29th of May we finally left Christchurch! Only about 2 months later
than planned!!! And three weeks after our farewell party. It truly is an
enormeous effort getting ready for departure (closing down a sail loft
at the same time does not make it any easier), despite how ready we
thought we were when we came back from Stewart Island early March. But
we are as ready as we'll ever be now and even finished some less
important jobs while waiting for a weather window.
It
didn't look like a super good window so we didn't make the finaly call
to leave until two hours before, pretty much just when the southerly
front hit and it was hailing! But, as usual, the worst passed and two
hours later by 9pm it was not raining, though it sure was cold! We're
extremely impressed that a good bunch of our friends turned up to wave
goodbye. Thanks so much :-)
Un uneventful trip and 27
hours later we arrived at Wellington around midnight. Phil had been
through with Sophia on the delivery trip and we had both been there a
few months earlier for the Wellington-Nelson race on Krakatoa, so it
wasn't a problem arriving in the dark. Thanks to Gordy and Matty G at
Duffy's Rigging for letting us stay at their berth. That warm showers
was priceless! Wellington is such a cool city and we were right in the
middle of it. One of the best things about the North Island is Burger
Fuel. Four different kinds of veggie burgers and the BEST kumera fries,
yummy!
We left at 9pm that same day we had arrived, the
tide happened to be pretty perfect and a new southerly front was due to
hit at 3am, so hopefully we could make it round the courner of Cape
Palliser and get up the coast a littel bit before then. Of course the
reality didn't quite work out that way, as the southerly was weaker and
slower to arrive. That was totally OK though and we had a great first
day out with beautiful weather and only 10-15 knots! 30 knots southerly
arrived just after dark (of course) and lasted most of the night, but
eased a little bit later on. We arrived around 7pm in Gisborne Friday
night, almsot 48 hours after departing Wellington. Again a dark entry, but we had been shown by several people on charts and googlemap how to enter and it was quite straight forward. Only one big wave shoved up out of nowhere and scared us a bit (well, Astrid...), but that was it.
Well, it's now 2 1/2 weeks later and we're still in Gisborne! It takes a
lot of patience to get a good weather window. Well, as least one that
doesn't involve up to 55 knots headwind! Two lows (first one a really
big one) have passed, and we're now fairly certain we got a decent
window tomorrow, but we'll are yet to make the final call, we might wait a
few more days and let some of the northerlies pass.
This is the final Stewart Island post, so I thought it would be nice to show the Stewart Island map again and draw on it where we went. Please excuse my wiggly paint pencil. All up we spent about 4 weeks on Stewart Island and almost another week on getting there and back. We stayed on average 2 days at one anchorage. It looks like we missed big parts of Paterson Inlet, but the bits we missed is either tidal or commercial fish farming. If you're on a tight time schedule I'd probably recommend only going to Port Pegasus, but do bring all your groceries for the whole time with you, because the only little shop on Stewart Island is in Oban.
By Millers Beach in Paterson Inlet you can find the ruins of an old ship
yard facility that serviced the whaling chaser boats. There was a whole
heap of propellers and Phil tried to see if he could grab one for
Sophia, seeing that they were just lying there littering the beach.
Around Oban there are tons of walks you can do, one to suit all level,
right from 20 minutes, to whole days. We did a coastal walk which was
just a couple of hours long. It was a bit of a spur of the moment
decision, so we were just in our jeans and shoes, not boots and (dirty)
'tramping' clothes. It was pretty funny encountering other trampers who
were fully kitted with boots, walking sticks and the whole shebang. It
was seriously a highway compared to the tramping we did in Port Pegasus.
Super wide tracks and extremely well maintained. We were appropriately
dressed, all others we total overkills :-)
Thule bay below, very idyllic but a few quite abandoned boats sitting there.
Ulva Island is a predator free (or almost) island in the middle of Paterson Inlet. Predator free means teaming bird life. There's a little ferry running visitors back and forth every few hours, or you can just anchor off it. We anchored in Sydney Cove (where the fun swing was) and spent several hours walking every single piece of track on the island.
For our return trip to Christchurch we ended up stopping in both Dunedin and Akaroa. We left Stewart Island into a 30-35 knots southerly (not forecasted quite that windy, but partly also our own fault for getting a bit antsy to leave) and had a fast and uncomfortable trip to Dunedin. We both had to make sacrifices to Neptune that night, me for the first time ever I think. I was actually keen to keep going, as I just wanted to get home at this point and get it over and done with. Forecast wasn't going to be worse than what we already had, and it was doable and we managed our watches just fine. Luckily Phil got me persuaded to stop, because it was really nice to get some proper food, a warm shower and a good night's sleep before continuing. And then we also got to sail the next leg with Meltdown, a local Young 88 heading up to the South Island nationals in Akaroa. Meltdown is in between a couple of waves crests in the photo below. It was still maybe 25 knots southerly. After a day in Akaroa, we went round the peninsula to Lyttelton, mostly motoring into light headwinds.
Phil came back to a lot of work at the loft (not quite part of the plan, but it's hard to close up the only sail loft in Christchurch), and we also had heaps more work to do on Sophia. Originally we were only supposed to be in Christchurch a few weeks, maximum a month, but now over two months later, we're still here! It's always like that with boat work though, things takes at least 3 times longer than you think, so I really should have expected it. But, we're almost ready now, we passed our category 1 inspection, and now just have a bunch of smaller projects to finish (and a few bigger ones!) and then we just be waiting for a weather window. Yay, I can't wait for warm weather and water!
One of the top high-lights of the whole trip for me was to see Kiwis.
They are a New Zealand national symbol and everyone loves these funny
little birds that can't fly. If you ask around, I'm sure only 1 in 10
kiwis (as in the people) would have seen one, and most then only in
captivation. Stewart Island apparently is one of the best places to see
them. Most see them on Mason Beach on the west coast, which is part of the big northern circuit tramp (or if you're rich you fly).
You can also go on a tour with Bravo Adventure
and see wild kiwis on Ocean Beach. Or if you're lucky enough to have
sailed your own boat to Stewart Island, and are lucky to get the DOC
permit visit Ocean Beach by yourself (quite a mission to get the (free)
DOC permit, we were lucky to get one), you can simply go there yourself!
You're allowed to go there during the day, but from 6pm to 6am you need
a permit. We first went there during the day, and that itself is a
lovely trip. There's a wharf in Glory Bay on the eastern side and
there's a short walking track over to Ocean Beach which is on the main
coast of Stewart Island, just south of the entrance to Paterson Inlet.
It's quite a long and wide beach and we were
quite excited when we spotted these prints.
We
went back a few days later with our permit and after the tour operator
had finished his tour (after 11pm), and weren't quite sure what to
expect. Would we be able to spot any kiwis on the big beach? We
certainly wouldn't be able to hear them beforehand, as the surf was
quite noisy. Our dim lights (not to disturb the kiwis) didn't help a
whole lot. But suddenly we spotted one a bit ahead of us. WAUW. I was so
excited, I couldn't stop pulling at Phil's arm. The kiwi couldn't
have cared less about our presence, it was very busy picking out bugs
from the seaweed. It's impossible to take photos in the dark without a
flash, so I only got some video of it. The photo below is a snap shop of
the
video, obviously very poor quality, but it's a kiwi :-) Don't worry
about the light beam from our torch, it really was very weak and from a
good 5 meters away. I was surprised
how big it actually was, and very round (or fat?) too, kind of like a
soccer ball! And a big long beak. We continued along the beach and saw
several other ones, equally busy eating insect.
A couple of hunters were staying in a hut in Glory Bay, and one of them was tell us about how they sometimes track something noisy through the bush, slowly closing in on what they think is a deer. When they are really close they look all over the place and just can't spot the deer. Then they look down and there's this little kiwi clumsily walking around, making a lot of noise. Very funny and cute!
Stewart Island is renowned for its wild life and it really
was spectacular. Tons of birds and prolific sea life. While you may have seen
the odd one during the previous posts, I have tried to gather them all in here.
Starting with the birds. Lots and lots of Bellbirds around.
They sing lovely songs, ALL the time. And to each other. The one is the photo below was singing with two other
bell birds nearby. I have also added a
shaky video (partly the wind’s fault, not all mine...).
Next are the albatrosses, or Mollymawks to be exact. Amazing and impressive creatures. They provides hours of entertainment during watches while at sea. The way they soar over the waves, and hardly ever flap their wings make them very majestic. I think they were used to feeding from fishing boats coming into Port Pegasus, as we had several of them following us for a while, each time landing right behind Sophia.
Oystercatcher are noisy and territorial birds hanging out on the shore. Almost all the ones we saw were black, but many are also while and black. I like their super bright orange beaks. There's a photo of a mussel covered rock further down, so there's definitely no shortage of food for them.
Little Robins were cute and quite tame, especially on Ulva Island (second photo). I'm not sure if what were saw were South Island Robins, or Stewart Island Robins, possibly both.
The Kaka is a forest parrot, related to the Keas. There were lots and lots of them around Oban, so probably they like humans and the food that goes along with that, just like Keas.
We only ever saw a couple of Yellow-eyed Penguins in the water a distance away from Sophia. They always duck into the water right as I get my camera out, just like Little Blue Penguins. We had hoped to see them on land as well, they must have been hiding. This particular one was at our anchorage in Sailors Rest in Paterson Inlet.
Before moving on from the birds, you might wonder if we saw any kiwis! The answer is YES, but that story deserves a whole separate post (plus this post is already super long).
In the Magog tramp post I mentioned we saw sharks. Sophia was anchored just inside Seal Creek (also called Cook's Arm) behind a little island. The water wasn't quite as clear as some the other anchorages, but you could still see the bottom when it was about 4 meters deep. Anyway, when dinghing along further into the creek, looking for the start of the track, we suddenly saw a big shark-looking fish near the shore. We turned the dinghy around and tried to see it again. We were wondering what it was. A little further along we saw another big something , and agreed it sure did look like a shark. Pretty cool! Then suddenly there were at least 10 of them swimming around on the bottom, just 3-4 meters deep! Wowsa. The bigger ones looked bigger than Cherry (our dinghy, 2 meters long)! They were greyish with white spots and a broad nose and only a very small dorsal fin. We both got very excited and tried to turn around and spot more and get photos, and we did see a few more, but not the same amount. It's also really hard to get a photo through the water. But you can definitely see a grey something in the photo. We later found out they are Broadnose Sevengill Sharks.
Seafood lovers would love Stewart Island. Tons of mussels everywhere, as well as paua (abalone) and scallops if you know where to look. Unfortunately Phil and I aren't big fans (read what crime we did here).
Stewart Island also has lots of Sea Lions and Seals (bit tricky to tell the difference, but apparently sea lions have ear flaps which seals don't). This one below was really cute, super curious, he (or she?) slowly came closer and closer, popping its head up every so often to look again. By then we had come ashore and he was halfway out of the water thoroughly checking us out.
However, our first experience with seal (lions) at Waterlily Bay wasn't quite as cute and fuzzy. When Phil got in the dinghy to get the stern line set up, this big sea lion came charging out from the beach. Phil quickly retreated back to Sophia and he (gotta be a he :-) ) swam right out to us and underneath the dinghy. He then went into the other beach and Phil tried again, but with the same result! It was pretty obvious that this was his bay and we were not welcome. Finally he left the bay and we could get our stern line set up. After this experience we always carried our fog horn with us when we went ashore, but luckily we never needed it.
If we're not seafood lovers, but we love fish, and especially Blue Cod. Yummy yum. And they were so easy to catch! Definitely not like the Marlborough Sounds. I had to restrict Phil when he went fishing, only one or two. We had fish as much as we wanted, pretty much every second day, or more even. The limit on Stewart Island is 30 a day per person! According to Phil, the fisherman on Sophia, they live on rock, so often you just got to dinghy a bit away from your anchorage (usually sand) to a rocky outcrop and you'll be able to see them, the water is that clear and there are that many. Phil would usually use some soft bait and catch a Spotty and use that as bait for the Blue Cod.
We had thought we'd snorkel more than we did. We only went once together, and Phil once by himself. We had lots of excuses though: cold water (brrrr!), angry sea lions, swarms of red jelly fish with tentacles and sharks :-) We eventually did go and it was actually really nice (albeit a bit cold), heaps of little fish, and lots of big kelpies and spotties. Phil also speared a delicious butterfish (and I cut his hair immediately after taking this photo!).
One of our favourite things to do in Stewart Island was
dinghy exploring. There are tons of rivers, creeks, bays and the like that
are just waiting to be explored. I often wished we had a kayak, as that would
be the ideal way to explore, but Cherry and the two horse powered outboard do
the job, just a bit more noisy than a paddle would.
Some of the rivers are huge and would take whole days to
fully explore, like the Lords River on the map below. We only explored a small
part of it, as indicated by the arrows and it still took us a couple of
hours. Rivers and creeks are by nature very protected,
so the water is often mirror like. Add super clear water and lots of fish and
seaweed, it was just so pretty.
Other times it wasn’t just for fun, but we actually had to
find fresh water. A good way is to look at the topo map, as that has all creeks
on it. Stewart Island's water has a brown taint (varying how much),
but apparently that doesn’t matter and we must admit it tasted fine. Only once (typically the only time we didn’t
taste the water beforehand) did we get some weird tasting water which we filled
it into one of the tanks, ups. It took over an hour to pump it out again
through our only foot pump! Good lesson.
The next three photos are from the same spot where we filled
water. First me catching the water, then Phil with the dinghy, and the last one
is just above the ‘water fall’. It was like magic there, green and lush and beautiful
drinking water!
This bay is Glory Bay in Paterson Inlet. It’s a huge bay
with good protection. The two boats just visible are the American boat we met
in Port Pegasus and a Swedish boat. Sophia is further back in the anchorage,
out of sight. It therefore made it the most crowded anchorage we had the whole
time in Stewart Island. Not bad going.
Our last big tramp in Port Pegasus was Bald Cone (229 m), so
compared to the other two we had done, it was just a wee one. And we did it
even faster than the guidebook indicated, as it only took us about 2 1/2 hours
in total.
We anchored Sophia near Billy’s Cove, and trusted our good
45 lb Mason anchor to keep her safe as it was blowing quite a fresh easterly
that day. It held, as always (so far anyway, touch wood!).
It was pretty easy to find the ‘track’ (cairns most of the
way) and relatively easy walking, definitely not bush bashing like the Magog tramp. The main features of Bald Cone are all the cool rock formation. The last
bit up to the top was very steep and some nice people (probably other sailors)
have left guide ropes.
