The morning’s sail went relatively well, we had a nice 10-15 knot South Easterly and a lumpy sea as a left over from weather on previous days. It meant we could pole out the jib and make good progress north.
If there’s anything that gets the girls up and moving about, it is the spotting of dolphins. Today we were greeted by several early, and it also helps eyes to look out of the boat and tummies to focus on not always feeling unwell!
Isabelle and Gracie had the chance to go to the bow with Joel to watch the dolphins playing. Such a magical sight to see them dancing up there.
We passed Eddystone Point lighthouse and enjoyed watching the coastline change as we rounded the north coast. It tends to flatten out some, and the girls looked at some of the sand dunes with envy.
As we manoeuvred through this patch of sea, the landscape once again changes and we are distracted by the huge wind turbines that dominate the skyline here in the northeast corner of Tasmania. Ella and I counted one section and got to 44, but there were also some we hadn’t counted earlier. We discussed their size, and the fact that today they were facing the same way and spinning clockwise. We have a wind generator on board as well and so it was good to make the connection between the two vastly different sized machines!
Wednesday brought a long day of motor sailing in very calm waters. We left at 6:30am knowing we would have about 10 hours on the water today, with 65 miles ahead of us and a tricky marina berth to manoeuvre into later, we wanted to get there with daylight in our favour.
Not too many exciting tales to tell for this stretch of the journey, no dolphins, no fish caught and no wind meant it was a good day for the girls to do some school work in the cockpit without feeling unwell and a chance to wash clothes and hang them out, knowing they wouldn’t fly off!
It is a surprisingly long way up the river, and we were really only touching the beginning of the Tamar. The Tamar Yacht Club has piling berth, meaning we (Joel) need to back the boat between two large tall pillars and tie up at the same time! Luckily there is a very resourceful man called Lionel there is his dinghy to guide us, and help with the bow lines, attaching them to the pillars, after we were in. Joel did a great job, and I didn’t need to use my roving fender at all, although I was running about on deck checking. As we were just one of several boats to berth that afternoon, other yachting were on hand to take our lines and help keep the boat steady as the lines were tightened to hold us in place.
It’s good to be here, after 3 big days at sea, covering many miles, we will enjoy a few days of rest at Beauty Point.