Catch ya later Hobart! Now on to Port Arthur. Derwent Sailing Squadron Marina has been a nice place to park. The new marina berths are modern with both water and power available for each site. They have both long arm and short arm berths and Nashira (40ft) was able to fit onto a short arm berth with no problems. Well mostly, Other than human operator problems with working out how to get lines ashore and not run the nose of Nashira into the head of the berth! DSS will be upgrading their clubhouse next which will improve the showing & toilet facilities. Hopefully they will add in laundry facilities too, this is one thing that we really could have used.
July and Greg from Sea Echo 2 rang this morning! they are heading to Port Arthur as well. It will be wonderful to catch up with them again and see what Port Davey adventures they had after we left.
With Hobart in our rear vision mirror we are off to Port Arthur. Sailing down the river Derwent it is a beautiful sunny day with just a slight N, NE breeze. We can see the SB20’s (sportboats) getting ready for their state championships.
[Mt. Wellington in the background with the Iron Pot in the foreground]
Port Arthur was one place we both wanted to visit but time being short on the passage south we were unable to. Now we have you in our sites Port Arthur!
Once into Storm Bay the winds have picked up to 20 knots+ we had a realization that in the preceeding 2 weeks we had gotten soft. Land lubbers. We got used to sleeping in till 8am, not watching the weather nor charting our path. Now the wind is testing us. Why didn’t we leave a little earlier as the wind is now forecast to increase as the day goes on.
Cape Raoul is coming up on our starboard, wow it is impressive.
Past Cape Raoul the wind increases again. Now we are looking at 25knots with 35 knot gusts. Wind now NE and pumping we aim for Tasman Island and hope to port tack once past West Arthur Head and shoot up the channel to Stinking Bay.
[looks familiar]
A couple of tacks later we are on our way up the channel, weeehaw ride-em cowboy!. Eventually we spot Sea Echo II nicely sheltered in Stinking Bay. Once in the bay we look back and the channel looks calm. Damn it, can’t it at least look like it was a challenge!
We did a quick reconnaissance of the bay and our steering stopped working! eecck. We dropped the anchor in crystal clear water, played with the helm, not sure what the problem is but it will merit further investigation before we depart. Its 6pm, Greg and Judy came over to visit and brought over a video that they took using their GoPro to check the bottom of their boat. It is hilarious. A fish decided to check out the GoPro. Have a look – You also get to see Stinking Bay. P.S. Turn up your sound, this little guy has a hard beak.