We arrived at Greenwell Point at about 9am after a great overnight sail from Sydney. Greenwell Point is a small fishing village on the Shoalhaven River not far from Nowra on the NSW south coast. Alison's parent's live in Nowra so it was a great place to stop in on the way through for a few days visit. Alison's sister, Laura, and Grant also came down and stayed for a few days so it was a bit of a family get together. We did some unsuccessful fishing and ended up BBQing burgers.

The entrance into Greenwell Point can be a bit tricky in bad weather but we had no problems as there was very little swell when we entered and exited. The town of Greenwell Point is small but has a pub, small grocery store/post office/petrol station, motel, caravan park, chemist and a handful of cafes and takeaway fish and chip shops. There is also a bowling club that operates a Chinese restaurant.

Next we headed south again to Eden which was another overnight sail. Eden is a large fishing village just north of the Victorian border and is a popular stop for transiting yachts. We anchored over near the beach, away from town, and found it quite sheltered. You can tie your dinghy up to the town wharf and there is water and rubbish disposal available there as well. The town of Eden is located about a 10 minute walk up the hill from the dock but around the wharf there is a chandlery, cafe and takeaway an an art gallery. Eden is a large town and you are able to get most of everything you could possibly need. The only down side is that you have a bit of a way to lug everything back to the boat. We found it a bit weird that everyone we met would say hi - in the country now. Nice.

In Eden we also bumped into Szel. Szel had spent a couple of weeks in the marina at Cammeray and they were also on their way to Tasmania for a few weeks before heading to New Zealand.

The weather up to this point had really not been cooperating very well. We finally found a window in which to leave but had very light northerly winds and ended up motoring half way across Bass Strait. We elected to stop at Babel Island which is at the northern end of Flinders Island. When we arrived we anchored of a lovely white beach and had a much welcome swim in beautiful clear water. Unfortunately the wind swung around in the middle of the night and we ended up having a very uncomfortable night. From Babel Island we did a day hop down to Kent Bay. Kent Bay was a nice sheltered spot but you have to motor in around a lot of sand banks so it takes about an hour to get in there.

Up to here we had been plagued by very light northerly winds which would only hang around for a very short time before switching southerly, making our progress very slow. We managed to make another day hop down to Eddystone Point.

Eddystone Point was a lovely place to stop with a long white sand beach and some spectacular rock formations. It is located on the opposite side of the point from the Bay of Fires and it is well worth getting ashore and going for a walk along the beaches and up to the light house. We got lost trying to find a trail back to the lighthouse through the dunes and ended up beating our way through some prickly scrub. We were pretty relieved the next day that we had not had reactions to any of our new scratches. We also had a sea gull decide to adopt us and would come and sit on the back of the dinghy and scare all the other sea gulls away. We stayed here for three nights but it is only a good anchorage in southerly winds and we had to move on once the winds shifted northerly again. When we left the anchorage we had some seals come and see us off, but soon we pounded into steep 4m seas to clear the rocks off the point. The cold 30kn winds and spray reminded us that we were now in the roaring forties.

From Eddystone Point we did another overnight sail to Coles Bay which is on the opposite side of the Freycinet Peninsula. During the night we had some dolphins come and play around the boat but all you could see where their trails of phosphorescence as they swam past. It was quite eerie. We only stayed one night at Coles Bay after treating ourselves to a pub lunch and stocking up on some fresh vegetables from the local shop. Unfortunately they had a very poor selection of vegetables and they were quite expensive. The convenience store that was in Coles Bay had burnt down a while ago so we had to walk about 10 minutes to Iluka. The anchorage at Coles Bay is lovely with a beautiful view of the Freycinet National Park. The weather forecast was for strong northerly winds for the next couple of days up to 40kn so we decided to sail down to Chinaman's Bay on Maria Island to wait it out. It looked like a well protected anchorage on the chart but the island is quite low lying so did not afford as good a protection as we had hoped for. We spent two very wet and windy days there where we dragged our anchor in the strong winds on a very weedy bottom. The wind direction changed to a more southerly direction which caused a swell to start rolling through the anchorage so we upped anchor and sailed the short distance across the channel to Triabunna. It was still blowing 30-35kn and we were doing 7+ kn with just a small bit of the jib out. Triabunna was much more sheltered and we anchored in 20ft of water in mud. It was still raining but we had run out of gas for the stove so we rugged up in our wet weather gear and dinghied into town to swap our gas bottle and spoil ourselves with a cappuccino and our first scallop pie (only seem to be found in Tasmania). The rain finally stopped and one of the locals paddling past on his paddle board stopped to say hello and on our last afternoon there one of the locals out fishing gave us a flathead and some salmon that he had caught for our dinner. It seems that the further south you go the nicer the people are. We ended up staying for three nights at Triabunna waiting for the rain and swell to die so that we could transit the Denison Canal.

Finally we set of at first light to make the 20nm trip to the Marion Narrows at the beginning of the channel. We went through the channel at dead low tide which gave us a few heart attacks with the depth gauge reading 0.0 below us in some spots. We made it through, though, and reached the end of the canal in the mid afternoon. We toyed with anchoring for the night, but decided to push through to Hobart, another 30nm or so. We had a boisterous sail across the bay, then through the channel between the mainland and Betsey Island, and around the Iron Pot as the sun set. The wind then died and we motored up the Derwent, narrowly missing an unlit fishing boat, and finally anchoring in Sandy Bay near the Wrest Point casino at about 10pm.

Champagne time!