has been, fond memories of Darwin and our beautiful and pristine harbour have been made.

So in moving to this year, Darwin’s sandbar will continue to be destination of choice for those who like to go places where you think things that you like to think.  It will be a destination of choice for those who would like their own private island for an itty bitty chapter in their life.  It will be a place that provides front row seats for our amazing Top End sunset; it will be a pitch for the cricket match to end all cricket matches, it might even be a place where proposals are made, and where decisions are decided.

If you think Darwin’s sandbar is a place where you might like to visit, then contact us on 130 0 065 022 or info@seadarwin.com, and we’ll discuss the options.  Similarly, if you’re visiting Darwin and just want a casual visit, send us a message to see when our Sunset Fish’n Chip cruise might be calling in to Darwin’s sandbar.

Travel to the Tiwi Islands with Sea Darwin! Tiwi Islands Footy Final with Sea Darwin

The famous Tiwi Islands Footy Final and Art Sale is on again on Sunday 19 March 2017.  Watch this from terryc0203 and wet your appetite for a big day out.

Sea Darwin has travelled to the Tiwi Islands Footy Final and Art Show every year since 2009.  We’ve had glassy seas, we’ve dodged storms and we’ve ocean rafted across the Timor Sea.  At times we’ve been accompanied by dolphins, we’ve seen whales and we’ve had flying fish land in the boat.  We’ve rescued a ghost net and had white horses gallop around the boat!  But whatever the journey has been, those on board have always been on a mission.  The mission has been to witness one of the iconic events in modern Australian history, the annual Tiwi Footy Grand Final and to cast their eves over some of the nations most intriguing and evocative art work, all for sale for a fraction of the price charged in mainland art galleries.

Sea Darwin offers return transfers to the Tiwi Islands on Sunday 19 March 2017.   Tickets available from $200 and include:

• An exhilarating return trip from Darwin to the Tiwi Islands departing Stokes Hill Wharf at 0900hrs
• Arriving at Warimiyunga(Nguiu) around 1100 hrs
• From the beach an easy stroll to the  museum, art centres & footy game
• BYO lunch or buy it there. Note; No BYO alcohol!
• Licensed bar on boat, nibbles also available
• Water, sunscreen & insect repellent included
• Return to Darwin usually by 1800 hrs

Sea Darwin has the fastest boats, we’re a local company,  we’re the most affordable option for travel to the Tiwi Islands Footy Final and we’ve a licenced bar on board.

Tickets from $200 pp and you can Book online or call 1300 065 022.

In search of Darwin Turtle, it was no romantic, steamy top end sunset cruise for Catherine Best.  On our roughest Turtle Tracks journey for 2015, she joined us aboard the Snubfin to experience Charles Point’s wrath on her way to Bare Sand Island.  And with literary pzazz, her reflections equated the journey to the challenges that the Bare Sand Island flatback hatchlings have on their journey to the sea.  Catherine’s article  Hang With the Turtles of Bare Sand Island has been published as a “Pointy End” article with Tiger Tales magazine.

Our dry season journey to Bare Sand Island to see the turtles is certainly for those with the spirit of adventure.  With seven years of experience of journeying through Darwin Harbour and rounding Charles Point we are well aware of, and well prepared for, whatever the sea gods dish up.  For the most part, we experience smooth seas; sometimes we have a little jiggle as we round the point, and about one in 10 trips is wet and wild on the way down.  Our experience tells us that the return journey is generally calm with the dark sea reflecting either the full moon or the milky way.  With the years of experience the Turtle Tracks skipper has good insight into what will be, and this is shared with guests prior to departure.  Whatever the experience, Turtle Tracks is adventure tourism.  We travel by fast boat, we visit a remote location, and nature dictates at all times.  Turtle Tracks is at “the pointy end” of tourism, NT style.

In 2015 nature dictated that every Turtle Tracks guest witnessed turtles nesting, on their beach on their own terms.  In addition 50% of our guests saw turtle hatchlings take their first plunge into the ocean. We saw the full life cycle of turtle from the eggs being laid, to the hatchlings emerging, to girls returning multiple times to nest, and even turtle carcasses on the beach.  We had a crocodile welcoming us to Bare Sand Island on 3 occasions, and we saw countless seabirds who call the island home when it’s hatchling season.   And as a very special experience, on 4 occasions we had wolf herrings jump into our boat on the way home.  To compliment all of these experiences, Turtle Tracks guests are accompanied on the island by Team Turtle, our highly skilled and experienced guides, most of whom have marine science qualifications, and all of whom have a wealth of knowledge about Bare Sand Island’s inhabitants.

In 2015 we were fortunate to work closely with Austurtle who spent 7 weeks continuing their research on Bare Sand Island.  Over that period the research team collected data from 300 nesting turtles, they excavated 150 hatched nests to find that there was an 80% success rate in those nests.   At the end of the season the team placed tracking devices on 4 turtles.   Two of these were flatback turtles who have gone to shoals off the Northern Kimberley coast to feed.  Another tracker was placed on a young male hawksbill turtle who, for a 100 days, has been within a kilometre off Bare Sand Island.  Over this time he pops up at the same place on the spring tides.  This young lad is clearly one of the lucky ones, with Austurtle finding that this year  there was a 50% bird mortality for hatchlings.

As Catherine Best pointed out there are challenges for hatchlings as they make their way to the sea, just as there are as we make our way to that unique and remote bare sand island in Bynoe Harbour.

Experience the glitz from the water on this Territory Day Fireworks Cruise

Jump onboard with Sea Darwin this Territory Day, 1 July 2016, to have front row seats for the Mindil Beach fireworks spectacular.  Our fleet will be departing Stokes Hill Wharf at 7.30pm for a fast boat ride taking in the nightscape of the Esplanade on route to Fannie Bay.  Well cruise until we find the best position on the harbour to take in the spectacle of the Mindil Beach hum and the firework extravaganza.  Will the synchronised sound track turned up we’ll celebrate Territory Day in style, before a quick ride back to Stokes Hill wharf.

Date:  1 July 2016

Time:  7.30pm departure from DOCK 1 at Stokes Hill Wharf.

Return:  9.00pm approx 

Cost:  $40 adult $25 child inclusive of a complimentary drink.  

Licenced bar available.

Book on line or call 1300 065 022.

Setting moon, rising sun …… we’re mixing it up at Sea Darwin this year with our Sunrise Turtle cruise.

Imagine standing on a remote beach in Northern Australia watching the moon set over one horizon, while the sun rises on the other, all the while as ancient flatback sea turtles plod up the beach around you.  

For something completely different in 2016, Sea Darwin has introduced Sunrise Turtles into their product mix.  This eco cruise is only for those with a spirit of adventure, who seek a completely unique and world class experience, and who have the ability to get out of bed at an obscenely early hour. 

Leaving Darwin at 4am the journey on one of Sea Darwin’s fast boats will take you out of Darwin Harbour as the night draws to an end.  Arriving on remote Bare Sand Island by first light – just in time to witness the dipping of the full moon into the sea, and at an optimum time for flatback turtles to make their way up the beach to lay a clutch of eggs.  As dawn passes, the raw harshness of the island environment will be appreciated, and it will be time for us to retreat back to the sea for breakfast aboard as we make our way back to Darwin, arriving mid morning.

This cruise is a photographers dream, with the stunning light of dawn combined with viewing sea turtles in their own environment, on their own terms.  Sunrise Turtles is a very special experience, and can only be scheduled a few times each year.   More information www.seadarwin.com or info@seadarwin.com.

Catch-a-Canoe: Upriver Adventures

Thursday morning I set out to explore Big River by canoe alongside Sebastian, my old college roommate (this was his first trip was to the North Coast!). We suited up at Catch-a-Canoe and started paddling.

It’s no secret that Mendocino is full of natural beauty: the water, the trees, the headlands. This was all familiar—I’ve been coming to Mendocino since I learned how to write my name. But as we headed upriver, I saw its beauty in a different light. When we took a break from paddling and sat suspended on the surface, everything was still. We could hear the echoes of the birds in the trees, the subtle movement of the water. It was Sebastian’s first time in the redwoods, and this, to me, was a new Mendocino.

  

About half an hour into our journey we came upon a family of otters! There were four in total, a mother and her three pups. We followed them as they swam further up, diving underwater and coming up briefly for air. When they had finished playing in the water, they climbed ashore onto a giant log. We waited patiently, observed them for several minutes, and the continued our trek upstream.

Once we’d left our otter friends behind, I was sure that would be it for our animal sightings, though Sebastian was determined to see more. I was happy to be proven wrong when we came across a family of harbor seals, three in all. We chased them upstream and waited quietly for them to resurface. They were full of energy, on the prowl for a morning snack. We didn’t want to invade their space for too long, so after twenty minutes or so, we forged ahead.

Also spotted on our trip: gulls, egrets, and cormorants!

We continued upriver until it was time to turn back, just as the fog began to roll in again.

catch a canoe, ecotourism, wildlife