Copper Alley Bay - Lymington

After another quick stop at Cygnet for some bread, coffee, papers etc. we had really wanted to return to Sandyrock Bay but the weather demons said 'No'. Better to be on the other side of the Cygnet channel to evade the westerly.

What a pretty bay this turned out to be.

We had a visitor for lunch too - Clive arrived on his jetski.

We were able to watch a procession of wooden boats of all shapes and sizes head out towards Hobart from Port Cygnet to participate in the much anticipated Wooden Boat Festival.

Some were even being towed.

Much to our surprise the SV Julia Burgess dropped anchor for lunch. We'd last seen her in the Mersey River at Devonport in October.

At the end of the day we enjoyed a lovely sundowner with the crew of Sheokee.

Dodging the Fish Farms

Fish farming, aquaculture, call it what you will, is a big industry in Tasmania and it's very evident in the D'Entrecasteaux Channel/Huon River area. As far as we can see, Atlantic Salmon is the species being farmed here as opposed to Tuna and King Fish being grown in Port Lincoln, South Australia. Tassal, Huon Aquaculture and Petuna are the three big players and there is always something going on in these waters.

The Bloke, well rugged up against the cold (again),  is checking out the obstacles to be negotiated en route from Port Esperance to Port Cygnet.

Oops this ship is coming our way!

The two satellite domes  on the ship enable it to be held in a steady position while the ship harvests the salmon, somehow sucking them up.

"The world's most loved salmon". 

Are they saying that the fish are well cared for or that you will love to eat them. 

Maybe it's a bit of both.

 
As we came around the headland we encountered the harvesting ship and a vessel towing a fish pen. Just a bit busy with three vessels maneuvering in a small area.

Something caught my eye after we could take our eyes off the fishing vessels, it was the black and white object half way down the cliff. On closer inspection we could see that a farmer had pushed tree logs up to the edge of his pasture - possibly to prevent more cattle falling down!

An unhappy ending from the look of it.

Lighting up our night life

There is nothing that the Bloke likes more than a little project to get stuck into. He wants Zofia to be a little bit better at the end of every day. In reality this is a bit of a King Canute objective because it's a full time job just maintaining the status quo seeing as the marine environment is so mean and destructive of everything; silently rusting and corroding everything.  So it's a bit more fun when the project is a bit of a lifestyle item.

Left over from the Bloke's solar panel support effort 18 months ago, was a 2m strip of LED lights. Most of the roll was inset on the underside of the support for the solar panels to provide a bit of illumination in the cock-pit in the evenings. The lights came with a controller that even allows the lights to change colour and not just from static white, red, blue, green, yellow, orange or magenta .... but flashing and fading variations of the same. Hollywood! Most of the time the lights are blue. If we need our night vision and a bit of extra light we'll use the red option..... Everything else is frankly, a bit trippy.

In keeping with my 'one day' mentality, I kept the remaining 2 metres waiting for the day when we'd think of a place to use it. Then I saw it on the Jeanneau Owners site. The Bloke gave a nod and said he could "do that no problems"!

One flash and you're ash!

Not at all - this is 12v.

Yup, this is going to work.

The colour depended on which wire was connected. 

We chose blue.

We even had a rocker switch saved from another project on the 'One day' principle.

If it ever gets warm enough to sit top-side after dark,

we'll be able to enjoy this groovy mood lighting in the cockpit.

Self Tailing Winches

During the annual boat lift and maintenance madness, the Bloke decided to give the winches a service. We have 4. In the process of reassembly there was a subtle difference in their finished outcome and I noticed that one was difficult to wind and with another, the sheets (ropes) weren't staying clamped in the self-tailing jaws, thus allowing the jib sheets to release when under load. Whoa! A couple of weeks of mutiny threats and frights too, when the jib sheets nearly got out of the winch, and this dangerous state of affairs needed to be addressed.

We discussed one morning whilst in our bunk, which is directly beneath the cockpit where the 4 winches are located,  which of the winches needed adjusting. This proved to be a very disorienting  conversation. I identified one as being fine and pointed upwards to where I believed it was located and said it was a port side winch. The bloke disagreed. 'Didn't I mean the starboard one?' and pointed somewhere else. The conversation then became like a map reading exercise except we were 'under' the map. There was some more hand waving and pointing which became less friendly. No matter, the Bloke would fix the winches by re-aligning the self-tailing feeder even if I didn't know which way was 'up'.... apparently!

Some on-line research followed, trying to determine the best alignment of the feeder and it is when we read just how very dangerous winches can be....think sailors who can't count to ten on their hands! Ouch. "Note to self - let's get this bit right". (http://www.oceannavigator.com/March-April-2011/Lewmar-issues-safety-warning-on-self-tailing-winches/)

Much to my dismay, by the time I'd gone topside to check on the Bloke's progress, the winch he'd so far 'fixed' was the very one that I had ineffectively identified as the only one that had been OK. Looks like we'll have to get a refresher ASAP in 'Communications 101'.

The feeder here is roughly in a 9 o'clock position and  preventing the sheet from getting an optimal wrap inside the self tailing jaws.

The Bloke making adjustments.

 A happy wife is a happy life!

Let's get rid of the old bag

Our parachute sea anchor lives up on our coach deck in its special bag and its rope rode is already threaded through the fairleads ready for deployment. The bulk of the rode rope coil used to sit in a bag on one of the cockpit seats. It was a temporary arrangement that lasted a year! Eventually the bag containing the rope started to fall to bits and it was time to create a more lasting solution. Never let it be said that we are hasty in all matters.

The weather turned from this

To this.

The presence of the sun suddenly energised us and instead of lolling about enjoying the sunshine we suddenly set to work on some projects. This was mine.

The Sailrite sewing machine was set up for my creation.

It was charging day anyway so the generator was on.

The bag was just big enough to fit the 'zillion' metres of rode
and the bag/sack is now mounted off the rails.

Port Esperance and Dover.

Days of inactivity and gloom had us in a funk. As lovely a bay Sandyrock Bay might be, it was time to move on and have a different experience. Port Esperance and the township of Dover beckoned.  We thought we'd go and take a look even if it did mean going further south and encountering a little swell. Not real swell, but seeing as most of the Channel is like a lake, the appearance of the groundswell is a proper reminder of where we were.

On the way there we encountered more aquaculture and on a bigger scale.

 

 Good weather or bad, the little fishies have to be cared for and the sea birds look expectant too.

 

The pictures do confirm that it was hardly a 'bright day' but it was new scenery and to get into the bay we passed 3 islands named 'Faith', 'Hope' and 'Charity'.

Still gloomy

We'd been in touch with Sheokee and they'd looked at the weather forecast too and knew that they couldn't remain in Cloudy Bay so they said they'd be happy to join us at Dover. "Meet you behind Rabbit Island" they said.

We knew that there was a General Store in town so the Bloke took me to shore to seek out some bread and bits and pieces. First we aimed at a jetty that we noticed was a private gated one as we got near so we thought we'd take the dinghy into a beach. We tried wading and dragging the dinghy in but found our feet sinking deep into the sand and nearly getting us off balance. More than once my 'Pinkies' (Pink Crocs) got sucked off my feet. Yikes, forget it. We retreated and made for the boat ramp instead and the Bloke put me ashore while he waited with the dinghy. I was 'on the clock' and despite having only the vaguest clue as to where to find the shop, I headed off and spotted a few items of interest on the way.

 The Port Esperance Sailing Club

 Opposite the RSL and next to the Church,
I found this fenced off area and wondered what it might be.

This is timber country and on closer inspection 

I concluded that I was looking at a timber cutting competition arena.
This type of clamp was fixed to each post in the arena.

 No time for a closer look at the War Memorial, but the 'Digger' was overseeing the community and the Bay.

 I think that 'Noah's Arc' possibly came to rest in Dover.

Another abandoned dream for sale in someone's front yard.

You can't hide the fact that this resident is concerned about the cold and in fact looks like they've only recently decided to add to their wood pile in view of the failure of summer to visit this year.

This is 'Slaughterhouse Road' - a No Through Road.

A dead end apparently.

I succeeded in buying a sausage roll for the Bloke at the Take-Away on the main road and suddenly, the time that I'd been away shrank to hardly a moment, as be gobbled it down with appreciation despite in never being anything like a 'contender' on his league table.

Head in the Clouds

When one looks out the port holes and sees that the surface of the water is not disturbed by rain you are hardly expecting to step out of the companionway, stand under the bimini and get wet as if it's drizzling. What does this mean? The low pressure system that was lurking off the NSW south coast sure was messing with the weather. In 3 1/2 weeks it's officially autumn and we are struggling to see the sun and by the feel of it, the cloud is actually lower than our bimini. It's a struggle to feel like getting out of bed it's so gloomy. Energy levels are low.

We spare a thought though for all those crews that are banked up various anchorages and bays to the north; Eden and Flinders Island etc. They are all hoping to get to Hobart for the Wooden Boat Festival and the Van Diemens Land Circumnavigation that follows it! They will all be looking at the BOM site (www.bom.gov.au) only to learn that the "Computer says, NO!". Even the HMB Endeavour replica and the Barque James Craig, which are comparatively large vessels have had to turn back to Sydney.

We are really hoping that the clouds go back to where they belong - in the sky!

This is 1st Feb, 2015!