Tuesday, April 2, 2013

Escaping from Bass Strait (3rd April 2013)

We left Martha Cove on Easter Sunday after a nice lunch with Mark's folks at Sorrento.  We spent the night at Queenscliff Marina and had a fine steak at the Espy Hotel.

It was an early start for us on April Fools day as we departed the heads around 6am bound for Refuge Cove at Wilson's Prom.  Not long after leaving the heads we soon picked up a lovely 15-20knt North Westerly breeze so it was great sailing with 1 reef and a poled out head sail down to the Prom. 
We were waved off by the Warren family who drove down to Cape Shank to make sure that we were on our way.

We eventually dropped anchor in Refuge at 11.00pm and were soon after tucked up in bed for a few ZZZZZZZ's as it was to be another early start on Tuesday to ensure we had a comfortable passage to Eden as the weather is to change to Easterlies on Thursday *ooooh nasty*.

The alarm went off at 6am on Tuesday morning, the anchor was up shortly after and we were on our way across the paddock to Eden.  Again the winds were favourable so we were able to run before a 20-25knt south westerly which continued to build during the day.  We decided to drop the main on dark which ended up being a wise move as the winds freshened over night to 25-35 knots with the odd 38knots gust.  Sally handled the conditions beautifully and was rocketing along most of the night at 8ish knots.

As predicted, on the BOM site, the winds abated early morning and we are now sailing along 15Nm SW of Gabo Island and looking forward to anchoring in Eden this evening.

Will write more (and add a few photos) soon!



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