South Island Visit, Back to the Travelogue

We spent a week in Abel Tasman National Park.  One of the so-called “Great Walks” here in New Zealand is the Abel Tasman Coast Track, running (as you might guess) along the coast of Abel Tasman National Park.  This is the most popular of the Great Walks, and is usually as or more crowded than any of them.  The current pandemic shut out all the foreign tourists, though, leaving the track much less densely populated.  Visiting by boat was ideal, too, enabling us to sample select portions of the track without carrying heavy backpacks, or camping with the sand fies.  Besides yachting and tramping, this park is a mecca for sea kayakers — great beaches and coves, protected water when you need it, open but safe water most of the time, beautiful scenery, and water taxis to shuttle you and your kayak.

Abel Tasman Coastal Track

 Sea Kayakers' Heaven

Note the Sign Graphic

True to form, we made new friends along the track in the park — Steve and Allie.  They were off a yacht, too, but were locals, living just outside the park.  We all really hit it off, and we wound up visiting their home for lunch on our way on to Nelson, and then meeting up one afternoon again in Nelson.

The port of Nelson is about twenty miles further into Tasman Bay, an easy day, but there’s no good anchorage there.  If you can’t get a booking for a slip, you have little option but to anchor behind the “boulder bank”.  This bank is many miles long, enclosing a massive lagoon of drying mudflats and narrow channels, and has only one narrow opening.  That results in ripping tidal currents that reverse every six hours or so.  We were unsuccessful in getting a booking the first night, so we anchored.  It was awful.  Don’t want to do that again.  I tried using a stern anchor to hold us steady, which worked quite well overnight (fortunately), but the current took us sidewise at one point the next day, and the strain ripped the stern roller off the boat.  Our new friends from the park provided an old sheet of plywood with which I jerry-rigged a repair.  Will do a definitive repair back in Whangarei.

Although there was a regatta scheduled to start the next week, which is why no berthage was available, a little face-to-face time in the marina office yielded “just one night”.  A little more face time got us an extension through the weekend.  A bad weather forecast for Tuesday and Wednesday got us a further extension to Thursday.  Actually, longer than we had intended to be there, but we made good use of it.

We needed fuel and provisions, sure, besides needing to do the washing (laundry to you Americans) and make that repair, and Robyn had long wanted to visit the Pic’s Peanut Butter factory, which is located in Nelson, but the real draw was old friends.  Steve and Maggie Grey have lived in Nelson for many years.  Steve and Robyn were in high school together in Minneapolis.  They gave us a grand tour.  We biked and walked together, and had some delicious meals both at their house and at several cafes.  We had a great visit.

And of course, we took on fuel and provisions, etc, and we did visit the Pic’s Peanut Butter factory.  That might sound funny, but Pic’s is truly special, and the factory tour is wildly popular.  You even get to make some peanut butter yourself.

                    

But it was time to move on.  Nice mix of motoring and sailing up to French Pass and into Pelorus Sound, part of the overall Marlborough Sounds.  French Pass is a narrow gate between the mainland and a large island, which sees reversing currents up to eight knots, and slack water of only about twenty minutes.  There are accurate prediction tables, though, so you just have to time it right and motor through.  Piece of cake.

The Sounds are generally quite deep close to shore, making for relatively few good anchorages.  But there are boating clubs that have placed heavy moorings in many nice spots.  We joined one of these clubs to have use of their moorings.  Our first night in the Sounds, we picked up our first club mooring and were expecting a nice, quiet evening.  We were wrong.  An hour before sunset, two men in a commercial fishing boat insisted that the mooring was no longer the club’s, and that we had to leave NOW!  The one doing the talking was abusive and threatening.  Not wanting a violent confrontation, we hastily left.  Fortunately, I had noticed a potential anchorage maybe a half-mile away as we were coming in, and were able to spend a quiet night there.  God only knows what set him off; this was sooo un-kiwi-like!

                                                

                                                              

Dietmar and Marie, German yachties “stuck” in NZ by the pandemic on their yacht Greyhound, were in the Sounds, too.  They had been on our pontoon in Whangarei, where we had become friends.  We chose to meet the next day and raft up together on a club mooring for a good visit.  This we did, and greatly enjoyed the time together.  Unfortunately, this was the first time either of us had rafted up on a mooring, so there was a learning curve.  Such curve was not made easy by wind gusting up to 45 kts during the night.  Not much sleep for any of us.

Enough Fenders?

Time to move on again.  They went on their way to Queen Charlotte Sound, while we went deeper into Pelorus Sound.  At the innermost end of Tennyson Inlet in Pelorus Sound is the beautiful Ngawhakwhiti Bay (say that three times fast!).  Good, protected anchorages, quiet solitude, gorgeous scenery, and mussels!!  One other boat, a single man, Nick, on a little trailer-sailer, but again, true to form, we made a new friend.  We love these encounters.  Often, they go no further, but sometimes they develop into long-term friendships.  Some of our dearest friends, we met on a street corner in Papeete, French Polynesia, many years ago.  Others, we met at dawn on a pyramid summit in the jungles of Guatemala.  You never know where paths will lead, or cross again.

Ngawhakawhiti Bay

That brings us to the “Rough Day on the Water”.  That was yesterday.  Today, we motored in light breezes deeper into the main Pelorus Sound.  We’ll go into the marina at Havelock soon for a few days.  Steve and Maggie will drive over for a visit.  The usual laundry (washing for you Kiwis), provisions, etc, then we’ll head out for Queen Charlotte Sound, too.

Rough Day on the Water

Well, today was interesting. We didn’t lose the boat, but there were moments of serious doubt. We are in Pelorus Sound, between Nelson and Picton on the South Island. The past two nights, we were anchored in Ngawhakawhiti Bay, a beautiful almost land-locked little bay surrounded by mountains covered in native bush. If I had known how the day would progress, we would still be there. But we didn’t know; there was no internet connectivity there, just the Metservice forecast on the VHF radio. This forecast was for brisk northwesterlies, shifting to still brisk southwesterlies in the afternoon. Keep in mind that these sounds are long, sinuous bodies of water, separated by fairly high mountains, which play havoc with the winds. Strong winds aloft turn into really strong gusts and wild eddies at water level. 

Anyway, we desided to move on, motoring out through calms and light wind eddies. When we got to a more open area, the wind was more steady so we set sail. Expecting a stiff breeze, we set only the working jib and a reefed mizzen, a good heavy-weather conbination. The wind was a little stronger than we expected, but we had a great downwind sail at high speed on mostly flat water. Rounding a point into more protected water, we dropped the sails and motored upwind to pick up a mooring in a small bay that was sheltered from both the current and the forecast winds. 

Quite calm at the mooring, we were just relaxing and enjoying the scenery. Actually, the entire inlet, about two miles across to the leeward shore, was almost calm. Next thing we know, a breeze starts blowing across the inlet directly into our little bay quite contrary to the forecast. We were on a heavy mooring, so I wasn’t too concerned. But the breeze rose, and the whitecaps with it. This didn’t look like a transient wind eddy, and my seaman’s instincts were raising an alarm.

“Robyn, we need to leave while we still can.” Slipping the mooring, we began to motor upwind out of the bay. There was not a moment to lose. The wind was rising rapidly as were the seas. Under full power, Mintaka could not hold her bow up to the wind. I could hardly keep her just above beam on. We had the wind on our port side, trying to weather one of the points forming our bay, but I soon realized we were losing ground to leeward and were being driven back into the bay. We needed to turn through the wind, get it on our starboard side, and go the other way, but this was simply not possible in those conditions. Only one option: an aggressive turn downwind — trading off some distance from shore — and up again into the wind going the other direction. We might not make it out in that direction, but the first plan was headed for the rocks.

Setting sail was not an option. I had a reef tucked in the mizzen, and two in the main, but the staysail wasn’t rigged so it would have to be the working jib. The staysail wasn’t rigged because we had no expectation of needing it. It will be in the morning. And when we order a new mizzen at some point, it will have two reefs instead of just one. Anyway, with sustained winds in the 40’s, gusts well into the 50’s, and no sea room, any of the available sail combinations would have been overpowered.

For a short period, I was uncertain that we would manage to get out of that bay. If we could not, and were driven ashore, I was confident that I could do a controlled crash near a habitation. Would have been exciting, and might have been the end of Mintaka, but I’m pretty sure Robyn and I woud have been OK.

As it turned out, we succeeded in clawing our way upwind to the windward shore, where there was a small bay with mussel farms, a wharf, and a few private moorings. The wind was still blistering, but at least the water was flat — we were less than a hundred meters from shore. We were about to attempt to anchor, when a man on a moored yacht shouted that we should pick up the mooring off our port bow, that it was a heavy mooring. With considerable difficulty, we did so. We'll thank him in the morning.

Beating in to Whangaroa Harbour in 20+ Knots

South Island Visit, Part One

It's been quite a while since I posted anything here, but we've not been off on any big adventures to write about.  Well, we are now.  Somehow, we got the idea into our heads to visit the South Island by boat, maybe even to visit Stewart Island — seriously south — and, just maybe, a very big maybe, to visit Fiordland — big adventure for a small boat.

To get to the South Island from Whangarei, one has two options.  Either sail far to the east to pass (imaginatively named) East Cape, or far to the north to pass (equally imaginatively named) North Cape.  There are pros and cons to both.  I'll just say that we chose to sail south by sailing north.

The first objective was to stage ourselves somewhere as far as possible up the east coast that still had cell coverage (for weather products).  We were in no hurry, though, and enjoyed many favorite anchorages along the way.  We also met up with a number of friends, some planned, some serendipitously.  The weather was excellent, with some fine sailing.

We ducked in to Mangonui — last groceries — before heading further to stage somewhere closer to North Cape.  As luck would have it, though, an excellent weather window opened right then, so off we went.  No wind to speak of for the next five or six days, so it would be a motorboat ride, but, hey, there are worse things at sea than motoring.  To be honest, Cape Reinga and the Tasman Sea both have bad reputations, so we intended to treat them both with respect.  I was quite happy with the forecast, even though such extended motoring gets pretty dull. 

The forecast for calm winds was long enough for us to take the opportunity of anchoring for a last night’s rest in Spirits Bay, a beautiful, remote bay on the north coast of the North Island.  A pea-soup fog enveloped us during the night, but burned off by mid-morning.  We had wanted to delay a few hours anyway for better tidal currents around Cape Reinga, and to allow some forecast thunderstorms to clear our route later in the  day.  The chart shows tide rips all over around Cape Reinga, so I planned to be there as close to slack water as possible.  It also shows one spot well off shore that “ALWAYS BREAKS”.  Looking ahead, I saw broken water at about that spot, and steered to give it a wide berth.  It looked really strange, though, only breaking every few minutes, and not looking like a break over a reef.  We finally realized it was a whale breaching.  It continued to do so every few minutes for a good half hour, with many spectacular jumps.  

Looking Back on Cape Reinga

And so, we motored (i.e. droned) on heading south, destination Nelson, on glassy seas, under mostly sunny skies.  A light following breeze on the second day gave us a six-hour respite from the noise, but then it was back to the diesel wind.   

As we often do when motoring, we dragged a couple of fishing lures, not really expecting to get anything.  Just before sunset one day, though, wham!  Robyn reeled in a nice, fat tuna, either a Bigeye or an Albacore.  Not sure which.  Not the biggest fish we’ve ever landed, but there’s a surprising amount of meat per inch in a tuna.  We gorged on it for six  meals.

        OMG!  What Have I Done?

Somewhere along the way, we realized (duh!) that Nelson was not the obvious first stop on this passage.  Abel Tasman National Park was, just twenty miles or so short of Nelson on the west side of Tasman Bay.  As we approached Farewell Spit and Golden Bay, the beginning of Tasman Bay, the forecast promised a light northwest breeze, perfect for a pleasant broad reach  finale.  So, up went the full main and our larger jib.  Ah, delightful sailing.  In short order, though, we reefed the main once, then again, then changed to the smaller jib, as the wind rose to twenty to  twenty-five knots.  Still great sailing, but the shallow water in Golden Bay made for some rather short, steep seas.  Ended up sailing into a wind shadow and motoring in to anchor in the park, three and a half days from Spirits Bay.  

Abel Tasman National Park

Beating in to Whangaroa Harbour in 20 Knots

PASSAGE TO NEW ZEALAND

Reality rarely meets expectations.  We left New Caledonia with a so-so forecast.  We knew there would be large southerly swells, which there were, but we expected to pass through a cold front a couple of days out, and then be pressed to get in to Opua before another cold front.  The reality, besides the swells, was mostly light head winds, a trivial cold front with no punch at all, and then more light headwinds all the rest of the way.  And we had no trouble making it in before the second front, which also turned out to be trivial.

In short, it was mostly a boring motorboat ride.  We did have some excellent sailing the first day, and again late on the last day, but that was it.  The rest was motoring.  Of seven and a half days on the passage, a full six days — 142 hours — was spent motoring.  Good thing we carry so much fuel.  Oh, well, there are worse things than motoring.  This patch of ocean has a deserved reputation.  Most people get spanked pretty hard at some point, either approaching or leaving New Zealand.  We have been very lucky.

The motoring conditions do deserve a few comments.  Typically, such motoring is done on a pretty flat sea.  Maybe gently rolling, as the sea is rarely truly flat, but maybe not that far from it, either.  This time, there were swells up to ten feet or more in height rolling up from the south that we had to climb up and over.  Such swells are actually quite impressive, vaguely evoking the image of endless rolling grasslands.  They are not waves as you might think of waves — they have no crests, and their faces are anything but steep — but endless smoothly rounded ridges rolling up and under us from a faraway storm south of New Zealand.  They were also a bit of a nuisance as the wind was too light (as well as on the nose) to generate enough sail power for us to sail up and over them — we do weigh thirteen tons.  Had the seas been truly flat with such light headwinds, we might well have sailed some, but the addition of the huge swells meant we had to either motor over them or sail parallel to them (i.e. perpendicular to our course).

About fifteen miles out from Opua on the afternoon of the last day, we picked up a following breeze.  It wasn’t strong, but it was enough to use, and the tidal current was with us, too, so we happily shut the motor down and enjoyed a delighful, quiet ride in.  It was also useful in that we didn’t want to have to deal with customs until the next morning.  As it was, we arrived at the quarantine berth just before sunset, well after the authorities had quit for the day.  So, by the time they came aboard in the morning, we were clean and well rested, and the boat was all clean and tidy, too.

After checking in, we moved over to an anchorage in the Bay of Islands near the house of some old friends, Dave and Jane Saunders.  We’ve known them for over a decade now.  Dave crewed for me up to Tahiti a while back, and they store our car for us when we are out of the country.  So, anyway, we hung out with them over the weekend, then headed on down the coast towards Whangarei.  One stop along the way, with a long, deserted beach to walk on, then a last day on the open sea, partly motoring, partly a pleasant sail, to reach the lower harbor.  We typically anchor there the night before going up the river to the Town Basin, as we need to catch the tide right.  The tidal current can be strong, so we want it with us, and the upper river is shallow, so we want at least the middle of a rising tide.  Getting ready to get under way the next morning, we were pleasantly surprised to see another old friend on his boat there, about to head up the river, too.  Graeme is a professional photographer, which is always a treat to have sailing next to us, it being surprisingly difficult to get good photos of one’s boat under sail.

Sailing Up the Harbor

So, we’re back home in our slip in the Town Basin Marina in Whangarei, now.  Time to clean up, fix a few things, socialize with old friends, and get ready for a summer cruise up the coast.

VUREAS BAY FESTIVAL

The festival here this year turned out to be a bust because the organizer, a chief from up the coast a bit who had asked for the job months before, for some reason never did anything.  Our friends in Vureas Bay only found this out when they asked him a couple of weeks ago.  They felt obligated to put something together, and even though it was rather short notice, they organized a one-day affair.  As it was, only one other boat showed up.  If we had been the only boat there, we would have told them not to bother, but ….  The result was a little low key, but quite nice anyway.

We of course would have enjoyed a full festival, but it was enough to spend the time with our friends in the village there.  After a few days, though, it was time to head south again.  The season was progressing and we had a long way to go upwind to Port Vila, before we could even think about departing for New Caledonia.  

Our first stop was back at Lakona Bay, a convenient stop for the night.  We probably wouldn’t have gone ashore, since we were leaving early the next morning and we had already said our goodbyes.  We were anchored in full view of the village, though, and we didn’t want to be rude, so we did go ashore, not intending to stay long.  They don’t fully understand our desire to be back on board before dark, and it’s sometimes impossible to get away, especially when they insist that we stay to drink some kava with them — this being a somewhat significant ritual.  We’ve been through this before, and it’s always been meaningful, but we were somewhat taken aback by the level of ceremony this time.  This was more of a formal acceptance of us into their community, well more than as just casual visitors as we’ve experienced in other places.  The kava was prepared strictly according to tradition, pounding in a stone mortar, soaking and squeezing, with multiple repetitions, a time-consuming process.  When it was ready, Chief Starr and his wife Susan each filled a shell, asked us to stand before them, and gave a brief speech.  We replied as best we could in Bislama, whereupon they handed us the shells simultaneously, which we then downed together in one motion as per custom.

We were touched.  I don’t know if we will ever return to either Lakona Bay or Vureas Bay, but we hope to, and we know that if we do, it will be to rejoin a community which we feel somewhat a part of, and which we are sure they feel much the same.

We are in the final preparations for departure from New Caledonia to New Zealand, planning to leave early tomorrow morning, so I’ll leave you here for the time being.  I’ll be back after we get this passage behind us, and fill in more gaps.  It looks like this passage might be a little more “interesting” than we would like, but the potential for cyclones is increasing, so we need to take this opportunity.  It should be safe enough, but maybe not very comfortable.

LAKONA BAY FESTIVAL

We had only been to one other festival in Vanuatu, in Vureas Bay on nearby Vanua Lava two years before.  It was colorful and exotic to us, and we have very fond memories of it and the people there.  There are other, much more elaborate (and both more publicized and more expensive) festivals in Vanuatu, though, of which we had only seen pictures and heard stories.  Our expectations, then, in such a remote and less traveled place, were modest, based on our limited experience.

Well, were we ever surprised.

The morning of the first day, we were met on the beach by hostile warriors wielding clubs and bows and arrows.  After an initial threatening display, a chief came down holding a tabu leaf (a symbol of his authority), called off the warriors, and escorted us up to the festival grounds where we were welcomed with song and flowers by the entire village. 

Festivals in Vanuatu are typically spectator affairs, but not this one.  There were activities in which we could participate, such as a bow-and-arrow competition and a tug-of-war between married men and single men.  We got to paddle in a dugout-canoe race, one yachtie and one local in each canoe — Robyn’s canoe won!  Besides the activities, there were demonstrations of traditional cooking and weaving.  There were magic shows (pretty well done, even if not believable).  Mock war and peace making.  A mock wedding ceremony.  Lots of high-octane bamboo-band music.  Traditional “water music”.  And eye-popping custom dances.  All of this was terrific, but the dances were the highlight.

We had arrived a few days early (actually, our second visit there), and had already gotten to know a number of the people, including the head chief, John Starr, and the anglican minister, Father Levi.  The latter was the organizer for this year’s festival, and he deserves a great deal of credit.  Being known somewhat already, and having some modest ability speaking Bislama — English is not a strong point here — Father Levi announced that I would be his liaison with the yachties.  Oh, joy.  Robyn could have done just as well, but it is a male-dominated culture.  Anyway, the job didn’t amount to much, other then taxing my language abilities, but they did present me with a gift at the end of the festival, a walking stick carved with a seahorse motif.  Cool!

I have numerous video clips from the festial, as well as a short movie that I made, but I have not been able to upload any of them from here.  If and when I succeed with that, I’ll put links on the blog.  But it’ll have to be just still shots for now.

From here, we made the short crossing back to Vureas Bay on Vanua Lava for their festival, and the next blog entry.

Father Levi (center), the Anglican Minister

One of the Spirits

Dugout-Canoe Race

Bamboo Band

Archery Competition

Traditional Cooking Demonstration

Chief Starr demonstrating weaving thatched roofing

Robyn loves to dance

Men's Dance

Chief Starr and Me

Robyn also loves baskets

Traditional dugout canoe

Village Men

Village House

Men's Dance

Open, Friendly People

Men's Dance

More Spirits

Bamboo Band

Basket Weaving Demonstration

Men's Dance