Sailing with Nine of Cups: SailBlogs

Homestead Anchorage, Port Ligar, Pelorus Sound

Marcie — Sat, 13 Mar 2010 20:47:00 -0600

We questioned whether to leave or not right until the moment we left. The GRIBs and BuoyWeather are no help here at all. Maritime Weather is calling for gales in several areas and only recently have we become sufficiently accustomed to the place names to know what areas they're referring to. It looks as though our area will be spared the gales today and so we headed out around 0900 to time our passage of the boulder bank out of Greville Harbour and also the passage through the French Pass Narrows. (Continued...)

Quiet Day in Mill Arm

Marcie — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:00:00 -0600

Not much going on today. We're waiting out a gale on the "outside" of D'Urville Island. We saw winds to 35 kts last night, but all is calm and quiet today though gale warnings for the area persist. No one is around, just a few pied shags. We've made a couple of forays with the dinghy, but for the most part we've stayed put on the boat doing chores, catching up on laundry and the website. David is busy developing a new electronic new chain counter. Hoping we'll be able to move tomorrow...weather permitting. (View Post...)

Arrival in Mill Arm Anchorage

Marcie — Wed, 10 Mar 2010 22:00:00 -0600

We departed the Torrent Bay anchorage around 0800 this morning with nary a cloud in the sky nor a ripple on the water, heading east across the Tasman Bay to D'Urville Island. By 1000, the wind had freshened from the north and we were sailing on lumpy seas at 6 kts making good progress towards our destination. The entrance into Greville Harbour (on D'Urville Island) was not as daunting as the guide book had warned, but the passing of the boulder bank did indeed get the adrenaline flowing a bit. We approached just after low tide. With a push from the incoming tide and lots of the boulder bank exposed, we hugged the port marker and saw least depths of 11' and had no difficulties. Interestingly enough, the local guidebook mentions this natural boulder bank in great detail, but neither the chart plotter (Navionics software) nor C-Map showed its existence. Thank goodness for local knowledge! A good reminder to us never to trust only one source. After the boulder bank, a rather circuitous route led us to our final anchorage...Mill Arm. (Continued...)