Tasmania Bound

0630 position 36-43S 150-39E. 40 miles east of Eden, New South Wales. 409 miles to Tasman Island

At 745 yesterday morning we slipped our mooring and got underway on what might be, if we are lucky with the weather, the last passage on this voyage. The forecast keeps changing, but it looks good so far and we may have the opportunity to make the trip to Hobart in a single jump. We blew a couple of blasts on the air horn for Zappa and Marie as we departed. Zappa, who is a yacht broker and the Australian Oyster Yachts representative, gets to fly to Auckland on Thursday for a party with the Oyster bigwigs. Marie has opted out of this passage since Zappa isn't going. We will miss them both. They have been great shipmates since joining Van Diemen in Fiji, and were fantastic hosts during our stay off of Scotland Island. Remaining aboard Van Diemen for the trip south are the three homeward bound Tasmanians, Rob, Geoff, and Michael plus this token Yank.

By 830 we were out through Barranjoey Head at the entrance to Broken Bay where we found smooth seas and a light northerly breeze. As we motor sailed south we were almost immediately entertained by a mama and baby humpback whale pair breeching and pec slapping as we went by. We saw a couple of other whales during the morning and then they disappeared as we got further offshore.

The scenery started to get familiar as we passed by Sydney Heads at 10AM. I'd last seen the heads from this perspective forty years ago while racing outside Sydney Harbor in the Southern Cross Cup and Sydney-Hobart Race. Further south we sailed past famous Bondi Beach and Botany Bay and from then on we started working our way offshore to take maximum advantage of the East Australian Coast Current that flows to the south here at up to four knots. So far we haven't seen more than a knot of current in our favor.

At 230PM the sea breeze had reinforced the northerly to the point that we could shut the engine down for a few hours and sail. That lasted until 5PM when the breeze lightened again and the engine went back on.

At 4PM Geoff and Michael caught a five pound ahi. That will make some nice sahimi or poisson cru tomorrow. Michael had pre-made a beef stroganoff the day before yesterday and we had it for dinner last night. Outstanding.

We are experimenting with a new watch system. Until now we've always had two people up, one on watch and another on standby. For this passage we are one on watch only. Since it will likely be light winds nearly the whole way there's no point in making two people stand around. That means two hours on, six hours off. It's almost like being on a cruise ship!

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