We have now officially left the tropics!! During the night we crossed line of latitute 23.5 degrees North or the Tropic of Cancer. We have just realised it is four years to the day that we crossed the Tropic of Capricorn off the Queensland coast on our passage north to Darwin. But it is not the end of the heat yet as the area we are going into is getting into the northern summer.
We arrived at Pier #3, Hua Lien Port, 0800 this morning after departing Green Island at 1700 yesterday for an 80NM overnighter - a bit too far to do in daylight. We had 2 - 2.5 knots of current for the first few hours with a very light northerly wind and 2.5 - 3 metre swell from the northeast. The Kuroshio current which runs up past Japan is strong here but moves in a NE direction so we had up to 25 degrees of drift on. A bit of a roller coaster at times as we passed through some areas of turbulence but after about 8 hours the swell seemed to have lessened (or we just got used to it). Our speed slowly fell as we got out of the influence of the Kuroshio and were subject to the ebb and flood 
tides along the coast. It took about the same time to do 50NM with the current as it did to do 30NM against the tidal flow. Unfortunately, we missed all the beautiful scenery we had been told about but had lights shining all along the east coast of Taiwan, a few fishing boats and a couple of coastal ships to help keep us awake. There was only the occasional star visible in the overcast skies.
tides along the coast. It took about the same time to do 50NM with the current as it did to do 30NM against the tidal flow. Unfortunately, we missed all the beautiful scenery we had been told about but had lights shining all along the east coast of Taiwan, a few fishing boats and a couple of coastal ships to help keep us awake. There was only the occasional star visible in the overcast skies.Alishan entering the harbour at Hua Lien
