This is driving northward currents on the shelf. The inner edge of the EAC grazes the headlands of Jervis Bay, runs southward and then around the large anticlockwise eddy that is usually in this region. Mr Bourke credited his win in the event on J44 Phoenix to a combination of navigational judgements and a close reading of the currents and ocean eddies in the Tasman Sea, where the fortunes of Sydney to Hobart race competitors will rest or fall. The East Australian Current has been the cause of more wins and losses than any other single factor in Australian Ocean Racing history and the Lord Howe race was certainly no exception. The fate of Australia's landscape can be accurately charted by declining water quality, according to one of the country's leading water scientists.
Water links our whole landscape, from hill slope to estuary.
Every water system has a point of no return when it is overloaded with pollutants of various kinds and collapses, Harris explains. Australia's main water systems have gone. He warns of a looming future crisis caused by acidification and sodicity of soil and water systems. Land use in Australia has changed the hydrology and the biogeochemistry of the landscape, giving rise to a new set of chemicals that will be released from the land and infiltrate the country's waterways. The implications for water quality may well be as great as that of salt, Harris says.