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For an explanation of photos, position mouse over photo.
A beautiful double rainbow decorated the sky as we raised anchor and set sail
for Port Arthur, an old convict settlement about 40 miles away.
After a nice dinner and a peaceful night we awoke to a nice morning. Bradley and
Ron planned to work on the water pump to see if they could further diagnose and
fix the problem we had at Bruny Island. I took the dinghy ashore to explore the
"town". It turns out the town consists of a very nice visitor center with a nice
restaurant and down the street a small cafe which offers internet access as well
as a combination service station (also called a petrol station but not a gas
station), supermarket (not grocery store), and post office. By the time I
returned, Bradley and Ron had discovered that our water pump problems were due
to a failure of the pressure switch and they had replaced the bad one with a
spare we carry. Both water pumps were back in working order.
We noticed our friends Beth and Kevin from Red and also Evans and Beth from Hawk
anchored nearby so we called on the radio to say hello. The winds were piping up
and changing direction so we decided to move a short distance to the next bay
over where we would be more sheltered. Hawk also moved, but Red stayed put as
they were leaving in the morning. Just after we had dropped anchor in our new
location, a man and a young girl in a dinghy came by to say hello. He introduced
himself as Simon and his daughter as Ellie (age 8). They were from Hobart and
staying at one of the cabins on shore. Simon works at the Australian Antarctic
Center where he manages logistics for re-stocking supplies at the Antarctic
research stations. He and his family were at Port Arthur for a week and he
offered to give us a ride to the Remarkable Cave where there is an underwater
cave and some hiking trails. So a little later we went ashore and met his wife
Clare and son Nick, age 3. It was about a 7 km drive to the cave where Simon
dropped us off. We saw the cave which was nice and then did a short hike along
one of the coastal trails. Then we walked back and stopped by for a drink with
Simon and Clare.
The next day we invited Evans and Beth from Hawk to join us at Mussel Boys that
night followed by a trip to the Tasmanian Devil Park for the Devils in the Dark
tour where you get to see the devils at night when they are active. Bradley and
I decided to take the truck to pick up some groceries and on the way stopped at
Mussels Boys to make a reservation. But we found that they would not be open for
dinner although they had opened for lunch because a small group of Japanese
tourists had called to book lunch. So we enjoyed a wonderful lunch of fresh
oysters and seafood chowder. The same family that owns the restaurant also owns
the local oyster farm. Bradley asked if he could get some fresh oysters and they
said they could get him some at Au$4 a dozen, so he ordered 4 dozen that would
be ready for pickup in two days when they came to harvest them.
We had a lovely dinner with Beth and Evans at another local restaurant and got a
chance to know them a little better. Both of them are former management
consultants from McKinsey who decided they would rather go cruising. They
circumnavigated the world in their first boat and Beth wrote a book about it
called Following Seas, which has done well and is worth reading. They then went
back to work for awhile in order to build their current boat, a 48 foot aluminum
sloop built for circumnavigating in any conditions. Beth is a regular columnist
for several sailing magazines and has also written a
"how-to" book for would-be cruisers called "The Voyager's
Handbook" which has done very well
and will soon be re-printed. In that book, she uses examples of three boats,
called Simplicity, Moderation, and High-Life in order to illustrate different
kinds of cost structures and lifestyles of cruising.
After dinner we headed to the Devil Park. Although it is a tourist attraction and offers tours, it is primarily a research and rehabilitation center. They do a lot of research on animals native to Tasmania, including Devils, wallabies, poteroos, possums, and various kinds of birds. Many of the animals at the park have been injured and cannot survive in the wild any more. The tour was wonderful. It started just after dark and using torches (flashlights) covered with red cellophane we were able to observe Tasmanian Devils and many other animals at their time of natural activity. We had fun and learned a lot - but unfortunately were not able to take pictures because it was dark!
The next night Bradley offered to entertain Ellie and Nick so their parents
could go out for a nice dinner. They are great kids and Ellie was looking
forward to challenging us to games of Uno and Twister.
It turns out Beth grew up on a horse farm so she came riding with us. When we
called to confirm the ride and re-iterated our desire to have a good one, the
guy issued a challenge - "Yeah, I've had people like you who say they can ride.
We'll see what happens when we get you out in the bush". Well, we were ready for
the challenge. When we arrived, they assigned us our horses. I got Joker, a
pacer who is an ex-racehorse. I was assured he had a wonderful canter and
gallop. Beth got a nice Appaloosa and Bradley had a friendly, good natured
horse. The three of us set off with our two guides. The first part of our ride
took us through beautiful forests where Kate, one of our guides, pointed out
various types of vegetation and told of the history of the area and how convicts
had been employed in the timber business. Soon we emerged into open fields where
we had the chance to respond to Don's challenge about how well we would handle
the bush. He instructed me - get Joker into a canter and you'll be right, just
don't let him pace or it'll be a bit rough. Well, he was right. Pacing is a gate
meant for pulling a sulky, not for sitting on top of! But Joker had a beautiful
canter and obviously wanted to show off his gallop, I let Beth get just a little
ahead and after a quick look back to ensure Bradley was OK, I let him show his
stuff. Next we went sailing on Hawk and had a good time. It's always nice to sail on someone else's boat and Hawk was especially nice as Evans and Beth had it specially built for their purpose after their extensive experience and therefore know everything about the boat. We picked up many good ideas from them. We also spent half a day with Beth interviewing us for her book. That was fun because with five people involved, every time she would ask a question, we would go off on a half hour of tangents and other discussion before getting to the next one. Again, it was a great experience and opportunity to learn a lot. Beth also took lots of photos of Shear Madness/High Life.
We did the night time "Ghost Tour" of Port Arthur where they lead you around to
various buildings after dark and tell ghost stories. It was a lot of fun. We
also had an opportunity to spend a couple days exploring Port Arthur by day and
found it to be very well presented and all the tour guides outstanding.
Beth and Evans were friends with Peter, the guy who drives the harbor cruise boat, the Marana. A harbor cruise is included as part of your entry fee to Port Arthur. Beth invited Peter over for drinks and we had a great talk with him. The next day we went on the harbor cruise and sat up in the bridge with Peter. The Marana is a very new power catamaran which was specially built for harbor cruises and is a very nice boat. We stopped off to do the "Isle of the Dead" tour on a small island where all the dead from Port Arthur were buried. Peter also invited us to go along on the Tasman Island Tour, a two hour cruise out to Tasman Island where he can take the Marana much closer than we can get in a sailboat. It was a wonderful trip with gorgeous scenery, dolphins, seals, and various sea birds.
Bradley and I decided to head about 20 kms north where there are supposed to be
some nice coastal hiking trails. Since Simon and Clare had returned home we no
longer had a car, so it was time to hitchhike again. There is not a lot of
traffic leaving Port Arthur in the morning, but plenty of cars passed us without
stopping. After an hour and a half, we had no ride and it had started to rain.
Figuring we had had enough walking (which was nice enough), we decided to turn
around and head back. We also decided to split up, as we thought several trucks
and cars with three people would have stopped for one person, but couldn't for
two. Sure enough, by myself I got a ride from the third car and Bradley had one
within five minutes as well!
The rain was expected to continue for several days so we decided to make our way back towards Hobart. First, we headed about 20 miles north to Nubeena. Despite the gray skies and constant drizzle, we had a nice sail thanks to our foul weather gear! We found a safe, cozy anchorage and headed ashore for a walk around town. We noticed a sailboat called Zingaro at the anchorage and we knew we had seen her somewhere, though we had not met her crew. As we came ashore in our dinghy, we were met by Terry and his son Alex from Zingaro who said they had seen us at Dover and again at Kettering. They also mentioned that they had looked at our website and Alex asked if we had any bananas on board! We chatted briefly and then parted to go our separate ways. But then we wondered how they had found our website when we had never even met them. That mystery was solved the next day when we ran into Alex again this time with his mom, Jill. We asked how they managed to get our website and Jill said they had been intrigued by the spelling of Shear Madness and also by the fact that not too many yachts of our size go into Dover or Kettering so they were curious and did a search and found the site! We invited them over for a visit on board where Alex was very impressed with our SuperSoaker watergun which we use for defending the dinghy from sea gulls. Bradley and I decided to take the dinghy out to have a closer look at the nearby salmon farm and invited Alex to join us. There was a boat there feeding the salmon and the operator talked with us awhile and explained a lot about the process of raising salmon in a marine farm. At another part of the farm, they were harvesting some salmon so we got to watch that too. Very interesting!
Next, it was on to Lewisham where we would meet up again with Ron. It was
another rainy day but the winds were nice and we had a great sail. Once in
Lewisham, we decided to call Kathy and Lynden, a couple we had met in Dover who
live very close to where we were anchored. It turns out they were at home
watching tennis when we sailed by and had actually seen us. They had located our
card and tried to call us, but our local phone number is not printed on our
card. Since they do not use email, they called their daughter and asked her to
send us an email (that address is on our card) asking us to call them on
Lynden's mobile phone. About an hour later, not having seen the email, we called
them on their home phone. They at first thought we were responding to the email
from their daughter but couldn't figure out how we had come to call their home
number. They were happy to learn we had planned to call them all along. They
invited us over for a wonderful dinner which we enjoyed while watching the
incredible Safin-Agassi semi-final of the Australian Open and listening to the
rain pour down for hours. We hoped it would ease up before we had to head back
to the dinghy, but no such luck! We were happy to be safe back on board that
night!
The rain continued the next day and as there is not much to do in Lewisham, Bradley and I decided to head to Dunalley, about 30 kms away. With no transportation, it meant another adventure in hitchhiking. We stopped at the local pub to verify our directions and found a guy who offered to take us out to the main road (4kms), saving us a nice walk as there was very little traffic on the side road. From there we split up and I soon had two rides that got me to Dunalley in no time. Dunalley is home of a canal that was built over 75 years ago. It is also the spot where Able Tasman and his crew first set foot on the island, naming it Van Diemen's land around 1642. The name was later changed to Tasmania. After enjoying a nice lunch, we split up again and successfully hitched back to the boat. The next day the rain continued and we headed back to Hobart, a six hour trip. There we caught up with our friend Simon who took us on a special tour of the Antarctic Research Center where he works. It was a great rainy day project and we learned a lot about Australia's presence in Antarctica. We also observed some scientific experiments with krill, a tiny shrimp-like animal that is not yet well understood. On my final day before heading back to the States for a brief trip, we attended the sheepdog trials in Oatlands, about an hour north of Hobart. The rain finally stopped and the sun even made an appearance for much of the day. We had a great time watching sheepdogs compete in two types of competition - the first where they had to collect three sheep and then heard them through a series of obstacles and the second in which they had to go across a large field and bring back a herd of eight sheep directly to the handler. It was a lot of fun to watch them work. Finally, we invited our old friends Bernard and Carol over for dinner and all too soon it was time for me to head home for ten days. I can't wait to continue the adventures when I return on Feb 13!
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It was another
typical Tasmanian sailing day and we were bundled up in jackets, long pants,
hats, and boots. We had quite a lovely sail and arrived at Port Arthur in
late-afternoon. We were treated to some beautiful scenery at Cape Rauol and all
the way up the harbor to Port Arthur. Port Arthur was the largest penal
institution in Tasmania and operated from 1834 until 1877 and was a secondary
settlement, meaning that most convicts were sent there from other sites for
repeated offenses or misbehavior. After Port Arthur ceased to operate as a
penal institution, many of the buildings were sold and converted to other uses
or fell into disrepair. In the 1980's, the government re-purchased all the
buildings and began a restoration project. Today, Port Arthur is one of the
major tourist attractions in Tasmania. The tours are very well done and it is
definitely worth a visit. 
Simon said they had brought two cars down and he would let us
borrow his little pick up truck if we needed to go anywhere and suggested we go
to dinner at a place about 10 kms away called Mussel Boys. Seems like
loaning your car to strangers is not that unusual in Tasmania! It was a great
offer because there really is no way to get around except by walking or
hitchhiking. 
On the way to
the grocery store we stopped at a horseback riding place and inquired about
riding. I spent many years as a competitive equestrian in my youth and Bradley
is a competent rider so we always enjoy the chance to ride together. But we are
also leery of rental horses as they often are not well treated and not much fun
for real riders. We also don't like getting stuck in a group of novices (unless
they are our friends!). But the horses looked well cared for, it seemed to
be very scenic, and we were promised we could go with no other outsiders on
"good" horses, so we made arrangements to give it a try.
In her revision, she is
going to expand the use of these examples throughout the book and use real boats
as examples. She asked whether she could use Shear Madness as the example of
"High-Life"! We agreed and set up a time for her to interview us about life
aboard "High-Life". 
We had a great time.
Bradley won the Uno game, then it was on to Twister which I probably haven't
played in 35 years. Bradley offered to be the spinner. leaving me to compete
with a very flexible 8 year old! But I'm happy to say I held my own, with each
of us winning a game and Nick having fun wriggling all over the mat. Clare and
Simon returned all too soon from their dinner!
Wow, was he fast! We overtook Beth in no time and were pulling away when
all too soon it was time to stop. But we had many more opportunities to gallop
through fields and to ride among cattle herds. I even got to see whether Joker
was a jumper when we came across a nice large log - he was! What a great time we
all had. Great horses, beautiful views, and wonderful people - this seems to be
what we are coming to expect everywhere we go in Tasmania! 
