Where waters collide

Towards the end of out miserable wet night getting into Campbell River we passed a small rocky island which we’d been looking at since dawn’s grey crack. I was off my game – I’d been meaning to find out where Middlemarch Island was and that was it. A wildlife reserve, but more relevantly for us, the point where the tides change from northerly ebb to southerly. We found out the hard way, as the tracker shows. A vast coiling roiling thrashing of water where two huge currents meet and we went backwards completely out of control till I got my act together and the oars out. We ferry glided across the maelstrom until we reached the calmer north following tide on the west side. Interesting and a much more vicious big daddy of the meeting of the south flowing East Coast Current and the colder waters flowing out of Bass Strait off the SE corner of Australia. Luckily and completely by chance, we timed it right. Must have been Carla’s corralling of the ExaminerShe who asks awkward questions of the crew and tests them with difficult tasks.. We don’t have a water thermometer on VG but in Australia there’s a 3 degree change in temperature across the very obvious line where the waters meet. It happens in a boat length. Ain’t it a wonderful world!