Sydney to Hobart, Day 5: Eden, New South Wales

Monday, November 21: It's now Day 5 of the great Sydney to Hobart Sail with Skipper Craig aboard the Southern Ocean. I wish I'd written more, but the first two-plus days for myself were spent in various states of wretchedness, up to and including actual wretching. (Kids, if you want some real excitement some Friday night, try taking a dump in a bucket in the belly of moving sailboat on a sloppy sea, all while trying not to vomit—only one bucket available! Whoopee!) The last day of travel was good, I spent a good amount of time at the wheel, day and night hours, so I may finally have my legs. We'll see. I don't care—if I can do those first two days I can do damned anything.

We're in Eden, NSW, now, 300 miles south of Sydney, waiting for a handful of weather systems to move through the Bass Strait before we can head off to Tassie. May have to wait until Friday. That means that while I'm here I have actual work to do for my real job—so just a quick video here, and a pic or two.

Pics and video. (Click on pics to get larger, clearer versions.)

First, Craig proves that I actually drove the boat. We're five or so nautical miles offshore at this point. (We got as far as 23 miles off on the way down.)

I almost yelled, "Hello, Lieutenant Dan!" I guess it's better I didn't.

Look at this:

It's so weird: I just recently learned about this cloud phenomenon by reading and writing about them for work. They're very rare—and we drove right under that sucker! I'll do a post on them later—just wanted you to see that shot. There are better ones, and there's video, too.

Here's Eden's Killer Whale Museum, home of the skeleton of "Old Tom"—the orca that helped whalers get their whales that Christine had told me about ages ago. (More about that later, too.) Eden Cove behind.

We'll finish with a Pacific Gull, found only in Southern Australia, and huge—twice as large as average gulls. Look at this beauty:

That's all. More soon. Love to you, Christine...