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