Went for a long walk on Aslings Beach and the boardwalk around Curalo Lake to celebrate New Years Day. It was sunny and warm, but quite windy. The ocean water is cold - like June on the outside of Cape Cod cold, but not Maine Coast cold. We both took a quick plunge in the surf.

We saw several new birds on the lake trail - a nice piece of suburban New Years solitude. There were black swans, purple swamp hens, green bell miners, and masked lapwings. We ran into a volunteer ranger looking for an unwell wombat.

Then we waded across the ocean outlet and walked back again on the boardwalk. A propos of nothing, one of the informational plaques on the boardwalk says “Eden today, being a registered port of entry to Australia, plays host to many coastal sailors who recognize the beauty of the area.”

We had hoped to find a food truck or snack shack on the beach, but no food was to be found. We were quite famished by the time we made it back to town, so we had an early dinner at Great Southern, the only restaurant serving food at four pm on New Year’s Day.

Back to the boat to obsess about weather models. We are once again considering sailing tomorrow, as the forecast for Thursday into Friday looks great south of Green Cape, but the wind never really becomes light or favorable north of Green Cape, so we would have to beat into twenty knot winds to find the favorable wind shift. On the other hand, the northerly winds tomorrow should diminish by evening, making for an easy rounding of Green Cape, and most models have southwest or southwest winds light enough to sail into after the wind shift. Just the UKMO model shows a strong southerly in our track Tuesday through Wednesday, possibly on top of a south flowing current. That would be bad.

We will have to sleep on it, and check the updates In the morning.