From there we could see the boats beating out of the bay for the Melbourne - Hobart Race. It was blowing a whole gale (~45KT) out of the South. It was hard to stand on the headland. The boats were hard pressed to make in out of the bay without tacking. That was going to be one hard race.
Those are not small boats up close but they were going to feel awfully small once they got out into the Bass Strait. It is almost a straight shot from the mouth of the bay to the Antarctica with nothing but water. It's about 450NM from Melbourne to Hobart. My friends said it was not unusual for someone to die each year despite the RAN and Coast Guard keeping an eye on everyone.
afterwards we headed to the penguin rookery. The Aussie wildlife officials warned everyone that there was to be NO flash photography once you entered the elevated walkways that had to use to get to the viewing stands. You would lose your camera, you would NOT get it back, and it and any lenses attached would be physically destroyed on site. They were nice enough to provide a few lit areas for people to take photos of the nests.
It calmed down towards dusk when the penguins come ashore. At first there is just one or two but then there are little penguins everywhere surfing ashore and coming up the beach.
Fairy penguins are the smallest of the penguin species. They are so cute.
