Photos from our time in Fiordland, New Zealand during the summer of 2021
Author: Anne Vawter
Patterson Inlet – Stewart Island
Monday April 5th Little Glory Cove, Patterson Inlet, Stewart Island, NZ North from Port Adventure, the next safe harbor on Stewart Island is Patterson Inlet, where lots of nooks and crannies and small islands create good anchorages and interesting excursions. The most interesting of these to us upon arrival was the little town of Oban. …
Rockin’ in Abrahams’ Bosom
Our fresh stores are dwindling as we sail north along the east coast. We are almost out of eggs, the potatoes are gone, all fresh fruit and most of the veg is eaten up as well.
Stewart Island Arrival
We hit 47 degrees, 18.8 minutes south around mid-day yesterday. It is further south than the Cape of Good Hope, but Ushuaia, in South America, has us beat by seven degrees.
Fiordland Finalle
In Weka Cove Cameron and the girls headed off to wade in the shallows during low tide to hunt for paua. They came home cold, wet, and triumphant and we had another feast.
Cascade Bay, Dusky Sound
The conflagration of different swell directions however was a recipe for sickness. Since I was a little stingy when buying our seasickness meds before we left, we are being frugal with them. With only two hours on the outside, I didn't want to use up a whole pill.
Doubtfull Sound
Although the forecast said 25 knots from the northeast as soon as we got out of Doubtful and past the broken islands we entered a heaving ocean with irregular and weak winds. I just about heaved myself but managed to keep it together (mostly) in order to help pull in the two bluefin tuna who decided to jump on the lines.
Waiting out the Wind
We managed to stern tie to the line twice as we decided after the first time that we wanted a bit more anchor chain out. Isa watched on as we fumbled with the Pythagorean theorem
George Sound
We zipped over to the island and within seconds were completely bombarded by sand flies. They were up our noses, in our hair, everywhere. We checked out the line as efficiently as we possibly could, checked that the reported water line was actually flowing (as we needed to fill water tanks - one reason we wanted to go into this little spot) and got outta there as fast as we could.
Milford Sound
... it amazes me that in a space of 43' x 12' that there can still be things to do. He is installing a GPS antenna for the AIS system which will hopefully improve our location finding ability. Due to the steep nature of the Fiords, our GPS on our iPad is very erratic