We spent a pleasant day in Port Arthur, with light winds so we didn’t have to worry much about leaving the boat at anchor while we explored ashore.

In the morning we went for a walk on the beach at Safety Cove, then doubled back to find the road to the walking tracks to the Remarkable Cave and the Maigdon Bay blow hole. The cave was indeed remarkable, though visitors are restricted to a public viewing platform and are not allowed to wade into the ocean waves surging into the cave from the ocean end.

The blow hole was a nice walk on a bushy moor, but the seas were not strong enough to make it blow - just a deep chasm with sea water at the bottom improbably far from the oceans edge.

We thought better of taking a shortcut through snake infested brush back to the beach. Back at the boat we fired up the engine to run up to Ladies Bay, north of the Port Arthur historic site, for an afternoon of convict history. There wasn’t enough wind to sail up there and leave time for the hundred acres of ruins and restored buildings from the era when Port Arthur was a convict station, naturally cutoff from escape routes by the brutal bush, steep cliffs, and unforgiving sea around the Tasman Peninsula. While I usually enjoy historical restorations, this one was a little depressing, redolent of the unspeakable cruelty human beings are capable of inflicting on other human beings. What’s worse, being flogged until your raw backbone shows for the offense of “insolence,” or being confined to silent separation, with no human conversation for a period of years?

Back at the boat, Ladies Bay is a tranquil, bucolic anchorage with clear turquoise waters surround by wooded hills reminiscent of Lake Champlain or the coast of Maine.

Tomorrow, it’s back across storm bay to Hobart in what is forecast to be a fresh southwester.