Tamar River to Macquarie Harbour

21-28 February 2015

On Thursday we left Croppies Bay at 0620, set the spinnaker and headed for the Tamar River. We had a good sail in a moderate E to NE breeze and entered the river at 1215. We rafted up to Joule on the public pontoon in George Town to do the washing and shopping as this is the main town in the area. On Friday we moved 4nm upriver to the Tamar Yacht Club marina at Beauty Point where we spent 2 nights. 

On Saturday, VDLC cruise coordinator Nigel lent us his car to pick up our son Ben in Launceston.  As no one else needed the car, he recommended we take in some of the sights of the Tamar valley.

After picking Ben up at the airport, we headed for a walk up Cataract Gorge before admiring some of the beautiful examples of 19^th century architecture in Launceston.

We had lunch at Velo winery on the way back to Beauty Point. The VDLC dinner at the yacht club was the first time all 43 crews were together as the Geelong fleet had now joined us.

On Sunday we had the spinnaker up again for the 22 nm run to Port Sorell, where we anchored at beautiful Bakers Point. Ben had brought the sunshine and warmer weather so he even had a swim here.

On Monday we headed for the Mersey River and a berth at the Mersey Yacht Club. While an older facility, the locals could not be more helpful and somehow managed to fit in any boats from the fleet needing a berth.  As the river can run at 4 knots, this offer was taken up by many of the fleet.

Ben discovered that his flight home from Devonport was on Tuesday rather than Monday so we had an extra day to look around and enjoy Ben’s company. I had my first scallop pie here!

On Wednesday we headed for the NW corner of Tasmania to the Hunter Group. We carried our spinnaker for 7 hours in a 15-20kn easterly, dropping it when the wind freshened above 20kn. We averaged 8 knots for the 91 nm to Chimney Corner at Three Hummock Island. 

Some of the fleet at Chimney Corner

Thursday we headed 4nm across the Hope Passage to Shepherds Bay on Hunter Island to get out of the W swell that had developed. A lovely sandy bay where Warren had fun catching 8 large wrasse. We cooked two for dinner only to discover they are not good eating.

We had been keeping a keen eye on the weather as we looked for a suitable window for an overnight run to Macquarie Harbour. This would involve venturing out into the Southern Ocean for the first time where conditions can be rugged. We eventually decided to head off on Friday, even though the wind was not ideal, the swell was the smallest it would be for the coming days. Our original plan to leave Friday evening was brought forward as the wind was due to increase during Saturday so we headed off at 1030 Friday for an overnight trip expected to be 130 nm. About 10 other boats left Friday as well.

We motored for 3 hours down the Hope and Hunter Passages before raising sails once clear of the islands and tacking into the moderate SW breeze.  Seven hours later we had covered 44nm to advance about 24nm to windward.

Tacking duel with Tiara - they won!

With the breeze dying, we dropped sails and started a motor. The good news was that the seas were slight and we had an uneventful night.

By dawn the predicted northerly had arrived so we raised sails, killed the engine and even got the spinnaker up for 3 hours before the breeze freshened above 25kn. At 1030, we started the engines and in heavy rain approached Hells Gate, the infamous entrance to Macquarie Harbour.

Hells Gate was named by the convicts in the 19th century

The entrance is less than 100m wide, has rocks on both sides, an outgoing current that was running at 3.5 knots and poor visibility, so we entered with some trepidation! Luckily there was little swell and we had no problems through Hells Gate and into the shallow channel leading into the Harbour.

Entrance Island

We were tired, it was raining, so we decided to head to the southern end of the harbour rather than the town of Strahan. By the time we anchored in Birchs Inlet we had 173nm on the log in 28.5 hours.

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