The Rip

One of the 3 ships and the Queenscliffe - Sorrento ferry we had to avoid

Blog 10 March 2022

We pottered around for the morning with the anticipatory stress palpable in the air. We had done all the planning we could and contacted vessel transit at Lonsdale to learn that there would be 3 ships exiting and one inbound around the time we needed to exit through the rip so just a few more obstacles to contend with. It is crucial when going through the rip to have the right wind and tide so timing is very important and also staying in your own lane so you don’t get run over by any of those enormous ships. As rip virgins we had all the theory but as always putting into action can be quite challenging.

We donned our life jackets and set off post haste to be at our predetermined waypoint early to make our run. It was obvious fairly quickly all the larger vessels around had other ideas. We had to dodge the queenscliffe- Sorento ferry first then the 3 ships were charging down the channel toward us and our conservative thinking made us pull back on the throttle and not try to race across in front of them!!. So we hung out in front of the old quarantine station at Portsea and had a cuppa while we gave way to all 3. When the coast was finally clear our window was very small so we hightailed it over to what they call four fingers west (not rude I promise!) it’s the markers for the small vessel channel. A small inconvenience was a dive boat right on the path but easily dodged to get our track out. Then the fun ride began. Better than any roller coaster I’ve ever been on. It was very large wave after even larger wave. Up and down side to side crashing and rising. Honestly for about an hour I was gripping the steering wheel and the Bimini so hard to maintain balance that everything was cramping, even my calves and toes!

Well we made it through what I now like to call our starting gate to our new adventure. Out the gate and turned left!