Reliance in Tasmania

On Tuesday we sailed the short 40 miles to Eden to reassess the weather. We planned on an early morning start if the weather window was reasonable. We were faced with the choice of departing on Thursday AM or probably wasting a week or more in Eden due to the SW gale forecast for early Saturday, in fact we should not have stopped overnight at Eden. So we got away at 0600 with N/NE winds initially. By 2200 the winds had turned to the SE and the SE swell soon built to 2m. This gave us a very fast and wild ride south but also very tiring so we decided to divert to Babel Island off Flinders Island for a break.

This was a good choice although there were some dangerous swells to contend with across the shallows approaching Flinders. If the gale came early there is also some protection off Flinders, but the wind can be pretty wild there. We had a well needed rest in calm waters on the NE side of Babel and on Friday morning the weather suited a passage across Banks straight to Tasmania mainland.

Our aim was to get to Binalong Bay, just North of St Helens before the change. The promised change was late coming and the NE swell persisted making our preferred anchorage inaccessible (Skeleton Bay), but we managed to find refuge at Seaton Cove just north of Binalong Bay. We moved to Skeleton Bay on Saturday for protection from the W/SW gale. Skeleton Bay is very protected from SE through to W so we will be staying here until the weather allows us to head south.

Hopefully we will get some of that pleasant Feb/Mar Tassie weather that is supposed to happen. It is currently 14 deg and sunny. We have 6 weeks and need to be back by end of March.

Reliance has performed exceptionally well bringing us through some very testing conditions.

Chris and Suzanne Daly on Reliance