Thursday, February 22, 2018, Cruising the Timor Sea

Today is Day 70 of 140; at midnight we will have completed half-way time wise.  We will arrive at our thirtieth (of sixty three) port stop in the morning.  We will be anxious to receive our cruise summary at the end to see how many miles we traveled and how much fuel, food, water, etc. was consumed.

Early inhabitants of Australia may have “island hopped” from Indonesia across the shallow waters of the Timor Sea. It is possible that Australia's first inhabitants crossed the Timor Sea from Indonesia at a time when sea levels were lower.  The sea’s name closely translates in Malay to “east,” for its location relative to Indonesia’s Sunda Islands.  The body of water shares its name with the independent state of East Timor to its north.  In the late 1980s, skilled sportsmen and women raced 1,000 miles by junking, or outrigger canoe, across the Timor from Bali, Indonesia to Darwin, Australia.  Using vessels fashioned after traditional Balinese fishing boats, crews from nine nations started the journey individually and, famously, agreed to finish as one team to ensure the safe passage of all.

The Timor Sea is a relatively shallow sea bounded to the north by the island of Timor, to the east by the Arafura Sea, to the west of Australia.  The sea contains a number of reefs, uninhabited islands and significant hydrocarbon reserves.  International disputes emerged after the reserves were discovered resulting in the signing of the Timor Sea Treaty.  The Timor Sea was hit by the worst oil spill for 25 years in 2009.

The waters to the east are known as the Arafura Sea. The Timor Sea is adjacent to three substantial inlets on the north Australian coast, the Joseph Bonaparte Gulf, Beagle Gulf and the Van Diemen Gulf. The Australian city of Darwin is the only large city to adjoin the sea. The small town of Wyndham is located on the west arm of Cambridge Gulf, an inlet of Joseph Bonaparte Gulf.

Rivers that enter the Timor Sea from the Northern Territory include Fish River, King River, Dry River, Victoria River and the Alligator Rivers. Rivers in the Kimberley region that flow into the Timor Sea include the Ord River, Forrest River, Pentecost River and Durack River.

The sea is about 480 km (300 statute miles) wide, covering an area of about 610,000 km². (235,000 square miles). Its deepest point is the Timor Trough (which some geologists consider is the south-eastern extension of the Java Trench, but others view as a foreland trough to the Timor Island "mountain range"), located in the northern part of the sea, which reaches a depth of 3,300 m (10,800 ft). The remainder of the sea is much shallower, much of it averaging less than 200 m (650 ft) deep, as it overlies the Sahul Shelf, part of the Australian continental shelf.

The Big Bank Shoals is an area on the sloping seabed between the continental shelf and the Timor Trough where a number of submerged banks are located.  The ecosystem of the shoals is significantly different to the deeper waters surrounding them.  In May 2010, it was announced that a crater about 50 km wide has been discovered on the seabed of the Timor Sea.

Sunset from our dining room window, taken on Diane's cell phone.