Hobart and a South Arm Day Trip

[Kyle]The time had come for us to go into the big city to get our COVID booster shots. There were the only three widely spaced boats in the big, wide Lime Bay that morning, so we decided to leave the engines out of it and leave under sail. It’s a little more complicated, but so much more peaceful. The other nice thing is that you don’t have to wait until the engines are warm before going fast.

We weren’t that far from Hobart, but we needed to go all of the way around Cape Direction to get from Frederick Henry Bay into the Derwent Estuary. That meant that our first few hours were spent tacking from one edge of the bay to the other in winds and seas that built the further we got into the unobstructed Southern Ocean. We had the current with us, which was good for our speed and tacking angles, but made for a sloppy sea of standing waves as it went into the winds.

When we rounded the conspicuous, square-sided Iron Pot Lighthouse, the entire character of the sail changed. Now we were on a pleasant downwind sail and we no longer needed to hide in the shelter of the cockpit enclosure to avoid the cold wind.

Some time along that leg of the journey, I decided I would really like to anchor under sail. The wind was forecast to die off to nothing overnight and our planned stop at Mary Ann Bay has a clear approach and a large enough space to maneuver to the spot we wanted, even if there were other boats there.

It almost worked out as planned. We were able to round the corner and skim the ten-meter depth contour. Then the headland blocked the wind and caused it to shift ahead. We pinched into it as hard as we could, but we ran out of momentum before we could ease into shallower water near the beach. Oh, well. We dropped the anchor there. After backing up a few times with the mainsail and then coming to a good, firm stop, we were convinced the anchor was holding. How nice it was knowing that I wasn’t going to have to access and crawl all over two hot engines while doing my usual post-run checks. Instead, I only had to release the preventer and then take my time lowering the mainsail neatly into its bag.

Arriving at our new home (for the week) - the Prince of Wales Bay Marina

Our next morning was indeed very calm. There was definitely not going to be any sailing today. We would have loved to be right in the middle of things again at Constitution Dock, but decided since we currently had virtually no immunity to the omicron strain until two weeks had passed since the boosters, a more prudent course of action would be to stay out of the city center at Prince of Wales Bay Marina. Then we rented a car so that we could control our bubble and spend most of our time outside of densely populated areas.

We got most of our unpleasant jobs done right away, just in case we got flattened by our boosters. The day after my second jab, I couldn’t even get out of bed.

This time, we each woke up feeling just fine. It was a beautiful, clear day and we both decided we just had to get out in it. A sailing friend from the marina lent us his car to pick up our rental (thanks Ron!), which left us with more time and energy to do some ’splorin’.

First on the list was a trip up Mt. Wellington, rising steeply above Hobart and serving as its ubiquitous backdrop. The last time we were here, two years earlier, the summit was so mired in thick fog that we couldn’t even make out the observation platforms from the summit parking lots. This time. There wasn’t a cloud in the sky. We could clearly see the summit from the boat so we thought we would have a pretty good chance of seeing it vice versa.

A rare clear day to enjoy the views from Mt Wellington

After observing the speck of Begonia far below, we took in a few of the mountain’s lower trails as a bonus. Maryanne was beginning feel a little drained, probably as a vaccine side effect, so she stayed back at a pub while I did one last loop.

We still had plenty of daylight left, so we decided to drive over the bridge to walk a few of the flatter trails on the South Arm coastline (the peninsula to the SouthEast of Hobart). By then, the long day was getting to us, so we started home, but of course we ended up taking practically every scenic detour we could find. We finished with a visit to Cremorne Beach, which seemed nice enough and was full of fishos and families along the extensive finger of beach, but is reported to be the postcode with the highest median personal income in Tasmania (you'd never know it).

From Hobaret we headed South-East to the "South Arm" coastlines around Mortimer Bay, and Cape Desalac

We've yet to see a Tasmanian Devil in the wild, despite the frequent warning signs in this area
Thankfully there is other Tasmanian wildlife more readily sighted.