A trip to King Island in western Bass Strait.
The big attraction for me is that King Island is part of Tasmania and that Gassy Harbour on King Island's east coast is 40 degrees south. Melbourne where I live is 38 degree's south.
I keep my boat at a yacht club in Brighton a sea side suburb of Melbourne. The club is small by US standards. about 170 boats in floating pens.
So last Easter in April together with a sailing friend from Sydney, Martin Dailitz who also had a passion to cross Bass Strait, from Yaringa a boat harbour in Western Port off we went to King Island. Distances are large in Australia, from Yaringa to the entrance to Bass Strait is nearly 30 miles. The weather was bad and we waited about 10 miles from the entrance to the Western end of Bass Strait. Very bumpy night, the weather for the next day was bad via the
WWW.Bom.gov.au marine site. This is the best place to start off for 1 to 7 day forecasts when you are sailing in Australian waters. That morning we sailed ar member that is very old for Australia. picked up a mooring for a quiet night. The great thing about the IP320 two up is that each has a cabin. I set up the seats with lee cloths port and starboard for sleeping at sea.Though I find that when it's rough, dark and tired nothing beats sleeping on the floor, head near the mast. Next day left with the out going tide, peaks at 4 knots and out past Seal Rocks with impressive breaking seas heading due south for King Island.
The best time to go is when a low is passing. during Autumn, March and April, yes we are in the southern hemisphere often get blocking highs and good weather in Bass Strait for sometimes weeks. Like any cruising you need oodles of time to pick you weather for safety. The water in Bass Strait has a blue colour and clarity I have never seen else where. The coast of Victoria and Northern Tasmania has few rivers draining and so sparsely settled compared with America there is none of the normal people pollution. Victoria is just a laval basalt plain so little natural run off of soil to dim the water. I like to think that the clarity and colour of the water is what the rest of the world's ocean look like a few thousand years ago. If you like dolphins in pods of 30 to 50, doing their crisscrossing of your boats bow this is the place to be. Martin who sails out of Sydney was amazed by the water and bird life. I am particularly fond of the shear waters. Looks like a BP oil spill on the water, just a thousand or so birds floating about chatting about their trip from Siberia. These sea birds fly paper thin above the ocean swell using up lifts, they have the appearance of perpetual flying.
I had previously taken my IP320 around out of Port Phillip through the heads over Christmas and left my boat in Western Port. The distance from the entrance to Port Phillip and Western Port is a 40 mile trip to the entrance of Western Ports from the heads. I wanted to cruise about Western Port over summer which I did, very different from Port Phillip , lots of current and large tidal fall and mud. Cheserpeak sailors would enjoy the mud.. Sailing in Melbourne the tide range due to the narrow heads is only a few feet.
Best not to dawdle about, it is dangerous due to sudden changes in the weather the wind was on the nose due south so motored all night. Dawn we were off King Island. Grassey Harbour is on the eastern side of King Island. A small container port. I had been told that when entering head for a large rock and turn to port just before you hit it. The rock is called Frog Rock but just looked like a very large black rock with waves breaking over it.
Once in the harbour finally I picked up a mooring, make it to 40 degrees south.
Who was King, a British naval office who started a colony on Norfolk Island in the 1790's, and later become Governor of the colony of New South Wales. He scored an island named after him when Captain Black found King Island in 1801 and claimed it for England to pre empt the French under the great Baudin who was prowling about looking for bits of the world to speak French.
Most of the island has been cleared for farming. Patches of tree tree, melaleuca and eucalyptus forests. The same melaleuca that has become pest in the everglades in Florida. The vegetation on King Island has certain difference between Tasmania and Victoria due to its isolation for thousands of years that makes it very interesting to Botanists.
Mark Lazarus
