One Leg at a Time

Hello Again!!

Well we have finally organised some time off work (mostly) and are heading down to Tassie again.  For our last trip in January 2017 we had time to prepare from provisioning to learning how to monitor the weather and basically how to sail over night as our first overnight was Bass Strait.

This time we haven’t had as much preparation time and are counting on experience to get us up to speed as it has been a year already since our Lord Howe adventure.

We are so looking forward to the trip down to Tassie, attending the wooden boat festival in Hobart, catching up with friends and enjoying the journey. This time whilst aiming to make Hobart by February 4th we are going to go a bit different route than last time.  We will be  jumping off at Eden and heading for Deal and Erith Islands in the Kent group of Islands then down the east side of Flinders island before swinging through Banks Strait and down the east coast of Tassie to Hobart.  All weather permitting of course.    We would also like to travel through Dunally channel if possible.   So lets start this adventure and see how close things go to plan!!

Day 1: January 25^th – Friday 5pm

Nashira is ready!  Provisioning is done, safety gear checks done, IWOBBLE (Thanks Phil) done, packing done and Evan has left work for the day, DONE!

It’s a beautiful day at Middle Harbour Yacht Club (MHYC) with a brisk 20-25 knot NE to help push us down the coast.    We are leaving MHYC at 5pm because it took us longer than thought to get everything packed and in place (best laid plans and all).  We plan to head directly to Eden which should take us approximately 35 hours at 6 knots.    Weather is showing that Saturday (Australia Day) there is going to be a light Southerly kicking in for about 5 hours so we are heading off shore about 45nms to take advantage of the currents and using the Southerly to tack back towards Eden.

The evening heading south is beautiful,  a lovely sunset to see us off and an steady 20+ knot NE.

Evan and I started shifts after sunset with Evan taking the helm first.   We had dolphins play in our bow. 

The night is uneventful the moon rose around 2100 setting the sea bright with light glittering off the waves.    My stomach started feeling sick (great NOT)  I have been taking travacalm and now the thought of ginger is turning my stomach. 

On the good side the NE kept up and a magic current rocketed us down the coast at between 10 – 13 knots for about 4 hours.   Unreal for Nashira usually coasts at a comfortable 6-7 knots.  We were flying!

In the morning I am well and truly seasick,  not so much fun at all. 

The winds started shifting in the morning and we cranked up the motor to keep a 6 knot average.   At 1000 a southerly started building,  we expected a light southerly, but this continued to grow to about 25 knots gusting to 34. 

That’s okay as we aimed far enough out to sea that we used the wind to head back toward land.  (Predictwind route planning helped us with this).   We considered turning inland and stopping at Bermagui if the southerly didn’t abate and my seasickness continued but luckily we didn’t have to.  the southerly dropped off by 3pm and it was smooth sailing all the way to Eden.

What we didn’t remember to do was to check precipitation as part of weather checking and as we aimed for Eden a nice storm started brewing north-west of us.   At the same time Evan noticed a rub-rail was coming lose on the starboard bow so we slowed down and did a repair before continuing.

I spoke to Brooklyn on the phone, she helped me with my seasickness by reminding me to be here in present time,  not off thinking about other things.   That seemed to help.  I am still trying to understand seasickness, sometimes I am quite convinced it is mental nervousness as it would get worse if I imagined bad weather coming.

Ohhhh now the storm was building with great thunder booming but no visible lightening.

As we continued a storm cell developed on our port side,  we sped up to try and race the weather.   Lightening is now visible in the clouds and striking the water.    We were right in the middle and in front of us was sunshine and some blue sky,  we focused on the sunshine as our guiding light and increased our speed.    I was doing some creative visualisation seeing blue sky above us to beat back the blackened clouds that were trying to encroach.

Something worked…..  the lightening was pretty intense but staying further behind us now.   Phew.    The rest of the ride into Eden was gentle and I am definitely feeling better.   I managed to eat half a carrot, a couple of nuts and some milk and it stayed down.  Hallelujah!

We arrived in two-fold bay at 0030 and were tucked away safely at the southern end of the bay (Jump off point for Tassie) by 0115.   So ready for sleep.  Frank and Peter on Bundeena are here already so it will be great to talk to them tomorrow.

Day 2:  Eden

We both had a good sleep,  Evan up early cleaning out the water that had gotten in during the trip and checking Nashira over to make sure she was all okay.

I made a huge bacon and egg breakfast,  my stomach was still tender but wanted to eat.  I am hoping that I am over the sea sickness for this trip.  Fingers crossed.

Today was spent cleaning and weather watching and eating (I’m still thinking if I do get seasick I might as well get as much good food in me today to tide me over for the next couple of days as we are planning on leaving for Deal Island tomorrow morning).   We rowed over to Bundeena at lunchtime and reviewed weather with Frank and Peter.

We have decided we will leave at 7am tomorrow morning if the current weather pattern holds.    Heading to Deal Island we should arrive 1600 Tuesday.  The plan is to stay there overnight have a quick look around then head down the west side of Flinders down to Lady Barron on Wednesday to hide from a SSW gale that will hit on Thursday.

So with nothing more pressing to do today we head back to Nashira to keep cleaning and cook our first dinner in the dreampot.  

Tonight Frank and Peter brought over an entre of garlic (freshly caught) calamari salad,  yummy and we provided a pork curry and fruit cake (thank you Dorothy Theeboom!!!).  Dot made fruit cake for us the last time we went to Tassie two years ago and it was a life saver more than once.  So when Dot showed up with another fruitcake for this voyage we were over the moon happy. What a nice surprise.

Today was lovely.  We are ready for the next leg now.   Deal Island here we come.