Rugged Up, Sailing Fast

As an Alaskan, I feel that it is my duty to be dismissive of Tasmanian winter.  If a few snowflakes fall in Hobart, people talk about it for days, but I roll my eyes.  It doesn't count as snow, I maintain, unless you have to shovel it out of your driveway.  

So by Alaskan standards, the winter here doesn't amount to much.

But I will admit that autumn can pack a punch.

We had hailstorms like this on and off through the last day we were anchored up at Bruny Island.

We had spent four days sitting in that one anchorage, waiting for the unsettled weather to pass.  The next day it was time to get moving again.  So we all got on our warm clothes.

Eric considerately took a very long nap, so Alisa and I got the rare treat of sailing together.  And it was a great sail.

Twenty or twenty-five knots of wind, right behind us.  Inshore waters, so no swell.  We reefed down and poled out and watched the needle push up against nine knots of boat speed.  After all the easy living of our six months in the tropics, it did us good to feel some cold air whistling around our ears.  Look at Alisa in this picture - doesn't she just look hungry for a season of high-latitude sailing?

The end.