By Kelly Nunn-Clark of S/V Sanctum.
Okay where to start……. I have been wanting to update our blog, ‘onelegatatime’ almost daily but it takes time to organise photos and write. We have been so busy with work and working on the boat that there seems to be not a lot of free time. I will start at the beginning……..
We bought a new boat!
Yes, we did. A Catalina 445 from a good friend of ours. We were not in the market to buy a boat but ‘COVID year 2020’ did weird and wonderful things for many people. Evan was working on Sanctum (that is her name) to help our friend (Jean) get it ready to sell. In short, we fell in love with her and Jean gave us the time needed to make it work. This included getting our boat Nashira sold. This all happened so quickly. No sooner was Nashira cleaned up and an ad placed she was sold! The universe seemed to be on our side to make this happen.
From May 2020 onwards we spent a lot of time on Sanctum. Making repairs where needed and sailing locally to make sure everything was seaworthy. I want to point out that for us buying a new boat was like starting over. We had to learn how to sail all over again. Nashira was a centre cockpit whereas Sanctum is not. The configuration of everything is different and one of the biggest changes is our in-mast furling main. We previously had a leisure furl boom on Nashira which we loved and swore that we would NEVER have an in-mast system. Oh well, never say never, the world has a habit of keeping us on our toes. I want to shout out a big THANK YOU to all of our friends who have helped us with learning how to sail and work out how to use the in-mast furling. I love all our friends at MHYC, what a fantastic club. We wanted to learn our new boat and, well, making repairs is a great way to learn. We fixed the generator, power inverter, bilge pump, steering adjusted, sheets were replaced, lights repaired among other things. Sanctum had a new nose job, as the entire metal frame that holds the anchor was lifted up along with the gel coat one day while flying the spinnaker. These are part and parcel of taking on a new boat.
One of the decisions we made was to sail down to Tasmania and take Sanctum out of the water in Kettering to do the antifouling ourselves and fix a couple of through-hull fittings and have a bit of a holiday. The plan was for February as this is mid-Tassie summer.
As the time drew near, I was a little nervous thinking about sailing to Tassie as we had not yet sailed at night or in bad weather. I find being nervous is a BAD precursor to getting seasick.
Frank of Bundeena offered to come with us. Yay!! three people to do shifts, cook etc. would greatly reduce the workload, increase sleep and my confidence, as three heads are better than two. Especially if the 3rd head is experienced.
The date finally arrived; Evan and I left Sydney at 3am on Friday morning the 5th of February and 13 hours later sailed into Long Beach in Jervis bay where Frank was waiting for us to rescue him from the beach. We had dinner and set off for Eden. The overnight to Eden was brisk, to say the least with trailing winds and a following sea. We saw 44+ knots on the dial and to our dismay found the front hatch and one chainplate leaks. Overall though Sanctum handled very well, the autopilot managed better than Nashira ever did. We had Max (the dog) with us, and he also managed very well. He was set up below in his travel carrier (the best purchase ever for the little bloke).
We arrived in Eden Saturday afternoon, tied up at the wharf and organised fuel for the following Monday and walked into town to buy a few groceries. We met a friend of Franks, Martin on his Trimaran called KISS, who was also heading to Tassie. We spent two nights holed up waiting for a weather window on Monday to make the jump. While waiting we registered with Tas Marine Radio and got a transit number so we could be in communication once in Tassie waters.
Because of all of the kafuffle around the Coronavirus, there was a series of things we needed to complete to enter Tasmania.
- Have a valid G2G pass authorising entry to Tasmania:
This is done no more than 3 days before you arrive. We were leaving on Monday evening so we had to declare we would arrive by Thursday. I expect if the weather does not permit that they would be okay with this too. Luckily, we were in a low-risk area for the 2 weeks before arriving as this was a prerequisite. - Report our pending arrival to Biosecurity Tasmania.
This is done 24 hours before you arrive at a designated port. We were in contact a couple of times to ask questions and they were easy, helpful and nice to talk to. We were directed to email them the QR codes that we received doing step #1 above. We were also asked to dispose of all fruits and vegetables. - Enter Tasmania through a designated port of arrival
Hobart was our designated port of arrival. We arrived Thursday afternoon. - Have an inspection from a Biosecurity Officer.
Didn’t happen, apparently this step was not needed as our QR codes were passed and we were deemed low risk.
Okay so, Monday at Eden, we fuelled up and by early evening we departed for Tassie. We had a fabulous weather window with 3 days of SE swinging east becoming a strong NE before a strong Westerly roll in. Our plan was to take off and if the weather holds then perhaps stop in Schouten Passage for a break and possibly Fortescue Bay to hide if needed.
What we ended up doing, was a straight shot, non-stop to Hobart. A couple of the trip highlights were:
1) Passing Maria island in the middle of the night with seven Squid boats to our seaside lighting up the night sky with their 5000 watts each. It is an incredible sight and you almost need sunglasses just to pass by.
2) Passing through the channel at Tasmin island and the mainland at sunrise. We were greeted with many dolphins and as we crossed storm bay there were seals and dolphin aplenty who were curious to come and check us out.
The weather was decent all the way down the east coast the wind stayed SE and finally shifted to NE but it was never as strong as forecast and we beat the forecasted strong westerly and arrived just outside of Constitution dock on Thursday afternoon Feb 11th.
SIDE NOTE: I did manage to procure the best case of seasickness that I have ever had to date. This started on the ride to Jervis Bay and accompanied me full force to Eden and eased off gradually until we reached Fortescue bay at the bottom of the east coast of Tassie. I am seriously considering trying different drugs to help out next time. Being seasick is awful. I love sailing unless I am seasick, then sailing is hell. I am proud to say that I did manage to do all my shifts, but I did not eat and physically getting about on the rougher sections of the trip was a real chore. On the bright side, it was a good but not recommended way to lose COVID kilos!
We stayed the weekend right in the middle of Hobart. Constitution dock, usually busy this time of year with the wooden boat festival, was as quiet as can be. We were given permission to park on the MAST marina for a few nights free of charge. BIO security spoke to us via phone and let us know that they were not going to come down and do an inspection and that we were okay to come ashore. “Welcome to Tasmania.”
It is good to be here, good to get off the boat and walk around the busy city, good to feel good again. We contacted Kettering marina and organised to lift Sanctum onto the hard stand on Monday the 22nd. We spent a lovely weekend visiting Salamanca markets and the organic farmers market in town to replenish all of the fruits and veggies that we threw away.
Sunday the 14th of February, we had the most glorious sail down to Kettering, we had done a lot of motor sailing, on and off, from Sydney to pick up Frank at Jervis Bay and then to race down to Hobart with our 3-day weather window. This was our first chance to enjoy sailing with no time restraints. It was magnificent.
Arriving in Kettering was like coming home. This is our third time coming here and a very pleasant place to lift a boat out on the hard. Here we can take the time needed to do repairs and antifouling properly. I must say that one does need an appreciation of cooler weather, but this seems to suit us pretty well.
Well, we have a week before we are pulled out of the water. Frank flies back to the North island on Wednesday and we have some sorting to do to work out what supplies we need for antifouling and other jobs. Unfortunately, the holiday part of the trip is on hold as Evan must continue to work full time and I part-time. We will hopefully take weekends as our own to do some exploring. Let’s see what the days bring.
Stay tuned for part two.
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