Tasman Island Cruise - The Land

In the distance above, you can see Tasman Island with its flat top sitting just off the coast. Although you cannot see any in this photo, we did see a few of the sailboats that had rounded this eastern corner of Tasmania on their way to Hobart and the end of the Sydney-Hobart Race. Of course, the really big, fancy, fast boats finished the day before, but these guy are doing amazing stuff.


This cruise was expanded from the usual go-around-the-corner-and-return to Port Arthur to one that went one way; around the corner at Tasman Island and then on up the coast to Pirates Bay.

There were many columns and interesting formations along the coast. Our Captain told that these seas can reach waves of 10 meters in high winds. I just don't want to think about that.

These bits are made of Jurassic Dolomite and have been here hundreds of millions of years.

We even sailed into a couple of the sea caves so we could see that that was like. The pink/purple bits on the cave walls are algae that never sees sunlight.

You will notice on the upper right that some of the rocks have a bright red surface. No sure what that is. There is more to see later.

This is mudstone that deposited in many layers. This is where one of the caves is located. You see one of the other boats coming out of the cave we had earlier been in.

This is another cave with the aglae near the water line.

This, I believe is Cape Raoul as we look back west, generally toward Hobart.

I'm not sure where this cliff is located.

There is along section of high cliffs as we round the corner and head north. Some of these (not these in the photo) are the highest sea cliffs in the southern hemisphere.

We came around to the Totem Pole, a tall slender rock formation that I had to shoot looking almost directly into the sun.

I have mentioned in earlier posts about the show The Kettering Incident and how parts of the Huon Valley (the mountain called locally Sleeping Beauty) play a key role in the plot. This column also figures into the story in some way that is still mysterious (when will the second season appear?).

Here is a more dramatic version of the rocks that are stained red. In fact, the white on top of some of them make it appear that it has snowed. I suspect bird poop instead.

This was an amazing ride. Once we got past the last set of cliffs above, we simply needed to go north to Pirates Bay to end the ride. The ocean swells were larger on the east coast than on the south and the ride got rougher. The second time my tummy started arguing with me and I went to the back of the boat for a calmer place to stand, I still had trouble standing even handing one with both hands. This made it difficult to throw up over the side of the boat and not get it on me or anyone else. I think I managed.

I get seasick easily and this was very easy on this small boat in 0.5 to 1 meter swells. I was very happy when we rounded the point into the bay and way went calm.