Halfway to Hobart

Friday, January 18, 2019.
40 11.8S 127 30.2E

After we rounded Cape Leeuwin and entered the Great Australian Bight for our west to east crossing to Hobart, Tasmania, the wind died. We found ourselves in the middle of a high pressure system with light and variable winds. The gribs didn't show much relief for many days ahead and the prevailing westerlies were too far south to motor down to. So, we resigned ourselves to waiting it out. We experienced long periods of flat calm and winds less than five knots for up to twelve hours at a time. Once winds hit a consistent 8-10 knots, all sail went up and we were off sailing for a while longer. As long as we keep moving to the SE we should eventually pick up westerlies which are usually the top edge of the low pressure systems (which move clockwise in the Southern hemisphere) continually cycling through the latitudes known as the Roaring Forties. We don't necessarily want to get too far south into the middle of these very fast-moving systems as the winds can be very strong in the middle of them. We'll have to drop down to 44S in order to round the bottom of Tasmania. Currently, most lows seem to be staying south of this, but, that could change at any time.

Between calms, we've had two, twelve hour sessions of 30 knot winds so far and some more moderate wind periods. Unusually, we even had thunder and lightning. The lightning was very spectacular, luckily not too close. We could see the squalls all around us clearly on the radar. We were hoping for rain to wash the salt and bird deposits off the boat, but, we only got a very light sprinkle. Temperatures are about 20C during the day and the cabin drops to 15C at night, a little cooler than we'd expected. We're not sorry to be missing the 45C+ temps the rest of Australia was experiencing just before we left Perth. We've been enjoying seeing albatross and other pelagic sea birds against a backdrop of mostly sunny skies.

We've been at sea for eleven days now and have sailed 1,138 miles, all sailed and almost all made good! We have about the same again to reach Hobart, so, are just over halfway through this passage. It's been a little slower than expected, due to the number of calms we've experienced, but, we're thinking the pace will pick up now we're south of 40 degrees latitude and hopefully into those prevailing westerlies.

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