We made it!   The weather gods were kind indeed as it was a beautiful day with a lovely SSE breeze which allowed us to motor part of the way and motor sail all the way to Eden.   We thought it might have been another tough day battling against a southerly wind on our nose brutally slowing us down.  But no!  it was a great day.

We had a funny start to the day though.  Evan woke up at midnight to check that all was well with Nashira and again at 3:30am.  I woke up at the 3:30 check and we decided we might as well leave Broulee Bay and start to Eden seeing that we were both awake.    Outside was very dark only the stars giving off a tiny bit of light and the even darker silhouette of Broulee island were visible at first.   I pulled up the anchor and Evan started motoring through the bay.   We both saw a long string of lights in the water and were stumped as to why there were so many boats in the water at this hour.  They must have been fishing boats heading out early.   Then Evan noticed the depth of the water under us was only 5 meters!  whoopsie we had been heading toward land!  The lights were house and business lights on the land.   Evan turned quickly and averted an embarrassment.    It brought back home how important it is to chart where you are and to work out the coordinates of where you want to go before hand!!

Out of the Bay and on our way down the coast by 4:30am we decided to start taking shifts in practice for the Bass Strait crossing, so I did the first watch (three hours on then three hours off is the plan) it was really cool motoring in the dark.  There was virtually no wind for my shift, maybe 3 to 5 knots that was all and the seas were very mild, less then a meter.   We motored at about 6.6 knots. Watching the sky lighten was nice, watching Evan sleep gave me the confidence that he trusted me.

We swapped shifts when I was between Narooma and Montague Island. Evans watch was a bit stronger in wind and sea waves yet I still managed to fall asleep, that was until Evan called ‘KELLY’!   I was awake!   He had noticed a potential problem with the engine cooling system.    We shut off the engine and tested the water intake,  it looked like it was sucking in some air and had steam in the exhaust.  I was watching us drifting closer to the coast but we still had a good margin of time so no worries.    Evan determined that we could continue safely but he would have to do some repairs at Eden.  We started the engine up and continued on our way.

The rest of the day was uneventful and beautiful.  Sailing past Dromedary mountain was inspiring but really hard to get a good picture in the morning light.

We arrived the the Entrance to Eden called Twofold bay at about 4:30pm (glad we got started at 3:30am)

We dropped anchor in Snug Cove and took the dingy to the wharf to visit the wharf manager.  No luck,  it is Sunday evening and everything is closed and no-one around to talk to.  It did feel good to walk on solid ground I must admit.   Four days on Nashira and things are a little bit wobbly.   Anyway we motored back to Nashira, had steak on the barby! and now Evan is working on the engine.   Tomorrow we will do some sight seeing and get a few things at the shops for the engine.   Otherwise we wait for the weather window to enable us to start our voyage across the Bass Straight.    Until then it will be news from Eden. 😀

Here is Eden so far: