Back through the Denison Canal again and across to Bruny Island, the wind so changeable we used everything in our sail wardrobe – changing sails so often we were now getting rather tired of the fickle weather here.
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| View from the top of Mt Wellington, Hobart |
With a few stops in various lovely anchorages en route we
made our way down to Recherche Bay anchoring there for a couple of days and
walking to Fishers Point – the southernmost point of Australia reachable by
road. Then back tracking to go up the Huon River anchoring first in Franklin where
one of Jamie’s cousins, Kate, joined us for a night, she was down in Tasmania
on holiday. We had a great time – BBQ dinner
ashore with folks from two other boats, and next morning she took us touring in
her car – down to Geeveston, Dover, and on a bushwalk out to Duckhole Lake.
Going up river to Huonville passing under some unmarked overhead powerlines – I say unmarked as they are in fact marked on the charts but no height clearance is mentioned. Approaching a bend in the river suddenly Jamie stopped SOL – “where is the sign saying their height?? Can you see it?” “No, they look kind of low” “I’m not sure we should” “Me neither, I’m scared”. Slowly, slowly, breath held, we inched our way, as far to the righthand side of the river as possible where they were highest, ever fearful of seeing the spark as our mast touched the wires, we need 21 metres above us and it is impossible to gauge that. It seemed like ages as we gradually eased our way under then the wires were behind us before we were able to breathe again. Another ‘never want to repeat that’ moment. We dropped anchor in Huonville beside Tamariki, a lovely old wooden yacht, built and owned by Peter Mortimer in New Zealand and over here for the Wooden Boat Festival. Turns out Peter knows my brother, Andrew and his wife Jenny. We had an exceedingly enjoyable evening together on SOL.
Back down, under those scary powerlines, to Franklin, Port Huon then round to Cygnet catching a nice little Australian salmon on the way (fishing has been rather disappointing in Tasmania). We explored Cygnet town, staying two nights along with heaps of other boats we had seen over the past two years, before leaving for Port Esperance and Dover.
Tasmania is fish farm city – everywhere you go is yet another huge fish farm, rumour has it that all the decent fish not farmed hang around the fish farms eating all the food that escapes and that is why there are very few good-sized ones that are interested in the bait on our lines – they aren’t hungry!!
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Feasting on fresh picked blackberries
became an almost daily treat
|
Going up river to Huonville passing under some unmarked overhead powerlines – I say unmarked as they are in fact marked on the charts but no height clearance is mentioned. Approaching a bend in the river suddenly Jamie stopped SOL – “where is the sign saying their height?? Can you see it?” “No, they look kind of low” “I’m not sure we should” “Me neither, I’m scared”. Slowly, slowly, breath held, we inched our way, as far to the righthand side of the river as possible where they were highest, ever fearful of seeing the spark as our mast touched the wires, we need 21 metres above us and it is impossible to gauge that. It seemed like ages as we gradually eased our way under then the wires were behind us before we were able to breathe again. Another ‘never want to repeat that’ moment. We dropped anchor in Huonville beside Tamariki, a lovely old wooden yacht, built and owned by Peter Mortimer in New Zealand and over here for the Wooden Boat Festival. Turns out Peter knows my brother, Andrew and his wife Jenny. We had an exceedingly enjoyable evening together on SOL.
Back down, under those scary powerlines, to Franklin, Port Huon then round to Cygnet catching a nice little Australian salmon on the way (fishing has been rather disappointing in Tasmania). We explored Cygnet town, staying two nights along with heaps of other boats we had seen over the past two years, before leaving for Port Esperance and Dover.
Tasmania is fish farm city – everywhere you go is yet another huge fish farm, rumour has it that all the decent fish not farmed hang around the fish farms eating all the food that escapes and that is why there are very few good-sized ones that are interested in the bait on our lines – they aren’t hungry!!
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| Fish farms of varying shapes and sizes all over Tasmania |
Back to Bruny Island - Quarries Bay, Little Taylors Bay,
Stockyard Point and Missionary Bay before tying up to the Attenuator Wharf at
Kettering. We were back in Kettering to collect a new sail – our jib/genoa had
gotten rather threadbare and we were unwilling to trust it to make the passage
back to the mainland. While we were having the new sail made, we also replaced
the mainsail boom bag with a bright new one – they do say BOAT = Bring Out
Another Thousand – and yes, it is very true.
With SOL looking very flash with her new sailbag and jib and following a night in Little Fancy Bay we again headed up the Derwent where we tied up at the MAST (Marine and Safety, Tasmania) free pontoon at Constitution Dock – felt just like a Sydney – Hobart participant!!
With SOL looking very flash with her new sailbag and jib and following a night in Little Fancy Bay we again headed up the Derwent where we tied up at the MAST (Marine and Safety, Tasmania) free pontoon at Constitution Dock – felt just like a Sydney – Hobart participant!!
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| Brilliant sunset, Prince of Wales Bay marina - before the anticipated bad weather |
With horrendous weather forecast for the whole of Tasmania
over the next 48 hours we once again went to the security of the Prince of
Wales Bay marina.
25th March - You know when you are nicely tucked up inside your house when there is a howling gale blowing outside – you look outside and the trees are bending with the force of the wind, the rain on the tin roof sounds kind of neat, you light the fire or turn the heater on – it feels ok….. not so on a boat, well not for me anyway. SOL was built for the tropics, and she is great for that but when there is a nasty weather event here in Tasmania we are cold!! Very cold – long pants and ugg boots even. The thing is that tucked up warm in your house you never get the feeling that you are going to ‘go’ anywhere – on a boat it’s not so sure – will the anchor hold? Will the docklines be adequate?
Picture this – we knew the weather was to turn rather inclement so decided to come back to the Prince of Wales Bay Marina and hide out here for a few days until it passed by, we arrived here yesterday morning in flat calm and tied up to the dock easily, even sat out in the sun for a bit in the afternoon and read. When we went to bed all was fine – why does the worst weather seem to hit in the dark, in the middle of the night?? At 4am there we were, partially clad, up on deck, tightening lines and then adding another line to keep us even more securely attached to the relative safety of the dock – I say relative safety as these floating pontoons look rather unstable at times – I’m sure they’re not as bad as they look, but they do seem to get a bit of a wobble on when there are a few tons of boat tied to them and the waves and wind increase and in the early morning light this wobble appears worse than it is!! The usual noises are, of course magnified in the dark and wind, the rattles, creaks and groans that you tend to ignore make for a very broken sleep, even when you are well prepared for it. And, this weather is predicted for the next two days!! The BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) has issued gale warnings and said it will probably even snow!! Which will be kind of cool (hahaha).
But of course, we were fine.
We were waiting for a weather window to get back up to “the mainland”. Phil and Russell, his boss, were flying down to meet up with us to do the Bass Strait crossing and at midnight on Thursday the 28th March they arrived – we were ready to leave Tasmania – beautiful as it has been it was time to go.
25th March - You know when you are nicely tucked up inside your house when there is a howling gale blowing outside – you look outside and the trees are bending with the force of the wind, the rain on the tin roof sounds kind of neat, you light the fire or turn the heater on – it feels ok….. not so on a boat, well not for me anyway. SOL was built for the tropics, and she is great for that but when there is a nasty weather event here in Tasmania we are cold!! Very cold – long pants and ugg boots even. The thing is that tucked up warm in your house you never get the feeling that you are going to ‘go’ anywhere – on a boat it’s not so sure – will the anchor hold? Will the docklines be adequate?
Picture this – we knew the weather was to turn rather inclement so decided to come back to the Prince of Wales Bay Marina and hide out here for a few days until it passed by, we arrived here yesterday morning in flat calm and tied up to the dock easily, even sat out in the sun for a bit in the afternoon and read. When we went to bed all was fine – why does the worst weather seem to hit in the dark, in the middle of the night?? At 4am there we were, partially clad, up on deck, tightening lines and then adding another line to keep us even more securely attached to the relative safety of the dock – I say relative safety as these floating pontoons look rather unstable at times – I’m sure they’re not as bad as they look, but they do seem to get a bit of a wobble on when there are a few tons of boat tied to them and the waves and wind increase and in the early morning light this wobble appears worse than it is!! The usual noises are, of course magnified in the dark and wind, the rattles, creaks and groans that you tend to ignore make for a very broken sleep, even when you are well prepared for it. And, this weather is predicted for the next two days!! The BOM (Bureau of Meteorology) has issued gale warnings and said it will probably even snow!! Which will be kind of cool (hahaha).
But of course, we were fine.
We were waiting for a weather window to get back up to “the mainland”. Phil and Russell, his boss, were flying down to meet up with us to do the Bass Strait crossing and at midnight on Thursday the 28th March they arrived – we were ready to leave Tasmania – beautiful as it has been it was time to go.
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