James Craig - Sydney to Hobart

Tasmania has diminished to a pale blue shape on the SW horizon and Bass
Strait lays before us.  There is little wind, so we press on with the ´iron
spanker´ pushing us along. By nightfall the land is only a luminous shape on
the radar screen, and by midnight the radar is an empty screen.
The morning brings a flat horizon and a flat sea.  All that may change with
the dramatic arrival of a bank of crisp white cloud extending right across
the SW horizon.  We square the yards and prepare to lay aloft, but the
clouds are a false promise, and pass over with little effect.
At midday, a sunny calm day in ´the paddock´, as Bass Strait is called by
the locals.  The hatches are opened to air the crew´s quarters while
painting, splicing, writing and hammock repairs go on around the deck.  From
our keel down to the ocean bed is a distance of 4 kilometres (about 2000
fathoms) while infinity spreads above and all around us.  Whales, dolphins
and a ten foot shark are seen.  The evening brings a perfectly full moon and
a copper sky, and our old iron frames rattle to the hum of two propellor
shafts while the masts stand bare.