A Muted New Year's Eve at Sea

[Kyle]We departed Lady Barron on the morning’s high tide. We had left under our normal working sail, expecting an increase in the wind that would soon require reefing. After a few hours when it didn’t come, we switched to the spinnaker and had a marvelous, easy downwind run to the south along Tasmania’s east coast.

The sea was littered with these large jellies (I think Lion's Mane Jellyfish)

The New Year arrived when Maryanne woke me up for my night watch. We did a Happy New Year high-five and then she went to sleep. We were far enough from any population centers that we didn’t see or hear any hint of a celebration at the big moment.

A pleasant sail south in Tasmania

The wind was supposed to increase rapidly after sunrise, so we switched from the spinnaker to the jib. It was a good thing we did. Twenty minutes later, we had to roll another reef in the minute we got back into the cockpit from doing the previous one. The wind was blowing into Wineglass Bay, but it was only supposed to be for the day and we remembered from our last visit that the little spit at the south end of the beach made for a surprisingly calm spot in such conditions.

Our hope was that there would be no one else around to try to squeeze with us into the tiny calm patch, like the last time. We weren’t so lucky. The bay was in full New Year’s Day party mode with several rafted-up runabouts and a couple of big cabin cruisers. Later on, another catamaran came in and squeezed in right next to us. Even though they were there for a whole day and they were only two boat lengths away, I could never get them to return a wave, nor acknowledge our presence in any way.

Lady Barron (Flinders Island) - We are Finally in Tasmania

[Kyle]We spent a couple of days aboard in Eden as we had in Bateman’s Bay, running the heat and hiding from the cold rain outside. We did some maintenance and some cleaning and tried to get caught up on the backlog of computer jobs. I’m still waiting for the kind of retirement where I can think, "You know what, I’m gonna read a book today" and actually have the time to do it.

Our next weather window was due to begin on December 28th. Like when we left Bateman’s Bay, our first day was in light headwinds. We left the coast close-hauled and then began tacking southwards amidst a whole bunch of widely spaced AIS targets doing the same thing. We were now amidst the tail end of the last big group of Sydney-Hobart (S2H) racers.

For the last two days, they had all been bashing into horrific headwinds (30-40 knots) while we were hiding in Eden. By this point, more than a third of the fleet had dropped out due to equipment failures or injuries. The boats that were in our vicinity now must have been relieved at the calming conditions, even though it also meant slowing down.

By slow, I mean slow for them. Every single one of them was passing us. I actually had to give way to Luna Blue as they crossed us on starboard tack. They passed near, but ahead of us on their next tack, so no one had to alter course there. Maryanne helpfully observed that the whole on-watch crew was huddled in their foulies in the cockpit with no protection from the weather whatsoever. Dodgers and biminis slow boats down. Maryanne watched a video tour of the next boat that passed us in the night. (she still had a signal!). They had almost nothing in the way of internal furnishings and were living off of the same type of dehydrated meals we had eaten while hiking the High Sierra Trail (back in September 2016). I felt a little better about being slower with our cockpit greenhouse to maintain shorts weather at the helm seat, our soft beds and Maryanne’s lovely cooking.

Although I generally think sailboat racing is a tremendously silly way to pour buckets of money into the sea, I do have to give the racers their due credit for actually sailing the whole way. When the wind died off later that night, we deployed the spinnaker to keep our speed up. So did they. When it died further, we all slowed down and worked the little puffs until the real wind came back. We still lost, but at least it was a fair fight. There was none of this business where someone goes rocketing by us and only at their closest approach do we realize they’ve had an engine going the whole time because they are a bunch of impatient cheaters.

A nice passage leaving mainland Australia behind, and headed across the Bass Strait to Tasmania

As such, our crossing of the dreaded Bass Strait was a lovely one, being pushed along by mild winds. We pulled the spinnaker down and left the last remaining boat in the fleet as we angled away to our destination at Lady Barron’s Bay on Flinders Island.

I spent my night watch reefing and then reefing again in an attempt to slow down and kill time for a daylight entrance. At the first hint of nautical twilight we finally drifted into the center of the tri-color lead-in beam. I woke Maryanne by starting an engine and we headed in.

It’s notable that the charted center and the actual center were about 1/6th of a nautical mile offset from each other. The path from the bar all of the way into the harbor takes a couple of hours to traverse. When we dropped anchor in Opposum Boat Harbour, off the town of Lady Barron, the sun was just turning from yellow to bright white. {Maryanne: We've been to Flinders Island before, but never this particular anchorage. COVID rules limit the arrival locations currently, but having submitted all the correct emails and paperwork we were approved to go ashore before we even had set anchor}.

Approaching our anchorage on Flinders Island

I had a quick nap while Maryanne set off in the dingy to do some reconnaissance ashore. When I awoke, she had purchased fresh groceries, found the showers, and the pub, and was all keyed up and ready to get me ashore. It was a perfect cloudless day for once and it did seem like it would be a waste not to.

We arrived on a glorious day!

The coastal trail

She took me on the coastal path into the small town of Lady Barron. There, we saw a sign for a vineyard saying it was only 4 kilometers away. We started that direction and after a while decided to check the distance. We still had 4.8km left. Maryanne said they were closing soon – she wanted to be there by 3pm. If we really picked up the pace, we could make it by 2:55.

We left town with the promise of a wine cellar, but the 4km sign was a fib

Then she kept stopping to take pictures of pretty things. Tensions mounted until she finally revealed to me that the vineyard closes at 4pm, but she wanted to be there in time to actually enjoy a tasting. Oh, for… I had NOT been pacing myself. Now we could relax.

When we were about three-quarters of the way there, we were picked up by a local who lives across the road from where we were going. Now we were ahead of schedule again and could relax.

They didn’t mind. We were the only ones there just then. We had a tasting, which we both agreed only produced one variety that we really liked. We bought a bottle of it and then headed out to a picnic table in the vines to enjoy it. Life’s rough.

Unavale Winery is the only cellar door on Flinders Island, we enjoyed a tasting, followed by a bottle of our favourite wine sipped among the vines.

The woman at the vineyard was kind enough to save us the walk by giving us a ride back into town. We took that shower and decided we had enough time for a pub meal at one of their outdoor tables overlooking the harbor. It’s a good thing we did. The weather was changing again and a window was opening up tomorrow that would be too good to pass up.

The pub provided a welcome alternative to yet another home cooked meal

Passage to Eden (Heading to Tasmania - part 2)

[Kyle]It initially had looked like we would be pinned down in Bateman’s Bay for about a week. Then a twelve-hour period of strong tailwinds popped up in the forecasts. We decided to move to Eden, at the northern end of the Bass Strait, where we would be in a better position for the next leg south to Tasmania.

We would end up sailing on Christmas Eve, but it looked like we would be arriving around sunrise on Christmas, so we figured we would still have plenty of time to exchange gifts and have the big meal.

Ah, forecasts… The further you get from the equator, the less reliable they become. By the morning of our departure, our twelve hours of strong winds had been amended to six, plus four of light winds. By the time we left, it was four of light tailwinds, four of light headwinds, and a whole lot of nuttin’. Groan. It was still our best option though, so off we went.

We started with the headwinds. They weren’t bad, but they weren’t helping out sunrise arrival any. They ran out completely right before Maryanne handed Begonia over to me. I reluctantly started an engine, just to keep us moving until the tailwinds arrived. Four hours later, I was still waiting. The winds were frustratingly late!

Half an hour after that, we did finally get enough for me to switch back to sail. We were only going a knot, but at least we were moving. It picked up until we were able to make a respectable entrance to the bay going fast and flying the spinnaker. It was only nine hours after sunrise.

Beautiful skies on our passage to Eden

It was a good thing the days are longer down here. We still had almost six hours of daylight left. We decided that the naps we were both craving would screw our rhythms up even worse, so we made some coffee and got on with salvaging the rest of the holiday. We made it until dark, but just. The food coma and a little bit of wine put us out cold.

The Christmas period - at anchor; not a bad place to be safely tucked away

Passage to Bateman’s Bay (Heading to Tasmania - part 1)

[Kyle]We left Southport on the last of the morning flood. We headed southeast on a beam reach until afternoon, when we intercepted the East Australian Current (EAC). It was chugging its way south at around three knots. We then turned with it, leaving just enough east in our heading to hunt for the centre of the flow. When we found it, we had over a four-knot boost. Even though the wind was howling the sailing was very pleasant, since it, us, and the water were all going the same direction. This was particularly so since the EAC delivers warm, tropical water down south. We had t-shirt weather day and night.

Leaving the Gold Coast in calm conditions - the wind did arrive, and in some lovely flat seas and a following current, we made some great progress
Boat Speed over ground (SOG) reaching over 13kts aided by a 4.8kt current with true wind at 25kt from behind us

On day Two, the wind started to die off, so we switched to the spinnaker for the next twenty-four hours. Maryanne had a night watch where there was only enough wind to fill the big sail about half of the time. She had only managed to go twenty-two miles through the water during those six hours. Most of that was due to the wind picking up at the end. The current added another fifteen to that, making for what would usually be a pretty good run for a watch.

Great conditions for most of the trip

I did another thirty-five miles through the water on my night watch, plus eleven more from the current. The wind started to shift just then, so we brought the spinnaker down and switched back to main and jib. It slowly backed around to the south, peeling us away from our desired course. We tacked and were able to gradually converge back on it as the wind continued to swing.

The seas changed, but dolphins arrived to entertain us

Maryanne had another frustrating night watch of fluky winds before they finally stabilized out of the SSE. Soon we were reefed and bashing into cold southern air and building seas. The forecasts said we were just at the leading edge of a pretty bad storm, so we decided to abandon our plan to sail to Tasmania and headed for Bateman’s Bay to wait it out.

We left the EAC. Our speeds returned to normal and the water temperature plummeted, followed closely by the air flowing over it. We arrived in Bateman’s Bay bundled up against a building drizzle and anchored just outside the harbor entrance. We had no plans to go ashore as we didn’t want to even give the impression that we were entering New South Wales. Our entry to Tasmania from Queensland had already been approved, provided we did not leave the vessel at any stops. That was fine. It was cold and rainy anyway. In the evening, we fired up the heater for the first time in months (probably when we last left Tasmania) and were gratified to find that it still works just great.

We waited out the weather system, tucked safely away in the shelter of Bateman's Bay

Paradise Point

[Kyle]After a quick trip From Bum’s Bay back to Paradise Point, we were quick to inflate our new kayak. Our initial impressions were good. It is much more durable than the old one {Maryanne: We deliberately purchased an inexpensive PVC inflatable kayak (initially to see if we would really use it, how it would stow, etc), one we expected to maybe last a season, but we are only upgrading 3 years later}. The new kayak, of much higher quality build wise, tracks straight as an arrow and the seats are drier. The long, narrow hull also makes it slice through the water much faster. That’s great, but the reduced width also makes it less initially stable. It took a while before we stopped feeling nervous that every little roll was going to send us over into the drink.

Playing with our new kayak

We (okay, maybe mostly me) decided that the best way to get accustomed to it was to spend a whole day paddling around. To that end, we decided to make the 6.8 nautical mile (each way) back-canal excursion to The Boat Works and back for parts at their chandlery, retracing the dinghy trip we made in 2019 using our electric motor. It's a pretty route through the backs of homes, and through wilderness. This time we even had dolphins share the waterway with us for a while.

Unlike our previous trip however, the timing of the tides wasn’t so favorable, so we ended up doing much of the kayak trip against the current. We arrived at The Boat Works a little stiff from sitting so long, but otherwise we were okay. The trip back was much more grueling and we were both pretty wiped out by the time we were halfway home. That’s also when the wind and current really turned against us. Those last three miles were a real grind.

We were lucky to have a rain/rest day after that, which successfully reset our desire to give the new kayak another go. This time, we confined ourselves to the miles of canals adjacent the anchorage, where we could get a couple hours’ worth of morning exercise gliding on flat water past bazillion-dollar houses.

Exploring the fancy homes within the Sovereign Islands (at Paradise Point)

The weekend came and we quickly learned you don’t want to be anchored at Paradise Point on a weekend. It seems half the population of the Gold Coast thinks of it as their favorite jet skiing, waterskiing and speed boating spot. We had several of each pass by going way over the speed limit (There is one, nobody cares.) close enough to slap, had I only been fast enough to run out and do so.

We celebrated Kyle's birthday while there (so sampled a few of the bars and restaurants too)

Relief from all of that quickly arrived at the Sunday sunset. Then we got to re-enjoy being anchored in what passes for a quiet little cove around here.

We had one day where Maryanne let me get away with skipping any jobs and doing what I want, presumably because of my age. {Maryanne: Kyle has taken to push his birthday to two days - one for each time zone (USA and Australia)}.

Then it was time to get Begonia ready, for a north wind was finally on its way.