Perhaps best known by many voyagers as a dangerous corridor of storm-force winds and breaking seas, the eastern end of Bass Strait was the scene of disaster in the 1998 Sydney-Hobart Race when six sailors lost their lives. As the the author explains, however, if you wait for the appropriate weather window, you can enjoy Bass Strait and its uncrowded islands.
Recently, as reported in the media, the yacht Trade Winds, participating in the race, was caught in storm-force winds off Gabo Island and was knocked down altogether seven times, which must be a record for knockdowns in a single storm for one boat. The crew were lifted off by helicopter, and the yacht was never seen again. So is that the true picture? How about the people who live on the islands, who earn a living fishing in those waters, who crew the ships that supply the oil rigs, or who dive for abalone and crayfish for sport at weekends? What is not generally known is that within the hundreds of square miles of the Bass Strait area, there are more than 120 islands. It’s true that some of them are only rocky islets, the lonely haunt of seabirds, but others have a scattering of population, or at least a visiting one when the mutton birders move in at the end of summer. And on others, a few sheep or cattle are put to graze on their tussocky slopes. Bass Strait weather Bass Strait straddles the 40th parallel south, and the problem, of course, is the weather. When it comes, the trouble starts far to the south in the furious 50s. Down there, intense low-pressure systems circle the globe, unimpeded by land. Their associated, sickle-shaped cold fronts (where cold air from Antarctica clashes with warmer air farther north) extend to the northwest and slam into Tasmania, spilling over into Bass Strait as powerful westerlies. The Strait is shallow, and the resulting seas heap up. Tidal streams are strong and in many places unpredictable; the situation of wind against tide can turn nasty. An unforecast wind shift can happen in the middle of the night, making an anchorage that was perfectly safe become untenable. But basically Bass Strait gets its weather from the west. Only occasionally do troughs slide down across Victoria bringing turbulent weather from as far away as a northern tropical cyclone. Only occasionally — which is just as well — do lows (known as east-coast lows) form off the coast of New South Wales and march southward across the Strait, toward the east side of Tasmania. This western weather consists of a series of highs and lows and fronts that move in from the Indian Ocean, cross the Australian Bight and then squeeze through the Strait. On the whole, it’s a fairly regular, predictable pattern, enabling the meteorological bureaus in both Hobart and Melbourne to make reliable forecasts. But occasionally a rogue low or front runs amok and upsets the apple cart — which is what happened in the 1998 Sydney-Hobart Race. So it’s just as bad as you thought? The last place you would ever want to go voyaging! But hold on a moment. Everywhere has days of good weather. Even Cape Horn has days of calms. From about February right through to the end of May, the high-pressure systems come through the Australian Bight, moving eastward as usual, but on a more southerly track. And some are slow-moving. As a general rule, the higher the central pressure, the more likely it is to be a slow-moving system. These highs, which often cover more than half the weather map, bring sunny skies and gentle breezes, usually from the northeast or east. Bass Strait begins to sparkle. The southern air, free of pollution, becomes incredibly clear, and the colors of rocks, lichens, tussocks and sand take on a new, untouched freshness. This is the time to wander among the islands, enjoying the solitude of empty anchorages, or perhaps sharing with a local fishing boat, and very occasionally meeting with another yacht, a kindred spirit. Across to Flinders Island From Eden it is approximately 200 miles to Flinders Island. For yachts crossing to Tasmania, Flinders gives a lee from westerly winds, but for those planning to cruise, it is a compact archipelago of 42 islands. Some of these are almost exclusively mutton-bird rookeries, with hundreds of burrows to which these extraordinary birds of the shearwater family (Puffinus tenuirostris) return each year from as far away as Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to lay their eggs. The first Westerner to discover this archipelago — the Furneaux Group — was Capt. Tobias Furneaux of Adventure, the support ship accompanying Capt. Cook on his second voyage (1772 to 1775). Separated from Cook and deterred by the extensive shoals to the east of Flinders, Furneaux made an incomplete survey and reported to Cook that the sea to his west (Bass Strait) was a bay and that Van Diemen’s land (Tasmania) was joined to New Holland (Australia). For another decade, ships from Europe bound for the fledgling settlement of Port Jackson continued to sail the long haul round the bottom of Tasmania, several hundred unnecessary miles. It wasn’t until Matthew Flinders and his companion George Bass circumnavigated Tasmania in the 25-ton Norfolk that the bay was found to be a strait. Flinders’ first settlers were sealers, but indiscriminate slaughter soon reduced the seal population to extinction. Mutton-birding became the main industry. The female bird lays one egg at the end of an arms-length burrow; it is easy to take both bird and egg. The feathers were used for mattresses, and the birds — plucked and cleaned, packed in barrels, and tasting of fatty, fishy mutton — were exported as far away as Europe, where strangely enough they were considered a delicacy — that’s marketing for you! Today, licensed mutton-birding still goes on but on a much smaller scale. Fishing, farming and a little tourism are the main supports of Flinders’ hardy community. The Kent Group To the west of the Furneaux Group and bang in the middle of Bass Strait lie the cliffy islands of the Kent Group: Deal, Erith, Dover and other smaller islands. Though these islands lie only 48 miles from the coast of Victoria, they are uninhabited today and, it seems, unwanted. On our visit, a volunteer caretaker was in residence on Deal Island enjoying rugged walks in the hills and making colorful sketches. The islands have been handed over to Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service, who are not certain what to do with them. The caretaker kindly gave us vegetables from the garden of the former lighthouse keepers — Deal Island once boasted one of the tallest lighthouses in the world with an elevation of 305 meters (1,000 feet), so tall, in fact, that in bad weather it was obscured by clouds and thus useless. It seemed to us a great pity that in this modern, over-crowded world, these islands are now abandoned. The mile-wide Murray Channel runs through the middle of them and thus is reasonably sheltered but subject to strong currents. There are two anchorages: East Cove on Deal Island and West Cove on Erith Island. Between the two, they give all-round protection, but the holding is poor (sea grass). There are usually a few fishing boats from Port Albert (Victoria) and one or two yachts in these anchorages, especially at Christmas and Easter.
A good place to wait for the right weather to cross to the Kent Group is aptly named Port Refuge on Wilsons Promontory on the Victorian coast. The islands are a beautiful place to spend a few quiet days fishing and walking in the hills, including a steep walk to the old lighthouse.
From here it is a 32-mile passage to Killiecrankie, a sandy bay at the northern end of Flinders with Mt. Killiecrankie providing a dramatic backdrop. Unfortunately, yachts cannot get far enough in to get good shelter. Killiecrankie diamonds are found in nearby waters, which in fact are topaz. It might just be worth making a dive, but be prepared for very cold water.
At the southern end of Flinders, the town of Lady Barron has commercial wharves, mooring buoys and an anchorage, but it does not have easy access. The same shoals that bothered Capt. Furneaux are still there and extend five miles eastward. On Vinegar Hill, overlooking Lady Barron, there is a sector light (fixed red, white, green). One must steer due west, keeping in the white sector; foaming Pot Boil Shoals lies to one side of this course and the treacherous Vansittart Shoals (breaks heavily) lurk close by on the other.
Light out of sight
When the sun is low in the west, you can’t see the light, which is what happened to us. The Lady Barron radio operator kindly gave us the coordinates of the inner and outer ends of the channel, but even so, we managed to go aground. The tide was flooding, and we would have got off under our own steam, but a friendly fishing boat turned up and gave us a tow.
The radio operator is a fisherman’s wife, an unpaid volunteer. The radio is in the front room of her modest cottage.
We had no sooner secured to one of the Lady Barron moorings, when a small boat approached and one of the occupants hailed us and asked if we’d like to join them for tea. This to me seemed almost over-enthusiastic hospitality. After all, they had never before set eyes on us, nor we on them. But when I demurred, one of them lifted a wet sack revealing a large basket filled with king-sized crayfish. It was typical of Flinders that the public barbecue included a large tank in which crayfish could be cooked. It wasn’t long before we were sitting on the grass in mellow evening sunlight, each with a very large crayfish and an ample supply of cans of ice-cold beer.
Their skipper was Greg Reddy, who was trying to grow abalone commercially in large tanks. The next day he insisted we borrow his car to see the island.
Life on the islands is Spartan; there are shipping problems in bringing in basic supplies. Facilities for yachts are limited (though there is a slipway at Lady Barron — and a pub). But who cares about marinas, supermarkets and restaurants when the people are so welcoming and so generous? n
Jack Gush is a sailor and freelance writer currently based in Tasmania. He and his wife Lella voyage aboard their 20-ton steel cutter, Jackella. Gush said they started from Gibraltar 15 years ago on a voyage that “may well turn out to be one of the slowest circumnavigations ever undertaken.”
The Strait is shallow, and the resulting seas heap up. Tidal streams are strong and in many places unpredictable; the situation of wind against tide can turn nasty. An unforecast wind shift can happen in the middle of the night, making an anchorage that was perfectly safe become untenable.
But basically Bass Strait gets its weather from the west. Only occasionally do troughs slide down across Victoria bringing turbulent weather from as far away as a northern tropical cyclone. Only occasionally &mdash which is just as well &mdash do lows (known as east-coast lows) form off the coast of New South Wales and march southward across the Strait, toward the east side of Tasmania.
This western weather consists of a series of highs and lows and fronts that move in from the Indian Ocean, cross the Australian Bight and then squeeze through the Strait. On the whole, it's a fairly regular, predictable pattern, enabling the meteorological bureaus in both Hobart and Melbourne to make reliable forecasts. But occasionally a rogue low or front runs amok and upsets the apple cart &mdash which is what happened in the 1998 Sydney-Hobart Race.
So it's just as bad as you thought? The last place you would ever want to go voyaging! But hold on a moment. Everywhere has days of good weather. Even Cape Horn has days of calms. From about February right through to the end of May, the high-pressure systems come through the Australian Bight, moving eastward as usual, but on a more southerly track. And some are slow-moving. As a general rule, the higher the central pressure, the more likely it is to be a slow-moving system.
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The author's sloop Jackella anchored in East Cove, Deal Island, in the Kent Island Group. Deal once had one of the tallest lighthouses in the world. It was so tall (1,000 feet), that in bad weather, its light was obscured by clouds.These highs, which often cover more than half the weather map, bring sunny skies and gentle breezes, usually from the northeast or east. Bass Strait begins to sparkle. The southern air, free of pollution, becomes incredibly clear, and the colors of rocks, lichens, tussocks and sand take on a new, untouched freshness. This is the time to wander among the islands, enjoying the solitude of empty anchorages, or perhaps sharing with a local fishing boat, and very occasionally meeting with another yacht, a kindred spirit.
Yachts setting off from New South Wales can work south and put into delightful places, such as Jervis Bay, a mini cruising area in its own right, arriving finally at Eden, which is the ideal place to wait to cross the Strait, staying at either the fishing boat wharves, if there is no swell, or better still in East Boyd Bay near the woodchip mill. That wait might last several days, but be patient; sooner or later a period of settled weather will come along.
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A sailboat at the one wharf in the town of Lady Barron. Across to Flinders Island
From Eden it is approximately 200 miles to Flinders Island. For yachts crossing to Tasmania, Flinders gives a lee from westerly winds, but for those planning to cruise, it is a compact archipelago of 42 islands. Some of these are almost exclusively mutton-bird rookeries, with hundreds of burrows to which these extraordinary birds of the shearwater family (Puffinus tenuirostris) return each year from as far away as Alaska and the Aleutian Islands to lay their eggs.
The first Westerner to discover this archipelago &mdash the Furneaux Group &mdash was Capt. Tobias Furneaux of Adventure, the support ship accompanying Capt. Cook on his second voyage (1772 to 1775). Separated from Cook and deterred by the extensive shoals to the east of Flinders, Furneaux made an incomplete survey and reported to Cook that the sea to his west (Bass Strait) was a bay and that Van Diemen's land (Tasmania) was joined to New Holland (Australia). For another decade, ships from Europe bound for the fledgling settlement of Port Jackson continued to sail the long haul round the bottom of Tasmania, several hundred unnecessary miles.
It wasn't until Matthew Flinders and his companion George Bass circumnavigated Tasmania in the 25-ton Norfolk that the bay was found to be a strait.
Flinders' first settlers were sealers, but indiscriminate slaughter soon reduced the seal population to extinction. Mutton-birding became the main industry. The female bird lays one egg at the end of an arms-length burrow; it is easy to take both bird and egg. The feathers were used for mattresses, and the birds &mdash plucked and cleaned, packed in barrels, and tasting of fatty, fishy mutton &mdash were exported as far away as Europe, where strangely enough they were considered a delicacy &mdash that's marketing for you! Today, licensed mutton-birding still goes on but on a much smaller scale. Fishing, farming and a little tourism are the main supports of Flinders' hardy community.
The Kent Group
To the west of the Furneaux Group and bang in the middle of Bass Strait lie the
y islands of the Kent Group: Deal, Erith, Dover and other smaller islands. Though these islands lie only 48 miles from the coast of Victoria, they are uninhabited today and, it seems, unwanted.
On our visit, a volunteer caretaker was in residence on Deal Island enjoying rugged walks in the hills and making colorful sketches. The islands have been handed over to Tasmania Parks and Wildlife Service, who are not certain what to do with them. The caretaker kindly gave us vegetables from the garden of the former lighthouse keepers &mdash Deal Island once boasted one of the tallest lighthouses in the world with an elevation of 305 meters (1,000 feet), so tall, in fact, that in bad weather it was obscured by clouds and thus useless.
It seemed to us a great pity that in this modern, over-crowded world, these islands are now abandoned.
The mile-wide Murray Channel runs through the middle of them and thus is reasonably sheltered but subject to strong currents. There are two anchorages: East Cove on Deal Island and West Cove on Erith Island. Between the two, they give all-round protection, but the holding is poor (sea grass). There are usually a few fishing boats from Port Albert (Victoria) and one or two yachts in these anchorages, especially at Christmas and Easter.
A good place to wait for the right weather to cross to the Kent Group is aptly named Port Refuge on Wilsons Promontory on the Victorian coast. The islands are a beautiful place to spend a few quiet days fishing and walking in the hills, including a steep walk to the old lighthouse.
From here it is a 32-mile passage to Killiecrankie, a sandy bay at the northern end of Flinders with Mt. Killiecrankie providing a dramatic backdrop. Unfortunately, yachts cannot get far enough in to get good shelter. Killiecrankie diamonds are found in nearby waters, which in fact are topaz. It might just be worth making a dive, but be prepared for very cold water.
At the southern end of Flinders, the town of Lady Barron has commercial wharves, mooring buoys and an anchorage, but it does not have easy access. The same shoals that bothered Capt. Furneaux are still there and extend five miles eastward. On Vinegar Hill, overlooking Lady Barron, there is a sector light (fixed red, white, green). One must steer due west, keeping in the white sector; foaming Pot Boil Shoals lies to one side of this course and the treacherous Vansittart Shoals (breaks heavily) lurk close by on the other.
Light out of sight
When the sun is low in the west, you can't see the light, which is what happened to us. The Lady Barron radio operator kindly gave us the coordinates of the inner and outer ends of the channel, but even so, we managed to go aground. The tide was flooding, and we would have got off under our own steam, but a friendly fishing boat turned up and gave us a tow.
The radio operator is a fisherman's wife, an unpaid volunteer. The radio is in the front room of her modest cottage.
We had no sooner secured to one of the Lady Barron moorings, when a small boat approached and one of the occupants hailed us and asked if we'd like to join them for tea. This to me seemed almost over-enthusiastic hospitality. After all, they had never before set eyes on us, nor we on them. But when I demurred, one of them lifted a wet sack revealing a large basket filled with king-sized crayfish. It was typical of Flinders that the public barbecue included a large tank in which crayfish could be cooked. It wasn't long before we were sitting on the grass in mellow evening sunlight, each with a very large crayfish and an ample supply of cans of ice-cold beer.
Their skipper was Greg Reddy, who was trying to grow abalone commercially in large tanks. The next day he insisted we borrow his car to see the island.
Life on the islands is Spartan; there are shipping problems in bringing in basic supplies. Facilities for yachts are limited (though there is a slipway at Lady Barron &mdash and a pub). But who cares about marinas, supermarkets and restaurants when the people are so welcoming and so generous? n
Jack Gush is a sailor and freelance writer currently based in Tasmania. He and his wife Lella voyage aboard their 20-ton steel cutter, Jackella. Gush said they started from Gibraltar 15 years ago on a voyage that "may well turn out to be one of the slowest circumnavigations ever undertaken."
