Bass Strait in the Rearview Mirror

Leaving Babel Island, Fuerneaux Group, NE Tasmania

We finally escaped the weather grip of SE Tasmania and got across the Bass Strait to the mainland. Crossing the Bass Strait is anxiety provoking. Maybe not for the hardy Tassie sailors who do it annually, but for us warm weather sailors it holds a certain intimidation factor. Part of this might be the many scenes from the famous, infamous actually, 1998 Sydney to Hobart Race disaster.

(Guardian News, 1998 Sydney-Hobart race)

This race takes place in the summer at the end of December. It’s still summer now.

Fortunately our crossing was not as hair raising or life threatening. I’ve decided that the trick to dealing with Tassie weather is not to look for a multi-day weather window to go somewhere, but to look for a good 12 hours and take advantage of it. Throw out the criteria that you don’t want to do any beating into the wind and want to minimize motoring. Then hunker down, wait for the next mini-window and continue on. With that in mind, we (finally) left the Freycinet Peninsula around 11am and motored overnight in light winds up the east coast of Tasmania. We arrived at the island group at the top of Tassie, the Furneauex Group, before light. We putted around a bit until we had some light and headed into Jaimieson Bay on Cape Barren Island. When the sun came up it was pretty clear why they named the place Barren Island. We tucked up on the east corner to minimize the swell getting into the anchorage. We had a hot shower and eggs and toast. Then it was off again, still motoring north in very light winds. The winds started to go NE and get stronger, so we decided to stop on the south side of Babel Island (pic at the top of page). Had a late lunch, early dinner and laid down for a rest. Kept watching (thank you Telstra cell) the weather station at Flinders Island Airport for wind readings. When the station reported NNW winds we set off, knowing that this was the leading edge of a front that should turn westerly as it passes. You can see the front edge in the picture at the top of this page.

The wind continued to turn NW and started picking up.  We had our staysail partially out and the main with a first reef in it. Seas were rough with the old seas from the NE on our bow and the new seas were building from the SW on our stern. After dark, when the winds started hitting 30+ kts, we decided to reduce sail. Instead of putting a second reef in the mainsail we decided to just take it down completely and sail on the staysail only-- to make things easier given the weather conditions and crew conditions. It was pitch black out with no moon. The mainsail got hung up while we were taking it down, and good and solidly stuck. No amount of me tugging at the mast was moving it down anymore and the halyard was not taking it up. It was cold and wet and dark so we decided the best course of action was to let the main out a bit more to depower it and leave it till first light, as I could not see what the problem was and I was not inclined to go up the mast in those conditions. We made a burnt offering to the sea goddess that the wind wouldn’t pick up any more.

I went below to stew a bit and try and get some rest. Selling the boat was more on my mind than resting at that point. Chris was in her offshore passage ‘fugue state’. She did the rest of the night watch till about 4am and dealt with the worst of it. She only got me up once to help deal with a 600 foot tanker who insisted on seeing how close he could come before taking our stern. The winds had laid down a bit and the NE seas were gone by the time a very chilled Chris handed the watch over to me later that morning.

Next day was a really nice, clear, warm downwind sail that makes you actually like passages. In the morning light I could see that the upper batten on the mainsail had gotten stuck behind a shroud and the batten had twisted, jamming the sail slide and stopping the sail going up or down. In the lighter wind it was easy to loosen everything up an get the batten to pop out.

We arrived at Eden on the SE corner of Australia (in New South Wales) at midnight and anchored in East Boyd. Hot shower time and well deserved smooth anchorage sleep. Next up is to get up the coast about 600 miles to the Gold Coast near Brisbane, again timing the weather windows.

Paul

Escaped Freycinet Peninsula

We finally reduced our wants and desires and decide to take some weather that the weather guessers offered up. We were looking for minimal motoring and minimal beating (heading into the wind). We lef around 11am and motored p the east coast of Tasmania in light southerly winds (4-6kts). We arrived before daylight at Cape Barren Island and decided to go into Jaimiesons Bay for some quick R&R just at first light. When the sun came up it was obvious why those old sailors named this Barren island. A hot shower and some eggs and toast. We motored back out and started north. Winds were N and NNE and kept picking up. We then decided after 6 hours to anchor at Babel Island to await the promised westerly winds. They should arrive early evening and we will take off again.

Balel is supposed to be the worlds largest shearwater rookery. It is really remote spot owned by the Aboriginals, but when we showed up there was a helicopter buzzing around the mountain peak that appeared to be on fire - the land on fire, no the helipcopter.

Paul

Impatiently Waiting

We’ve been moving around the Freycinet National Park area of southeast Tasmania that includes the Feycinet Peninsula and Schouten Island. The plan was to grab a weather window sometime in the last week or 10 days and head to the Furneaux Group on the northeast corner of Tasmania. The weather window to get up there just needs to be about 20 hours or so, but it has not offered itself up. We thought today would be a good day to head north. We are in an area that has no good all around anchorages, so you need to keep moving from one to another as the wind changes. Yesterdays forecast for the night was N, NW going W and then SW in the wee hours of the night. The SW west winds were forecasted to be the strongest at 30kts. That left us with the uncomfortable choice of taking the anchorage for the night that protects from the NW and W or from the one that protects from the  SW – but not protection from both.
Last night, we decided to go on the north end of Schouten Island to get protection from the SW winds. There are a lot of rock lobster commercial boats fishing in this area. They seem to work early morning and afternoon. In between they pick a spot to sit out any weather.  There were about half a dozen commercial boats in the same bay we went to. This made me think we were probably in the right spot. Went to bed around 10pm with light northerly wind and a small bit of roll from the ocean swell sneaking into he bay. By about 11:15pm the NW winds arrived blowing about 25kts. Within a half hour the bow was bouncing up high and smashing down, tugging on the anchor chain as wind driven waves came straight into the bay.  Even the heavy rock lobster boats were bouncing up and down. Its a night with no moon making it difficult to judge distances of the bobbing lights around us and the white sand beach 120 yards behind us. Can you say Lee Shore? We started up the chart plotter and instruments to make sure they were ready if we had to make a quick exit. The rock lobster boat that anchored in front of us on the outside of the bay started up their engine and pulled anchor. They had their super lumens, daylight-making work lights on. These illuminated the waves in a strange way, making them look even more menacing. They headed out the pass along with another fishing boat toward the open Tasman Sea.
Over the next few hours you could see the red cockpit lighting going on in the boats around us as the skippers checked on the state of the things. If it was daylight we would have pulled anchor and headed toward he other side. The risks related to doing this at night were coupled with the fact that wind would probably have changed direction by the time we got to the other anchorage- making it no longer tenable. This meant that standing in the cockpit on a cold, bouncy night ready to start the engine if our anchor pulled out seemed like the best plan of action. About 2am the wind started a fast move from W to SW and then SSW.  The boat turned bow toward the beach now and within 30 minutes the waves in the bay laid down. Time to climb into bed and get warm under the duvet. 
The plan was to leave this morning on the strong SW winds and sail overnight to Furneaux Islands in the NE corner. It looked like we had a window that would be enough to get up there. Looking at the weather forecast GRIBS, the GFS model had this gale going through the area in a few days. The purple color in the GRIB display means it is much windier than you want. The other model, aka the Euro model, did not show anything like this gale. When the two models do not agree and its only a few days in the future you can be pretty sure that the none of the forecasts are reliable. The Furneax islands have some good anchorages, but as we just don’t know the area we elected to stay where we are till the weather goddesses get in better agreement. Conservative, and a bit disappointing. Besides using the GRIB forecasts, we pick up the Tasmanian Met Service weather guesses a couple of times a day. We are getting pretty antsy and I’m not sure we have more room on board for another bag of prime scallop shells from the beach walks. Plan on getting Scallop Mobiles for your next Christmas present.

While we’d like to be gone from this area, the beaches are really nice, the shelling is enough to keep interest and the rock formations and fossils are fascinating.
Paul