Pierrette sailed north with us and was sometimes hard to see in the gloom.
Despite the damp we had a brilliant downhill sail, reaching and seeing 7, 8 and the occasional 9knots of speed. We obviously don't have any marine critters hanging on to the Bloke's fresh anti-fouling!
Commercial water men must press on in all weathers.
A fish farm corral is towed across the Channel.
We are sparing a thought however for all the cherry farmers in the Huon Valley and on Bruny Island. We've seen acres and acres of cherries being grown under netting. Not only does this protect the crop from birds but also from a certain amount of inclement weather like light rain and frost. The real farmers friends though when it comes to cherries are helicopters! The downdraft from the blades is used to dry the crop after too much rain. It's likely that the amount of rain in the last 24 hours will be nightmare scenario for the local growers with 75% crop losses predicted - Way too much rain and possibly insufficient helicopters.
Just when we thought that we'd seen off a bit if a blow, a cold front has followed up the rain-bearing low and now it's got cold and it's begun raining again. Wisely we've checked into the Oyster Cove Marina for a further 2 days. The strongest puff today was 44.3 knots. The outlook is no better with Saturday, Sunday and then Tuesday all looking bad. The locals assure us it will settle down and we do suspect it's all been a bit unseasonal given that Garry and Milena's club were meant to cruise up to the Triabunna and Schouten Passage area - an annual cruise. Normally it's lovely. The fleet has been delayed twice already due to the weather having become, in the words of the organiser, "Fugly"! Maybe summer will arrive next week.
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