No tropical shirts
14 January 2011 | Barnes Bay, Bruny island
David and Andrea
The exceedingly damp easterly flow continued at Port Arthur and the gale warnings kept coming for all Tasmanian waters. NE gales building ahead of a front on Friday with winds shifting to WNW. Not a good wind direction to sail at 290M towards Hobart. Accordingly we departed Port Arthur Thursday into 30-40kt initially around Cape Raoul. Once into Storm Bay we suffered a similar fate to our 2005 Hobart race - large patches of light wind in the lee of the land. However, this time we could turn on the motor! Once past Wedge Bay, we were fully exposed and raced off toward the top of Bruny island under our nice new staysail and triple reefed main in 30+ kts wind. The top of the island was turned and we ran down the D'Entrecastaux channel to anchor in Barnes Bay in company with a varied collection of cruising vessels including one couple (Phil and Linda) who have just sailed over from NZ in their kauri ketch "Windora" for the wooden boat show next month. Tonight we are going to Kettering marina. This will be the first time we set foot on Tasmanian mainland. The classic yacht is in Barnes Bay (Quarantine Bay). The last picture is of the Oyster 65 "Miss Molly" in Port Arthur, being delivered south for her owners' summer cruising. We met the crew, Jeff and Meryl, at Eden originally. The other pix are Storm Bay of course.