The morning weather models confirmed that a Monday departure looked better than a Thursday departure. We emailed Met Bob to get his take, and tried calling him when we got no response. We emailed the local ABF officer because he had told us we needed out bound clearance to sail from Eden to another Australia port. We also called Steve, the Port Kembla Biosecurity Inspector who has sent us the emails directing us to sail directly to port with non-commercial biosecurity inspections.

Although it was a holiday, we caught Steve in his car on the way back from some inspections in Sydney. He told us first off that no one thought we had done anything wrong, as the ABF webpage was unclear about Eden's status as a biosecurity inspection port. But he said the official line had to be that we had to sail directly to a proper port. We should, of course, not do anything unsafe, and should seek refuge along the way if the vessels safety required it. I pointed out the very fine line between safety and comfort when it comes to a small sailboat crewed by just two people bashing into the wind in the Bass Strait, and he seemed to understand. We then chatted or another half hour or so about skiing in the US and Australia (Australian ski resorts were a 3 in his book compared to the 9 he gives to the Utah resorts he has visited). He also told us about his favorite restaurants in Eden.

Left with the impression that we would not be in that much more (or less) trouble if we had to stop at Flinders or Eddystone along the way, we checked in with some of Robin's new Tassie sailor friends from Facebook. Ron confirmed that the forecast did not look nasty. Another friend texted and we called them, they offered us their mooring on Flinders Island on Wednesday if we needed it, and gave us tips on entering the harbor.

So it looked like a go, and we set to the remaining details, such as emailing the Hobart port authorities to let them know we were coming, arriving sometime between Thursday and Sunday. We tried calling the guy who brings a fuel truck to the dock, but did not get an answer. So Robin made the first kayak and walk trip up to town to get groceries.

Then I took both kayaks and three empty diesel jugs. At the beach, I met Cameron on board Raven, who was also walking up the hill to town. So we swapped sailing and life stories on the way up. Cameron was familiar with our home port of Nyack on the Hudson River, since he learned to sail at the Chelsea Boat club in Manhattan when he lived there. He's a professional guitarist who plays leftie and was born missing a finger on his right (fretting) hand - so I am very impressed! Plus, while sailing his newly acquired Raven from Queensland he badly broke his right ring finger while recovering an anchor that broke loose from its roller on passage. So he is not playing again for a little while - fortunately does not have any gigs scheduled soon.

I filled my diesel jugs at the closest gas station at the top of the hill ($2.09 AUD/ liter) and waited for a cab that I had prearranged. The proprietress of the station saw me standing there and offered me a ride back down the hill. I thanked her but declined, since the cab was already on the way. I didn't mind paying the $10 cab fare.

Everything else fell into place. Met Bob said it's a go, but beware of an acceleration zone around the corner from Eden tonight, and be ready for a SE wind of 20 knots Tuesday and Wednesday. When we did not hear back from the ABF Official about port clearance, and calls to the mobile number gave us got a “disconnected” message, I called the ABF landline, which eventually resulted in an email from the Sydney office confirming that “you are authorized to depart Eden and proceed directly to Hobart.”

So by 1830 we had Green Cape on the starboard beam, rolling downwind with a full Genoa in F5 winds making seven to eight knots with two knots of fair current. A dolphin swam by, and the massive cumulonimbus storm somehow slipped past us to the north without incident. At 0200 we are still rolling south at eight knots in F6 winds and waves that rock and roll but aren't very scary in the thin moonlight