Tasmanian ODYSSEY
As the steel bow of our Tahiti cutter Beatrice surged into the swells, I felt a long way from the milder climes of mainland Australia as the foreboding mass of Tasmania’s South West Cape loomed large on our starboard bow.
The pilot book describes this voyage as the “Ultima Thule” of Australian cruising and my cousin Christian and I had spent a year planning and keenly anticipating this 300-mile, three-week summer voyage. At 43° South we were amidst the fabled roaring 40s with very little shelter along Tasmania’s unpopulated south west coast.
The previous day’s voyage had taken us down the sheltered east coast. We’d departed the Oyster Cove Marina (south of Hobart) and sailed through a pristine cruising ground protected from the Pacific Ocean swells by barrier islands. In light summer breezes we passed gleaming beaches, secluded anchorages, a few small ports and a couple of marinas along the low-lying, forested coast.
These vast forests have fed Tasmania’s famed boatbuilding industry. It’s celebrated in the bi-annual Wooden Boat Festival (Feb 2021), a good reason to coincide your cruise through this wild and largely unspoilt region. Another reason competitive sailors come here is with the 640-mile Rolex Sydney to Hobart Race which crosses the infamous Bass Strait.
