Seamanship

[BobFord]

Advice sought, please- Passage from Australia (Darwin ) to Cocos Keeling. I have sailed this passage but continued on to Chagos Arch. last time around.
I am seeking information on passage Darwin to Cocos but then returning to mainland Australia. Time of year and especially the favoured route to enable sail use. My cat is not especially a keen windward boat but a little engine assistance overcomes losses , quite economically !

[Dsanduril]

We did the Darwin-Cocos part a couple of years ago (and longer ago than that). Seems like you have it covered, the only trick is knowing where/when to find wind getting out of Darwin, just a matter of watching the forecast.

We found a stop at Ashmore Reef well worth the minor paperwork with the ADF.

For the return part, that question got asked on Noonsite a while back, specific to September, and got answered by none other than Jimmy Cornell himself. The opening line of his response:

Cocos to West Coast is not the easiest route at any time...

Out at Cocos the SE winds stick around pretty much all year. Where on the mainland do you want to end up? If back at Darwin I would start to think about routes that take you north to Indo, then east through the archipelago, then back south. If West Coast then maybe waiting for a high to pass south of Cocos to allow the wind to come a bit more east and see how much you can make of it.