[password]8Tarnhows
[status]At 3:00 pm on Friday 05 March Ambler II and her crew were cleared by the Hobart Border Force officials to leave Australia (much like the airport really, checked faces to passports). However, the clearance was issued on the assumption that we would not be leaving the yacht; if we had an unforeseen need to get off the boat we would need to advise Border Force of the circumstances.
Ambler sailed south down the Derwent River and turned at the ?iron pot? to head north east toward a safe overnight anchorage in the vicinity of Dunally. We settled for a restful evening at Primrose Bay.
Saturday 06 April at 7:55 am Ambler sailed for Dunalley and the Dennison Canal; a very interesting narrow canal with a swing bridge to allow us through. On exiting the canal and sailing through another bay we were at the entrance to the ocean where we negotiated the channel and the surf to begin the real journey. The highlights of the trip to this point were undoubtably the Dennison Canal with all the traffic at the swing bridge watching our passage, and the surfer on a surf-foil cruising past us on a wave, with his jet skiing photographer in close pursuit.
The afternoon and evening of Saturday 06 morphed into the morning of Sunday 07 April as we all took our turns on shift through an uncomfortable night of mixed wind conditions, rocking and rolling through various sail configurations supplemented by the engine.
However, at about 2:00 am (Sunday morning) the wind shifted in our favour and since then we have had pleasant sailing with the wind abeam and the foresail up and producing a reliable 7.5 knots heading in the right direction. Albeit still with a lumpy sea.
Having changed our clocks from daylight saving time and having eaten breakfast we thought it timely to let you folks know of our progress, which is about 1000 nm to go. All good on board Ambler II.
Regards to all,
Jim, Graham, Fred and Bill.

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