Day 4 Nelson to Fiordland

Date: Monday, February 8th 2021 Time: 23:00 UTC (12pm local) Location: 44° 36′ S, 168° 49′ E COG: 103°T SOG: 4.5 kts Distance to the Fiordland: 0 nm approx 24 hr. Distance covered: 120 nm
We made it! Pretty epic. We finally found the wind in the last 24 hours. It steadily grew until it was 30 ish knots and gusting to 40. We reefed down(shortened sail) to the second reef at about 2am, then dropped the genoa at 4am and then came down to the third reef at 8am. The seas were growing but were not scary big. Even on the third reef we were screaming along (for us) hitting 7 knots. The boat was balanced pretty well given the breeze and never felt out of control, although no one got much sleep last night with the increased noises and rolling motion.
We arrived in the mouth of Milford Sound at about 11am and were all in awe at the huge rock cliffs rising up on all sides. The wind gusted from behind us as we pulled in, keeping us on our toes. The rain started to fall as well, charging up the waterfalls that spill into the sound. We’ve pulled into Harrison Cove, picked up a mooring (built for huge vessels, we all laughed at the size of the mooring line we draped around the cleat). After tidying up sails and having showers we will head further into Deep Water Cove and see if we can get some wifi to find out more about our VISA situation as it’s now Monday. But maybe not before we all take a nap.
Thanks for following our journey (all be it a short one comparatively). We are all feeling pretty satisfied.

11 comments

  1. Jan Jopson says:

    glad you made it safely … loved the jellyfish description the other day. Monday was a holiday in NZ anyway. Hope Tues is finding some answers for you regarding Visas etc. Enjoy Fiordland!!

  2. Eric Berghorn says:

    Milford Sound ! Great updates each day. Really interesting how you can never completely let your guard down on the high-seas ! Let us know how big some of those cliffs are and what mountains you’re able to see (if any) from Banyan ?

    • Anne Vawter says:

      Hi Eric, Oh man… It is amazing. The walls of Milford are 1,684 meters at Mitre Peak. The depths of the sounds are just as remarkable. It can be over 1,000 feet deep inside some of the fiords in places. Most of the time our depth sound would read 800+ feet, and we’d be only 50 feet off of a huge wall. There is some really amazing trekking to be done here on the southwest coast of the South Island. The Cameron Mountains are full of amazing tracks and huts where you can stay. We did hear of some people climbing one of the walls that plunge directly into Fresh Water Basin. From our perspective, the wall looked pretty messy to climb, but… to each his own.

  3. Libbey says:

    I Love the short blogs, too. They start my day right. Happy you safely made it and we look forward to pictures. Love you all

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