James Craig - Sydney to Hobart

Having received a very warm welcome in Hobart and spending ten busy days
there, we are now retracing our wake towards Sydney.  A calm and sunny
morning makes for an easy departure with engines and a couple of staysails.
A gathering on Macquarie Wharf gives a heart felt farewell at 0900, while
Alan Edenborough´s morning interview on ABC radio goes to air with a song
from The Reeelers.  It´s a pleasure to be returning to the routines of
shipboard life, but it is not without some sorrow that we are leaving this
beautiful harbour city, and many ashore and aboard are wishing for a speedy
return.
Our rounding of Tasman Island is dramatically different to our experience of
two weeks ago.  Instead of darkness and violent seas we have a sparkling
sunny day to view the pinaccle.  The Tasman Island Light rises 900 feet
above us, and a railway track leads up the slope to it from the wharf at 45
degrees angle.  I´m sure many prayers would have been uttered from those
tracks as the lighthouse keepers and their families ascended and descended.
The lighthouse is no longer manned, but a helicopter delivers people to the
island occassionally.
Nearby Cathedral Rock rises up from the sea like great organ pipes or fluted
columns from the late gothic style.  A colony of seals worship nearby,
flippers raised to heaven as they float in the swell.
The middle watch (midnight to 0400) gives us a golden moon to steer by and a
four-hour long display of phosphorescence sparkling around the hull.  Rather
than wait for a fair wind, we must press on, to be anchored off the township
of Bicheno on the NE coast of Tasmania for a special welcome and
celebrations at daylight...