Magical Milford Sound/Piopiotahi! – Fiordland

The seaward side of Sutherland Sound is blocked by a sand/gravel bar, so deep draft vessels can’t venture far ‘inside,’ and there are no recognized anchorages for yachts.
Couldn’t resist slipping in to Poison Bay/Papa Pounamu, just to take it in.
These would have been the calm conditions described in our book as being necessary to spend the night in Poison Bay, but we didn’t have the time, sadly.
The very dwarfed looking Stirling lighthouse at the entrance of Milford Sound where it meets the Tasman Sea.

Piopiotahi (Milford Sound) resonates with awe and leaves us speechless, like the Grand Canyon or Machu Picchu, or the Magellanic Clouds on a vividly starry night at sea. The sheer mass and scale, the soaring beauty, each breathtaking turn. Words just pour out, but fail to capture what it feels like to sail into this magnificent fiord. The day we spent in this unique-in-the world place, was blue and lit with sun, the water impenetrably deep, granite walls towered over us, beyond imagination and comprehension, the waterfalls gushed bountifully without end. Apparently Captain Cook missed Milford on his first pass, and actually that’s not entirely surprising. Approaching from the sea the fiord begins rather humbly and then builds and builds in its symphonic crescendo of magnificence. A bit much? Not really. Every time I stepped away from the helm and out from under the dodger I caught my breath as I looked up and up. ~MS

The tour boats run in a clockwise loop around Milford, and there were probably FAR fewer than in non-Covid affected years, (saw maybe 12 all day), but we were able to stay quite clear of them just by scooting to the middle or going the other way – basically we had the luxury of no rules! But who’s looking at boats with these sheer rock faces in our midst?

Excited visitors to this breathtaking sound are at risk for ‘Milford Neck Syndrome.’ By the end of the day, my neck wouldn’t support my head anymore – had been looking up too much!!

There’s a resident pod of Bottlenose Dolphins in Milford – they dashed over eagerly to welcome Allora!

Heading up toward Deepwater Basin, the tourist concession. Milford is the only fiord that can be reached directly by vehicle and because of that, it normally receives up to 500,000 visitors per year! When we went via car (with Wyatt) in April 2021, ours was the ONLY car in the massive parking lot. Now, a year later, tourism is inching its way back.
Iconic Mitre Peak, 1683m
Some people book their big Milford trip a year in advance and then get one of the 182 rainy days/year. Feeling such gratitude to the weather gods!
Bowen Falls adorned by a rainbow, as if it needed more?!

We had to keep Allora off shore just enough to avoid a full shower from the downpour of Stirling Falls. She drops 150 meters (a 35 story building worth!)

We were both giddy all day and so so glad we made this quick but rich visit!

Real Journeys offered up their mooring in Harrison Cove since they wouldn’t be using it. This saved us figuring out how to find a suitable anchoring spot in otherwise super deep water.
So EASY! No kayaking multiple lines to shore anymore!
Low light on Donne Glacier, but there’s a GLACIER in our anchorage?!!!
Sweetness!
Last light on the peaks.
Wyatt left NZ for the States on this day. Something about that fact coupled with our sort of ceremonially special last hours in Fiordland left us feeling a bit stunned. We fell asleep super early and woke back up at midnight to start our passage up the West Coast. At 12:15 am, we left Harrison Cove in such pitch blackness that we were grateful for the silhouetted ‘steep as’ granite walls and the resident dolphins which escorted us out with an utterly magical and hushed Fiordland goodbye. Haere rā!

 

 

 

Doubtful/Patea, aka Gleeful Sound – Fiordland

Dash from Dagg to Doubtful:

The relatively short distances between sounds along Fiordland’s rugged coast allow for mad dashes timed to brief calms, but you can’t really read the ocean’s mood sheltered in the steep granite walls of the fiords. Often the designation, “all weather anchorage,” means that fishermen have figured out that even in the worst conditions, certain spots are spared. The only way to know when it’s time to go, if you don’t have the benefit of years of local knowledge, is to study the weather models that we download twice a day from PredictWind. Because they are downloading via Iridium satellite, the resolution of the models cannot be higher that 50km. So there’s a bit of an odd effect as the models average how much the wind on the Tasman Sea is slowed down by the mountainous Fiordland coast, giving the appearance of lighter winds close to shore. They probably are a little lighter compared to what they are 20 miles out at sea, but our experience is that the models generally underestimate what it’s like on the outside and overestimate what we’ll experience once inside.  Wind or no, gale or no, the seas are almost always a mess, particularly where local winds funnel through the openings of the sounds. Schedules are well known as the bane of sailing but in the land based world they are unavoidable, and Wyatt had a particularly narrow window of time to squeeze in a visit to us amid preparations to leave New Zealand. So we considered ourselves unreasonably lucky when the wind that pinned us down for a couple of days in Daag, relented in perfect time for us to make the dash. We arrived at the opening of Doubtful with what Wyatt would call a ‘splitter bluebird’ sunny day. ~MS

We saw the full flow of waterfalls after the previous day’s rain as we left Dagg Sound. By the time we got to Doubtful, they were less vigorous, heading into their ‘elegant’ phase!
The clouds came and went, as they do; a reminder that Wyatt would soon join us and then be off again. Even these monolithic mountains, seemingly in stasis, are ever in flux.
We scooted directly on up to Deep Cove so we’d be all set for Wyatt’s morning arrival the next day. SO EXCITED!
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Allora on a mooring (all by herself) in Doubtful Sound, tucked right up next to the roar of Helena Falls. Evening spent getting the aft cabin clear of STUFF to welcome Wyatt the next day. Here, I don the particular ‘happy parent’ expression, just moments after snagging Wyatt off the bus!
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Yep, the same one!
Triad of smiles.
Wyatt made a fairly long journey from Wanaka to meet up with us: ( 4 hours via car to Manapouri via Queenstown, Ferry across Lake Manapouri to West Arm, Bus via Wilmot Pass Road).  We hardly paused before whisking Wyatt away on the last leg of this long adventure toward Hall Arm.
Oh, how we love VISITS!!!
It was a dramatic day, light wise. Sometimes it’d be broody and dark and then beams of sunlight would break through and highlight just one sliver of the mountainside.

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Think we would have been happy gathering anywhere, but this is most definitely Wyatt’s giddy inducing environment!
I have interspersed Wyatt’s pics throughout this blog post – and used ©WS to indicate his shots.
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These two …
We had to stay ‘on our game’ to keep anchoring strategies as thorough despite Wyatt’s being with us. Thankfully, the weather cooperated, with the max wind being 21 knots, and Wyatt always has a good sense of being responsible to the situation, anyway.
Anchoring – We never did buy the ‘marriage saver’ headphones which might be a bit softer in the decibel department for communicating between bow and stern. But in this steep sided environment, sometimes our voices would even echo! (Fun for music playing, too!)
Found our spot! Hall Arm is actually breath-taking!!
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Oh yeah, this’ll do!
©WS We anchored in 68′ of water – so pretty deep – with all our rode out.
I think all 3 of us held a quiet awareness around how hard our next goodbye would be, as Wyatt was planning to leave NZ after spending 2.5 years building community in Wanaka and sharing some real quality time with us.

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Ok, let’s go EXPLORE!!

©WS Snagging one of these close ups sometimes involves a bit of scrambling! (Wyatt was too busy grabbing me from the icy water after I slipped and fell in to take a picture!)

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Ha, Wyatt caught us both entranced!

We have experienced a profound cumulative effect traveling through the wilderness of these southern fiords, as we mash through the tangled forest or glide like a whisper through glassy, watery mountain reflections. We feel a growing, deepening awareness of the liveness and power of this unfettered place. Every day Diana peers a little closer into the magical profusion of the rainforest, its tiniest creatures (or the smallest we may perceive) all this abundance of life fueled by fresh water, gray stormy clouds, shifting rays of sunlight, massive stone faces fading softly into the distance. The boundless imagination of nature is vividly accessible here, free of scheming human interference. Inexhaustible, effortless celebration. We feel blessed to feel like we belong, to participate at our particular scale, with our particular way of perceiving. Gratefully reconnected as dolphins come to play alongside Allora, turn and smile and look back at us with familiar eyes, into our own delighted gaze. As the sky softens at sunset, or looms heavy with rain before the storm, as water gushes from waterfalls that were not there before the deluge, thundering into the fiord, as williwaws tornado in wild rainbow mists across startled coves, how delightful it is to be alive, a part of, this marvelous, miraculous world. ~MS

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The layout of Doubtful/Bradshaw/Thompson Sounds. You can see why they’re called ‘arms.’
©WS We moved each night because Wyatt had just 5 with us and although we KNOW ‘more isn’t more,’ we couldn’t resist! Also, weather necessitated we seek certain protection, so we had THAT excuse (wink).
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Gaer Arm up Bradshaw Sound is a famously hard spot to set anchor, normally only a daytime or fair weather anchorage. The Camelot River is at the head and offers great potential for dingy/kayak exploration at high tide, so we strategized and came up with a plan since we had some moderate winds forecasted.
Anchored off the mud bank of the Camelot at the head of the arm.
Just starting up the Camelot, Allora barely in sight. We timed our Camelot River foray and left two hours before high tide, towing the kayak behind Namo. We crept up 2k carefully avoiding snags and rocks until reaching a clear ‘no go’ spot for Namo. At that point, the guys hiked a couple more kilometers up the gorgeous river and I turned back toward Allora with the kayak, so as to be on the boat for the predicted winds.
Learned something about how cloudy days can actually be more subtle light for shooting.
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I turned back toward Allora while Marcus and Wyatt fished upstream.
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Making my way back to Allora in some pretty ‘skinny’ water. There were sulphuric smelling hot water bubbling spots all across the shallows!
Allora nicely sitting just where we left her and in very placid conditions. The wind did end up picking up, but not in any significant way and our anchor stayed set nicely.
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We moved across Bradshaw Sound to Precipice Cove/MacDonnell Island, an all weather anchorage.
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Still quite giddy about having one on one time with Wyatt before he flies back to the States.
Wyatt went off on a long kayak while we heard word about our long awaited boxes of pre-ordered ‘fresh’ veggies! Real Journeys offers the service in collaboration with a grocery store in Te Anau. It’s kind of a miracle and although it didn’t go flawlessly, we were more than happy to jump through a few hoops to get celery and lettuce and carrots, oh my!
The Milford Mariner, a boat run by Real Journeys, called us on the VHF and said they had our 3 boxes of veggies! We were expecting them to arrive the day we picked up Wyatt, but they kept going missing. Anyway, we zipped over to the head of the bay and their lights made them look even more angelic in my eyes! The first ‘freshies’ since leaving Oban a good two months ago! I definitely did a vegetable dance!
Instead of the 45 knot winds which were predicted, we saw only a few mild gusts but LOTS of rain, enough to almost fill both of our water tanks (200 gallons!).

Before heading to Crooked Arm, we went a bit farther on to see some of the waterfalls at the head of Precipice Cove.
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Marcus was super generous to be helmsman while Wyatt and I ran around gleefully taking pictures!
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Looking down into Thompson Sound from Penoulo Reach.

A frisky band of Bottlenose Dolphins took to leaping in the wake of a Real Journeys boat which whizzed by us. We weren’t even sure if the folks on that boat saw the antics because they just kept on keeping on. Meanwhile, we stopped and spent over an hour and a half with these VERY social and smiley creatures! All of these dolphin shots are Wyatt’s. My camera fogged up and he needed an SD card anyway, so I just spent the whole time giggling!
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Always and already …
We spent our last evening at the end of Crooked Arm, just 1 mile as the crow flies to Dagg Sound. I was sure Wyatt would want to run across, but we didn’t arrive till quite late in the afternoon and we were cherishing our last time for sweet conversation.
And what an evening it was! Fiordland showed off a wee bit.
We shot this when we thought Wyatt had the possibility of extending his stay one more day, hence the smiles. We learned soon after that we had to rush in the morning to get him back to Deep Cove for an earlier bus because they’d cancelled the other option. 🙁
One last kayak outing.
Leaving Crooked Arm and working our way back to Deep Cove, Marcus maneuvered Allora right up next to these stunners.

Last things to say. This appears to have more lightness and less tears than I remember?
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Back at Deep Cove. We ran Wyatt over to the place where we’d picked him up and we saw his bus leaving – 15 minutes EARLY! It was against my better interests, because I’d have loved to KEEP him for 2 more days, but I screamed my throat raw, the driver stopped and he made the bus. No Italian style protracted goodbyes though – he was off in an instant! OUCH, rip the bandaid! (Was glad we’d had that heart to heart in the morning!) Ciao bello!
Marcus and I took a walk, hardly talking, just savoring the blissful blur of the 5 past days traipsing all over Doubtful Sound with our baby!
The light was even a bit melancholy.
Never too disheartened to be lit up by a new mushroom find!
We found a trail right up to the base of Helena Falls.
Last light of the day along the tail-race looking in the direction which Wyatt headed, starting this new chapter in his life.
We had to fuel up Allora and do some laundry (real life after sustained play), so we stopped one last night in Snug Cove/First Arm of Doubtful before heading northward.
Almost like a dream …

 

Doubtful we’ll ever forget this.

 

Vancouver Arm: Head of Bay, Third Cove, Stevens Cove, Breaksea/Te Puaitaha Sound – Fiordland.

Bathymetric chart of Vancouver Arm – gives an image of the size, shape and distribution of features underwater.
We just spent one quick night at the head of the bay in Vancouver Arm. We had plans in place to meet Wyatt in Doubtful Sound, 2 north of here, so we had to strategize our short stays with the weather predictions and what protection each anchorage might offer.
Third Cove Anchorage. We worked hard finding suitable depths to anchor in here and ended up dropping in 25 meters (83′), which is quite deep, but the mud bank at the head of the bay was also tough to see and the edge of it fluctuated, so all in all, challenging. Our ‘guidebooks’ didn’t say anything about where other ‘yachties’ would anchor. First impressions: amazing birdsong and echoes in this biggish bay!
I wonder if we were hideous even to the flora/fauna …?!
… ok, I feel better now. This flora is pretty ‘warty!’ We had heaps of fun checking out the very colorful intertidal zone. Started at higher tide, but it was dropping really fast, so we had to be sure Namo didn’t get stuck ‘high and dry.’ Not sure what these are, but they were ALL OVER!
You can probably imagine the smell that went along with this falling tide and exposed sea creatures?
Marcus found this one shell just sitting in this position. No others about.
Then we made it to the very spongy and lush forest. We’d been told there was a waterfall to be found, but we never found the ‘trailhead.’
No matter, there’s plenty of water and wonder right here!

The Audrey Hepburn of the plant world – playful and elegant, both.

These little ‘webs’ of water droplets were everywhere!

One version of an Umbrella Moss.
This whole area had a playful feel about it. I took a million pics, very sprite like and Marcus had the good sense to keep track of how we were going to actually make our way back to Allora. Gratitude on all counts.
Sticta Coronata.

Dr. Seuss land
A cello leaf.
Peace.

NEED to put these in my INaturalist/ISeek app to find out what they are, besides so wonderful?!
Clever seed design!

Allora, free swinging in deep water, but staying put, thank goodness! (Imagine leaving your home for the afternoon and wondering if ‘she’ll’ still be there when you return?)

Kahawai
It seems to be an autumn thing that massive schools of Kahawai, Kingfish, and other predators chase the baitfish up to the heads of the sounds and gleefully spend their days slashing and crashing and feasting upon them. It starts at dawn and continues until dark. At completely unpredictable moments the water will suddenly boil with feeding fish only to disappear within a few moments. The first Kahawai I caught was with a spinning rig, which is well suited for frantic Hail Mary casts into the abyss. I will admit that catching that fish was closer to an accident than anything premeditated. One fish nearly chased the lure right into the boat. As we traveled through the fiords, the fairly constant surface action was nearly impossible to ignore, and sometimes the predators would use the boat to trap the bait and Allora would find herself at the center of the melee. Finally, at the head of Daag Sound I couldn’t stand it anymore; I rigged my 8 weight and propped it next to the dinghy ready to go at the next irresistible provocation. What ensued was pure madness. The fish would pop up, I would zoom over with the outboard roaring, then kill it as I coasted in, frantically start casting and get maybe one quick retrieve before the fish disappeared. As I zigged and zagged across the fiord, I’m probably lucky that we were certainly the only people then in Daag Sound so that no one arrived with white straight jacket and concerned expressions to intervene. Back and forth I dashed, tangling myself in my line, frustrated at the utter futility of stripping the fly back with the dinghy still moving forward. Once every tenth attempt, everything would work out, I’d even get in a second or third cast, and manage to get my fly to move fast enough to get some attention, and a slash maybe, a miss and back to the frantic game. I was exhausted and my shoulder was on fire by the time all of the crazy variables aligned and a willing fish slammed my fly and headed straight for the bottom of the Sound. The seriously outsized strength of that fish made me instantly regret picking my lighter 8 weight over my sturdy 9. In fact, I was pretty sure I was going to break the rod. What a relief it was to release that fish and release myself from any future notion of fly fishing for Kahawai. A River Runs Through It, it was not. ~MS

We let this Kahawai go since at that point, we weren’t even sure what it was! Turns out it would have been within regulation size to keep, but we already had a dinner plan in place and it always feels good to release them.
Cityscape in the rocks (a bit dystopian).
And mountains, too!
One lone dolphin came cruising through the anchorage and did a rather quick loop around us. We kept thinking there must be two because he’d go under and then come up much farther along than we’re used to seeing, but we never saw more than the one.
Moving from Third Cove to Stevens Cove!
We stopped to fill up Allora’s water tanks at a little floating hut which is used by fishermen during the season. Our watermaker worked fine in this mix of fresh and salt, but it’s always nice to get quick, free fills.
Another (power) boat queued up for a water fill after us so we got to talking and they shared a small Pāua (abalone) which they’d just harvested and described how to prepare it. I read that there’s a place in Hong Kong where they charge $2k per person for a Fiordland NZ Paua dinner! It was ALOT of work and yielded very little to massage this muscle into a source of protein! It would have been at least 5 years old.
The name wasn’t the only thing compelling about Stevens Cove. It was super close to the entrance/exit of Breaksea Sound, so we’d be poised for a quick transit up to Dagg Sound when ready. The only thing is that it’s such a tiny spot that we had to hope we’d fit in there! The opening can barely be seen in this picture near the turquoise water.
It was our trickiest maneuvering/anchoring to date, but we settled in to our little namesake anchorage quite sweetly. This is normally used by power boats/fishermen since it’s so close to outside and they squeeze 3 little boats in here.

There were these two ‘keyholes’ inside Stevens Cove where you could see the main Sound which would cover over at high tide and I could squeeze the kayak through, theoretically, but my kayaking happened at lower tide, so no go.
View of Allora from the Sound.
Time to go check out the ‘archipelago’ of nearby islands!
New forms to take in!

Tried to see this Chiton better, but the surge was quite strong and I really didn’t want to tip.
Then I just got into the abstract of it. I could feel myself shift from trying to make something ‘clear’ to allowing it to be simply light and color.

Shadow play.
The ocean is miraculous!

One of my favorite pics. See the green sea worm?! (Going to look that up, too!)

The water at sunset.
Preparing to slip away from Stevens Cove, the birds regaled us with some riotous farewell songs! Dagg Sound, here we come!