The past week we have been slowly moving north whilst exploring the Furneaux Group of Islands.
After a great year of cruising Tasmania we farwelled our friends on Lemaris as they head towards Melbourne for some family time and later in the year they too expect to head north.
We are currently anchored on the southern side of Inner or West Sister Island (on the North Eastern tip of Flinders Island) awaiting the weather window to cross Bass Strait. Here the NE swell is turning the corner and rolling in towards the beach causing us to roll a little so we quickly deployed the paravanes which helped immensely. The small catamaran anchored in the bay is also waiting to cross the Strait. Alan and Chris aboard Rush went ashore and climbed the hill and took a video of the bay and surrounds which I will endeavour to upload!! After which they came calling and enjoyed a cuppa and cake and viewed the lastest weather on the net before returning to Rush for an afternoon snooze as they too are going to leave in the early hours of tomorrow morning.
It is necessary to stow all loose items down below before heading out to sea otherwise if we hit some rough weather it will all be flying around the pilothouse. There is quite a lot seeing we have been in cruising mode for so long, and the pilothouse bunk is needed for my cat naps as Alan sleeps downstairs at sea. We have 180 nautical miles to get to Eden on the NSW coast and this should take us approx 30hrs. We use the BOM government site for our weather and generally keep watching it every 12 hours several days before we leave to guage the movements!
http://www.bom.gov.au/jsp/marine/wind/index.jsp
Note the shallow sea floor between Mainland Australia and Tasmania hence the reason for the wave pattern that is experienced here. The waves from the west, hit the giant land mass and steep up across the strait.
The fishing around this group of Islands has been very poor, no crays or fish! I even asked Alan if he have a hook on! So unlike him to catch nothing!!!!
The wait continues!
