TripSailor.com® Sailing Blogs

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One year to the day after arriving in Hobart we finally departed yesterday at 9.30am in very light wind -on the nose of course. We kept on unfurling and refurling the genoa without much luck. On arriving at the approach to Denison Canal at 15hr a passing motor boat warned us that it was very shallow in places….  Well, we touched bottom just before the second set of leads and managed to slurp our way through the mud and turn back and drop our anchor for an hour to allow the tide to rise a little more yet still make the canal opening times of 8 – 5.

We sneaked through at 5pm and gave the gate keeper the customary beer and $1 (we upped this to $2 as we kept him 5mins over closing time!). Then we have to move slowly through Blackman Bay sticking to the channel markers like glue as it is a big but very shallow bay. The depth sounder made its presence known all the way and we finally crossed the bar at around 18hr. As we did not want to get to Maria Island in the dark, we turned south to the first little bay – North Bay, where we dropped anchor and had a roly poly night, fighting off mosquitoes who seemed very attracted to the RID I had smeared over myself. We planning to sail through the night tonight and get to Babel Island, off the Flinders Group, around 15hr tomorrow.