Heavenly Macquarie Harbour
by Jack and Jude 16 Jan 2020 23:46 UTC
Betsy's Bay anchorage © Jack and Jude
It took us a week to sort the old girl out, fitting a new diesel day tank, bending on sails and running rigging before we sallied forth to see how the severely wet winter had affected our much loved west coast of Tassie.
Honest, we have been trying to leave this little bit of heaven for the last three years, just can't pull the pin. Our first adventure down harbour reminded us why. Anchoring in Betsy's Bay commanded a view of the Eastern Mountain Range across tranquil waters. In that bay, comfortable enough for fifty vessels, we were all by ourselves. How wonderful. Maybe some like lots of boats around them like living in suburbia. No worries to us. But Jack and Jude love the peace of natural beauty without noisy engines or having to look out for lots of traffic.
We took a saunter across the peninsula towards the wild west coast, a walk we've done half a dozen times before, and guess what? We lost the way. Guess our grey matter is sort of bogged down in other things and one wrong turn put us in strange terrain.
Clever me hadn't brought the GPS with all the waypoints. Just past halfway we found ourselves descending into a small piece of heaven, where two freshets joined to produce a pleasant noisy rush next to a convenient fallen tree that provided a lovely seat in a sunny spot of lush green for our picnic.
Lazing back in the scented warmth after our repast, neither of us wanted to search for the right way to the west coast, so we wandered off looking for wombats, and enjoyed masses of late spring wildflowers under an awesome clear blue sky. Wow, what a great way to start this year's tenure of life afloat.
Five days zoomed past before being forced to move by a threatening northerly blast that's not so nice for Betsy's, but perfect for a meander down harbour another ten miles to Farm Cove lying under majestic Mount Sorell.
Never been so busy
Jude and I have been retired for a little over ten years, and frankly, we've never been so busy, but we're busy doing things we love. Over winter at our shack, we put the final touches on a book that we began thirty years ago. And now it's in print and being delivered. The reviews are fantastic, forget housework, read while cooking, it's a book you can't put down.
I'll not clog the blog in details, but just say; at the shack, we were up before first sparrow fart to have absolute silence, so our creative minds could imagine being on the high seas with two teenage sons sailing around the world, and getting into all sorts of bother.
There were a few life or death experiences along with a lot of once in a lifetime sights while we met so many fascinating people. The Four J's had already lived life afloat for ten years, and sailed across nearly every ocean. We were a daring, bold team by the time we set off around the world.
This article has been provided by the courtesy of jackandjude.com