Day 8 blog

This morning we awoke in our New Harbour anchorage to the sight of Captain Dave scrubbing splattered squid ink from the side of the Wilson Voyager after the previous night's fishing!  This was occurring under the watchful eye of Captain Tom who was supremely unimpressed with the ink stains left on the hull of the otherwise beautifully presented Wilson's voyager. With that task done we departed to Cox's Bight.

Sadly the southerly swell had picked and combined with a large sand build up on the eastern side of Point Eric which thwarted our plans to land dinghies and clean the beach. While the size of the swell made the remainder of the beaches on the South West coast inaccessible, the surfers on the cleanup team were excited with the possibility of catching a wave in south cape bay!

Finally the our 4 vessels began the 40 mile steam across the entire south coast of Tasmania. The crews fished for Bluefin tuna while the albatross and short tailed shearwaters wheeled overhead in the clear blue sky and a light westerly breeze blew us steadily eastward toward Rechereche Bay.

While the bluefin tuna fishing effort proved unsuccessful, Masaaki, Lachie, Claire and Phil donned their wetsuits and caught us a feed of southern rock lobster and sea urchin for a pre-dinner snack once when we arrived in Recherche Bay. At the same time Rachael, Pat and Jess went for a forest fact-finding mission around the shores of Rocky Bay. 

Importantly, most of us regained phone reception and we were finally able to figure out the answer to a question that had been dogging us for the whole week - namely how long is league? It turns out to be 1.5556km. You read it here first folks!

The rubbish is all bagged on the back deck of Rumours - ready for the final leg of the voyage to Hobart docks and then on to the recycling centre and tip on Monday morning.

Thanks for all the good wishes everyone!

Wes and Rex