We spent a very pleasant day at anchor in Eden to let the strong southerly wind blow through.  We didn’t visit the town of Eden but anchored in a very pretty bay on the southern side with long white sandy beaches.  Whilst Helen and I sat on shark watch, Matt braved the colder water and dived under the boat to give the bottom a well needed scrub – mainly slime and newly settling barnacles (or cyprids to give them their proper name – always handy to have a marine scientist on board).  Andy on Spruce kindly refilled one of our dive tanks, so ready to go again. Had a good walk along the beach in the afternoon and met up with a bunch of other cruisers waiting for the same weather window as us. Saw some Kangaroos on the lawn of a nearby house!  We had a favourable forecast for the next couple of days to head across the notorious Bass Strait to Tasmania.  So after another good nights sleep we set off at 9am.  Most of the morning we were motor sailing into lightish head winds but by lunch time as we rounded Cape Hume, the engine went off and it has stayed that way since.  We’ve had near perfect sailing conditions with winds from the east of 10- 15 knots so have bean beam reaching and making good progress at 8 – 9 knots in reasonable seas with only the occasional lumpy bit. Throughout the afternoon we spotted several pods of dolphins but mostly they were too busy catching their lunch to get a bow ride, however later on we had two visits from Short-nosed Common dolphins riding alongside the boat.  We’ve had a reef in the head sail since late evening and have just put a reef in the main.  Have had company on the radio with several other boats doing the same passage, and have passed several Sydney Hobart race boats returning north, including the winner Wild Oats, who was motor sailing with only a tiny blade up. As of 8am we have around 150 miles to go to our waypoint at the Schoten channel (about half way down the east coast of Tasmania) and if we keep up this speed will arrive in the early hours of tomorrow morning.

24 hours:  189 miles