Devonport

[Kyle]Next up along Tasmania's north coast was a stop at Devonport. We were heading to the River Tamar, and a stop at Devonport seemed like a good way to break up the journey. It is the landing point for the ferries to Melbourne on the mainland.

Sailing along the coast, Past Burnie, into the Mersey River (with the distinctive Mersey Bluff Lighthouse), passing the 'Spirit of Tasmania' ferry, and finding a space at the Mersey Yacht Club

We had to leave Wynyard at 3:30am, before the falling tide got too low to get out of the river mouth, but the wind was light and behind us. We did the whole thing under spinnaker. At first, we were going too slowly for it to register on our speed transducer, but eventually we were passing all of the other boaters that would have been there if we hadn't been the only one.

We had secured space at the dock at the Mersey Yacht Club. The guest dock was blocked by club boats, so we tied up at the very end of a long metal dock that was built from the twisted remains of an earlier version that had been swept away in a storm. The area is industrial, being on the opposite side of the river from the main town. Our side was mostly functional, built on reclaimed land of broken bricks and other building debris. Even the poor washing machines had idiosyncrasies - Maryanne had to wash in one, spin in another and that took her about 3 hours of trials to work out!

The people there were nice as can be, though. On one of our forays out into what was mostly bad weather, we met Mark. He was the owner of a very charming and seaworthy little monohull. He said there wasn't enough space in there, and besides, he gets seasick. Now he lives in his van overlooking the boat. We met him for drinks at the local restaurant with his cousin Grattan. They had both been here for a long time and were full of entertaining stories.

Maryanne went for a bit of an exploratory walk, but since there really wasn't that much to do in the immediate area, we used the time to get caught up on pending jobs before moving on.

Maryanne found a circuit along the riverfront, beaches and back to town via a wetland park - and found a few birds along the way.

[Maryanne]Our Devonport stopover was quite a disappointment. I really don't think the visit was worth paying for a dock, it was simply a convenient stop along the coastline. The ONLY reason possibly to stop there otherwise would be to maybe rent a car and explore inland a little. The clubhouse was closed during the three evenings we were there, so things may have been different if we'd visited over a weekend.