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Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Bass Strait - Apollo Bay to Tamar River, Tasmania

Monday - 18/11/2013

We hardly had any sleep just laid there waiting for the time where we had to sail, it gets you like that, you think about what has to be done before you get underway and the brain ticks over and you can't sleep.
We had to get the lines sorted before leaving the dock we had prepared everything else earlier to get away quickly. As we left the dock we had to get all the fenders and fender boards stowed before going out to sea this took a short time but we got it all done then started to head out of the marina. I followed the track on the chart plotter that was our track in, things look different in the dark of night although we had the bright moon shining through the clouds.
As soon as we were out we hoisted sails, I had to tack behind 'Banyandah' who had left the port in front of us as I had to take a different course to them as we being a catamaran cannot point into the wind as well as the monohull.
It was a pretty good night with the light of the moon even when it was behind clouds it lit the area up, we had a few ships moving some fishing boats and some cargo but not close enough to worry about. The air was not quite as cold as it has been, maybe due to the wind direction.
As we progressed through the night we were parting company with 'Banyandah' and they appeared to be getting ahead of us, we would pass King Island a lot closer than 'Banyandah', by daylight we could not see each other. We had a radio schedule organised for twice a day to ensure we were both safe.
(More dolphins come to play)


We passed King Island and it seemed to take forever to pass it, it is a very long island, by the 1800 hour radio sched we were 10NMS north east off Three Hummock Island, 'Banyandah' was 20NMS off the same island abeam of us but naturally we could not see each other at that distance.
(Near sunset)


We sailed through the night and picked up some speed but I knew it was going to be short lived as checking the weather on the net we were heading for a wind change to light winds of 5 - 10 knots from the east meaning we would be heading into it. We made the best of the good wind and I thought we may leave 'Banyandah' behind, but come the morning sched they were only a few miles off our beam where we could see each other. We had both suffered the weather not giving us the winds that were originally predicted before we left, the predictions had changed as the updates came through. However, we had made good time and we were entering the Tamar River at 0930 hours which gave an average of around 6.3 knots which is not too bad considering wind directions, due to the wind and the different types of yacht we probably  sailed 10NMS further than 'Banyandah' we entered the Tamar  River just in front of them.
(Nearing the Tamar River our first daylight land sighting)
(Entering the Tamar River)
(Nearing George Town)

Glen had organised a space for us at the marina at Beauty Point which is part of the Tamar Yacht Club and is run by volunteers, mainly Dave and Ron who were both there to meet us, they came out and met us in a dinghy, guided us to the berth and assisted in docking and tying up, tow very nice blokes. They run the marina along with the maintenance and cleaning as volunteers in the club and they work a month about with each other but since we have been here they have often both been here with other volunteers constructing items to make the marina better. They both live close by on the hill looking over the marina. The marina is right next door to most importantly a hotel that has very good meals and the Australian Maritime College that is a very large college with quite a number of facilities, ships and boats.
(Beauty Point Marina, our home for a while)

Well we will be in Tasmania for some time and hopefully we will have some stories and pictures to show. Our plan at this stage is to stay in the Tamar until after Christmas as Glen, Nigel and their families have invited us to stay for Christmas and have it with them. We also have a fair bit of maintenance to do, we have broken a few items and we now have some leaking hatches to repair after the bashing of heavy seas and age of the seals. We also need some better weather to go around Tassie and it does not come until January, so we will update as we can.

Cheers.


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