We had a dream run from Eden - the wind swung North East so was pushing us along nicely and the swell was relatively small. We were cruising along at about 6 to 7 knots and had no problems. That said, once we were close to Tassie and could hear the weather reports on the VHF it was confirmed (as we had suspected) that if we had left even a day later we probably would have gone through some pretty rough weather. Thank goodness we decided not to stay a night in Eden! As they say, timing is everything!
To add to the enjoyment of the passage, we had another person for conversation and got double the amount of sleep we would normally get overnight. It's amazing how refreshing four hours of sleep feels when you're used to only getting two - bliss!
Finally, there it was - Tasmania!
This thin little line of land caused a lot of excitement!
At this stage we were undecided as to whether we would go through the Narrows and the Denison Canal or go around the bottom of Tassie. The Narrows can be a navigational nightmare as they are very shallow in places and the sand moves so there's no guarantee that the marked path is deep enough. Going around the bottom would of course eliminate that problem, but it would add about 50 miles to the trip and could be rough. Needless to say I voted for the Narrows! In the end we decided on the Narrows and the Canal, and headed for Maria Island, on the East coast, where we would anchor for a few hours until high tide before we tackled the passage.
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