Tassie By Sea, Part 1
Friday, March 7th – In the late afternoon, we start the engine, leave Beauty Point Marina and motor down the Tamer River following s/v Allusive. John and Di Joyce and their friend, John Pointer, are onboard Allusive, and Rodney and Chris Smart have joined us on Avante. All of these people are Tasmanians and have extensive local sailing knowledge. The Captain is delighted because he does not have to do any planning and can rely on our experienced guides. We are heading for the eastern coast of Tasmania and will follow the river out to Bass Strait where we will turn east and go along the northern coast for about 70nm. Then we will go through Banks Strait (not to be confused with Bass Strait) which lies between some smaller offshore islands and the northeast corner of Tasmania.
Ideally, we would have left Beauty Point after high tide in order to go down the river on the ebbing tide and to catch the next ebbing tide while going east through Banks Strait where the current can run strong. However, the wind along the northern coast of Tasmania is not favorable. It is forecast to be 10 – 15 knots from E, so tonight, we will just be motoring into the wind. Since it will take longer than normal to get to Banks Strait, our Tasmanian friends have elected to leave an hour before high tide and buck the tide for the 6nm to the river mouth in order to have favorable current going through Banks Strait.
There is over 3 meters of tidal swing here, and a lot of water flows in and out of this river with the tide. There are many eddies and tidal rips in the river, and we often find our boat being pulled and twisted sideways as we motor north to the coast. The channel is wide and well marked, and we have no issues as we follow it to the last buoys which are known locally as “The Farewells”.
It is a nice evening with 8 – 10 knots from NE as we motor along the coast. We are going into the wind, but the waves are not too bad. Sunset comes late with daylight savings time, and the 4 of us on Avante enjoy a nice dinner on deck.
Saturday, March 8th – The wind is light and variable which means we ran the engine all night and for most of the day as we motored through Banks Strait and then down the eastern coast of Tasmania. In mid-afternoon, the wind finally increases to 15 knots from NE. This had been forecast to happen much sooner, and had this occurred earlier in the day, we would have had some nice sailing. Unfortunately, the wind is forecast to strengthen further tonight and the wind direction is not good for our desired anchorage in Wineglass Bay. We are forced to continue another 10nm around Freycinet Peninsula.
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Just before dark, we drop anchor with several other boats in Bryans Corner. We have traveled over 175nm since leaving Beauty Point.
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Sunday, March 9th – Though it is quite windy from the NE all day, the seas are fairly calm in Bryans Corner. We head ashore and hike on the Freycinet Peninsula.
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In the evening we host Sundowners onboard Avante with our crew of Chris and Rodney Smart and John and Di Joyce of Allusive and their crew John Pointer.
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Monday, March 10th – After raising the anchor, we motor away from shore and then raise sails. With the engine turned off, we sail slowly south from Bryans Corner, but by the time we pass the Ile de Phoques with its interesting sea caves, wind has slowed, and the engine is back on.
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Eager to get to our next destination, Maria Island, we motor the rest of the way following Allusive
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We anchor off Darlington and head ashore. Darlington has an interesting history having been a penal colony twice, a hotel and a vineyard under an entrepreneurial Italian, and a cement factory in the 1920’s. Today it is a World Heritage Australian Convict Site.
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Many of the old buildings are intact, and Darlington is said to be Australia’s best preserved convict probation station.
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Not all its buildings, however, have been able to withstand the ravages of time, and across the sweeping grounds, we see several that have succumbed.
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Through a window in one such decrepit building, some lucky person once had a sweeping view of the bay where below we can see Avante and Allusive anchored.
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Through another window, The Captain and The First Mate are captured with Avante in the background.
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A fellow visitor to the island offers to take a group shot of us. We are thus memorialized here on Maria Island, Tasmania.
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Descriptions of various people that once worked on the island are on display. Rodney Smart is fascinated by a possible ancestor, Dr T. C. Smart, Visiting Magistrate and Surgeon at Maria Island. Could he be related? We joke about the possible resemblance.
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Wandering through the nearby cemetery, Rodney searches the engravings to see if Dr. T. C. Smart or any other Smarts are buried there.
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We enter an old barn where various long unused farm equipment has been left to rust. A few resident wombats wonder out to let us know that they have laid claim to this residence. As with the wombat we saw on Cradle Mountain, these guys are unperturbed by our noise and presence.
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Later in the afternoon, we leave Darlington and motor south along Maria Island to Chinamans Bay. This bay is fairly shallow with a flat sandy bottom, and we motor through a lot of 11-foot deep water before anchoring in the “Deep Hole”, all of 17 feet!
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Sheltered as it is from the sea pounding on the other side of the isthmus running around this anchorage, it is quiet and still in Chinamans Bay. We dinghy ashore with plans to hike across the isthmus to see what it is like on the other side
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The windswept shore on the windward side of the isthmus is much rougher.
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Avante hosts Sundowners in the evening, but it is Allusive which brings le pièce de résistance: a freshly trapped, barbecued crayfish to share for an appetizer. Champagne and lobster! What a feast!
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Tuesday, March 11th – Today, we have a very scenic trip ahead of us going around the Tasman Peninsula to Port Arthur. Winds are a little variable in the morning, but by early afternoon, they are above 20 knots as we sail inside the Hippolyte Rocks.
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Next we sail past a rock formation known as The Lanterns. The wind is blowing from the north, so we are sailing fairly deep downwind using just the mainsail with the first reef in.
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Ahead of us lies Cape Pillar at the southern end of the Tasman Peninsula.
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As we get ready to sail between Cape Pillar on the right and Tasman Island on the left, we gybe the mainsail, and The Captain goes forward to rig the preventer. Winds are often quite variable in the gap ahead, and we want to be prepared.
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We near Cape Pillar with its rock columns and aim for the small gap between the Tasman Peninsula and Tasman Island.
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On our starboard side, a high wall of massive rock columns towers impressively and ominously above us, giving The First Mate uneasy feelings of being on a very little boat amongst these giants.
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The swirling waters race through the narrow gap between the rocks, but we sail smoothly through the pass.
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Quite strong winds have been reported ahead, so when well clear of the gap, we put a second reef in the mainsail and raise the staysail.
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Rodney takes the helm as we continue west along the coast. Although he lives in Launceston, he has kept his boat in Hobart for many years, so these are his home waters.
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As we cross below Black Head, strong parabolic winds hit us causing Avante to heel over much more than the wimpy First Mate likes, but trusting the boat and the two men, she climbs around with her camera to capture the moment and the views. Glad she is, though, that she is not at the helm.
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Winds are now 25 – 30 knots from N and both men are obviously enjoying this exhilarating sailing. Wet with spray, The Captain is in his element. Rounding Budget Head and entering Port Arthur, we turn into the wind which is now strongly on our nose .
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With The Captain handling the sails and Rodney at the helm, Avante tacks back and forth going toward Port Arthur. The Captain is quite pleased with how well our staysail works with a double reefed mainsail.
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All too soon, we are anchored in Ladies Bay in Port Arthur. The men take the dinghy over to Allusive to review the day’s adventures and discuss plans for the following day. Later that evening, we all have dinner on Allusive.
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Wednesday , March 12th – After breakfast, we take the dinghy ashore. The Captain and First Mate head for the historic Port Arthur Convict Site. Chris and Rodney have been here a number of times, so they head off on another important errand: an urgent need to replenish the champagne!
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The Port Arthur Convict Site is one of a number of sites in Australia where England sent prisoners. Its significance is that it is the best preserved site.
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Convict transportation was used by a number of European countries that sent convicted criminals off to distant colonies to serve their sentences. It was relatively cheap for the government, and it had the benefit of helping colonial expansion. The convicts came from many different trades, and their labor and presence helped establish and maintain distant colonies. Sydney was the site of Britain’s first permanent colony in Australia in 1788, and about half of the first group of people sent there from Britain were convicts. Many of the other major cities in Australia today were also once penal colonies. Convicts transported from Britain to Australia typically had a sentence of 7 years. After serving their sentence, they could become a free settler or try to return to Britain.
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Port Arthur was one of the later convict sites and was started around 1830. Convicts were sent here from Britain and from other convict sites in Australia for secondary punishment. These were prisoners who had misbehaved.
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Solitary confinement was commonly used to punish infractions of the rules. The reconditioned cells we saw did not look that bad but spending days alone there would have been intolerable for months on end. The worst, however, we learn were the underground cells which were meant to torment both body and mind.
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Not all convicts were sent to these overseas prisons for heinous crimes. The number of prisoners that were transported for petty crimes like stealing a loaf of bread (as in Les Miserables) was huge. About 75% of the prisoners sent to Australia were transported for “non-violent property crimes,” many times on their first offense. The prisons of London were full, and they had to do something about the overcrowding. Prisoners who behaved slept in multi-storied dormitories.
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We are amazed at the size, presence and preservation of the church. Almost every building in this complex was built of stone. The labor that went into this site in such a relatively short time is mind-boggling to contemplate.
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The grounds of Port Arthur are just as impressive as the buildings both in size and scope. A few of the gardens have been restored. Here the convicts worked, too, and The First Mate thinks that for those lucky ones attached to the gardening detail, seeing the grounds bloom with the seasons under their care must have been of some comfort — at least for those poor souls who enjoyed such work.
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Inside the prison’s museum, we check the records and find another Smart. Later, Rodney tells us that this one is more likely to be his ancestor than the magistrate we found the other day. His attitude is pretty typical. Having a criminal as an ancestor used to be something of a stigma, but now we hear that many Australians celebrate having a transported convict in their past. Perhaps this is because these convicts were punished by Britain, and “Pommies” are not always held in high regard by many Australians.
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The Isle of the Dead is a small island a short distance off the coast. We dinghy over in the late afternoon and climb ashore. No one has been buried here in years, but this cemetery at Port Arthur is a reminder of a very sad and much more recent incident. The Port Arthur Massacre occurred in 1996, when a mentally unstable man killed 35 people with his automatic rifle. Following this incident, Australia made fundamental changes to their gun laws. Australia learned from this tragedy and took action. Why can’t the United States?
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Thursday, March 13th – After our tour of the convict site at Port Arthur, we are headed over 50nm to the southeast corner of Australia. We depart our anchorage in Ladies Bay early and motor south in Port Arthur. Unlike the great sail that we had when we came north in this bay, the wind indicator is just spinning around through 360 degrees as we motor south. As we exit Port Arthur, we turn southwest, heading toward the south end of Bruny Island.
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Fortunately, we do not have to motor long. The wind increases to 12 – 15 knots from the north, and sails are up and engine off before we pass the dramatic rock formations at Cape Raoul.
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Just after noon, we sail around The Friar Rocks off the southern end of Bruny Island and head toward South East Cape.
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As we sail across the southern end of the D’Entrecasteaux Channel we observe two interesting phenomenon. The first is a wind shift from 15 – 18 knots from NW to 12 – 15 knots from SE. This 180 degree wind shift takes place well offshore in less than 1 hour. The second is a place called South Break. In what appears like the middle of the ocean, the sea occasionally breaks with a 3 foot wave that seems to come out of nowhere. This is caused by a relatively shallow area well off the southern end of an underwater reef. But, since nothing is visible, the wave is a surprise. As we sail around this obstacle, Avante goes as far south as she has ever been at 43 degrees and 35 minutes south latitude.
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By mid-afternoon, Avante is anchored off Adams Point in Recherche Bay. Allusive is already here. While we were touring the Port Arthur Convict Site yesterday, they left and went to Kettering to fill their fuel tanks, as they will have no place to refuel for the next few weeks.
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This is the end of our sailing together with Allusive. Tomorrow, they are continuing around Tasmania to remote Port Davie on the southwestern coast where they will cruise for a while. Unfortunately, we do not have time to do that trip and then sail across to New Zealand. John and Di were wonderful hosts for us in Launceston, and it has been great fun sailing along with them down the east coast of Tasmania.