FROM 2015 & 2016 Logs

Cape Howe

A special place – the bottom right hand corner of mainland Australia and the point of departure into the crossing. Low sand dunes with trees and woods behind. I have a vivid memory of it in 1998 – just a glimpse in a patch in the storm. Yesterday – nasty rolling beam sea, night falling, Berri and Kevvo in their happy partnership but the old geezer worried about deteriorating conditions and rising sea. Approaching warehouse status. Options – keep going and risk the crossing or go and shelter behind Gabo Island and wait for the northerly change or turn back. Continuing would be a painful poke in the eye for young Prudence – definitely possible and with a good prognosis but with potentially catastrophic consequences if the Examiner decided to flex her muscles. Big ships out there too, visible on AIS. And probably no sleep for the old geezer for at least 24 hours. Gabo likewise – shelter, but the need to break out an anchor and the problem of what to do if the conditions didn’t improve. So I decided to turn back. Tricky under the circumstances but achieved and back into hoon mode to the north on what was becoming a very black night.

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