The warmly cool, clear, ringing, perfumed, overflowing, redundant days, were as crystal goblets of Persian sherbet, heaped up – flaked up, with rose-water snow. — Herman Melville
We thought about this moment for so crazy long! Even with half her face hidden under a mask, and after nearly 3 years of absence, we SAW Maddi! A flooding of love was pretty evident in that small KeriKeri airport. Anyone with PDA issues must have fled the scene.Travelin’ clothes.After a protracted amount of clinging and crying in the airport, we drove a few miles to a cafe and continued with more of the same.I pretty much always want to be an octopus, but would have especially liked more arms to wrap around Maddi on this joyous day!We’d been watching the weather and had little time to get quite a lot of preparedness items checked off the list. Maddi jumped right in and sewed a tough sail repair.Beautiful AND strong! (The repair AND Madison!)Here we go! Foulies on, this is HAPPENING!
Passage to Fiji
Words we used to describe this passage upon arrival in Fiji when asked by the manager of Vuda Marina (pronounced Vunda): boisterous, lively, bumpy, rambunctious. Our passage was probably pretty typical, as good as you could reasonably expect from Opua to Vuda Point, Fiji. We left on the very day our fourth consecutive visitor’s visa finally expired! New Zealand took such good care of us throughout Covid, but the time comes when even the most charming guests need to be encouraged to abandon the couch and find some new friends. We departed on the end of a passing front, which meant strong (up to 42kts) SW winds kicking us on the tail. Diana posted these notes via Iridium to our tracker.
“You would have thought we were eager to leave NZ – the way Allora shot out of the gate and rode the tail end of a ‘low’ with 3+ meter waves and up to 42kts of wind! We’re now 24 hours and 175 nautical miles in, and the seas are showing a trend toward easing with the wind. Currently on a port tack paralleling our rhumb line. The guitars have just come out and “I Can See Clearly Now!” Highlights: bioluminescence, Albatross, slightly warmer temps and Maddi as crew (just one night watch each, woohoo!”)
Must have been strange for Maddi to have just flown in to NZ not a week before, and then to be sailing away? It was such a kindness on her part, to use her precious down time to help us get Allora to the tropics. As for us, this moment resonated somewhere deep inside and both Marcus and I processed this significant Aotearoa goodbye quietly. It was almost too big to put words around. New Zealand took dear care of us both.Indeed, every time I looked at our chartplotter and saw the symbol of Allora inching away from NZ, and Haley and Liam, I felt a mini gut punch.Conditions were big at the start since we left Opua on the tail of a system, taking advantage of the associated winds. When it’s like this, it’s time to connect with the rhythm of the ocean, not battle it. Maddi and Marcus tend to be able to handle just about anything the sea dishes up without needing meds. I was ‘patched’ up!What a treat – hot cuppa tea, thanks Mad!
Passages are so good for the soul. Where else can we slow down quite like this? It’s almost a meditation retreat, with a little core workout thrown in!
Homemade Roti?! Oh, yes, we would, thank you!Marcus rigging fishing lines since we were expecting a period of calm water.
We hoped for maybe a day of wind to push us along, but we were lucky as the winds held out for almost two. You hear about the occasional passage with wind the whole way, but the horse latitudes aren’t called the horse latitudes for nothing… well actually there seem to be a quite a few theories about why they’re called the horse latitudes, only a couple of them to do with the paucity of wind. The basic idea is that this is where the easterly trade winds peter out, but is also the normal limit of frontal systems and westerlies in the mid-latitudes. Makes sense if the wind is going to switch from West to East that there should be some dead space between. We motored for just under twenty-four hours (we thought it might be as much as two days) using our 80 horses to get us through. We’re not big on running the engine (the noise gets tiresome and makes guitar playing tough), but we did enjoy the calmer seas, and the increasingly warmer night watches.
Offsetting the sound of our engine with a little music on the deck.Our Kevlar, light wind sail, the Code Zero.
Hard to get my fingers moving freely enough in the brrr, cold!These two have always enjoyed conversation over early morning coffee.Navasana – supported boat pose on a moving boat!PhD thesis work in becalmed seas.Nice to still be enjoying green crunchy things at this stage of the passage. One benefit of the cool temps!
On my watch, just after dawn, just as I was about to shut the engine off and rally the troops to hoist the code zero, the engine made a loud screech and shut down without any warning beeps or anything. What followed was a gorgeous day of sailing in light beam winds with the big sail out that was a bit sullied by time spent trying to figure out what was going on with the engine. We suspected a transmission problem as there have been signs of impending doom for a little while, but we didn’t want make things worse and break something further, by trying to start it up until we could eliminate the possibility of water in the cylinders. I exchanged a few texts with the Yanmar guy in Lyttelton, Brian, who by good fortune happened to be at his shop on a Sunday, and he talked me through what to look for. Our mechanically minded sailor friends Ian in England (previously mentioned in this blog as the man with a plan) and Mark from Starlet both responded promptly to our SAT phone email with gearbox advice that was invaluable. I’m sure anyone can imagine how good it feels when you’re hundreds of miles out to sea, to have friends like this to turn to. Later, the Fijian mechanic showed us pictures of the main bearing in the gearbox which had literally blown up (which more than explained the problem.) Why is a longer story, which I’m happy to share with anyone interested in the gory details. I promise not to take the fifth. Luckily, we didn’t need the engine until well inside the reef at Fiji. By some miracle it held together long enough to get us into the marina.
Not too fun to troubleshoot engine issues underway.
Such joy!Maddi made an inventive, phenomenal curry tweaking an Ottolenghi recipe to adapt to what we actually had on hand. Memorable!
The rest of the sail, the wind was on the beam or just ahead of the beam, consitently over 20 knots with 3 to 4 meter very confused seas for the first day, which slowly moderated a little (though the wind did not) and became more regular.
Comatose, ear plugged and cocooned in pillows, Di utilizing the patented ‘foot hook on the lee cloth’ method, no pea would hinder this sleep! NEVER too many pillows!! There are no words to adequately describe the heaven that it is to be allowed your off watch slumber! Of course, with Maddi on this passage, our shifts were MUCH easier than our previous couple passages, so we felt seriously indulged.Running the sheet for the code Zero from the bow back to the cockpit, Maddi’s also tethered to Allora along a ‘jackline.’Music, music everywhere!A splashy sunrise kind of morning.I missed capturing the full wave over her head, but you can see the dousing on the cockpit floor. Mad’s coffee even got salted! Good Morning!
Maddi posted this note for Day 5:
“Poseidon has changed his mood, with boistrous seas catching us abeam and wind aplenty. With our course now set for Nadi, the Allora crew has spent the day either laying down or holding on tight. It’s incredible how tasks that were easy in the weekend calm have now become ludicrously challenging: making coffee, putting on pants… just want to take a pee in peace? Good luck! We keep thinking things are calming down, but perhaps it’s just our imaginations (and wishful thinking from unsettled tummies). Allora, for her part, seems to bounce joyfully over the boisterous seas, carrying us northward. The warm air, puffy trade wind clouds, and occasional flying fish among the leaping waves remind us that we’re back the tropics. We managed to brave the splashy cockpit for some music today, and only one of us took a full dousing! Heading into the night a salty crew, with gratitude for the wind and hopes for mellower seas tomorrow.”
Ok, this MAY be a re-enactment of the real scene, but it’s truly how we move about down below to avoid getting thrown from starboard to port!Rigging the preventer so we don’t accidentally jibe!Seconds later, I got swamped by a wave, but my inner super hero showed up and I saved the guitar!We kept trying to sit on that side because it was easier, but time and time again, we’d get soaked! Time to get THERE – we’re getting punchy!‘Land Ho!’ Always two mighty fine words!Our track from A to B! We were hoping to make a stop at Minerva Reef (S), but the engine troubles made that a no go.
Though our speed through water was usually pretty stunning, it was all such a sloppy mess that our actual distance made good suffered. Still we logged a couple days over 170 miles, coming in at 7 days for the whole passage. After a rowdy, tumultuous, brisk and challenging ride, the calm water inside the lagoon felt surreal, the welcome song at the quarantine dock seriously touched our hearts and the Covid tests brought actual tears to our eyes!
Allora tied up at the Quarantine dock in Vuda Marina, Viti Levu, FIJI!!! It was here that about 25 crew came walking down to greet us, guitar and flower wreath in hand, singing their BULA welcome song! What a way to arrive in a new country! We had filed tons of paperwork before leaving NZ, then called when we were a ways offshore letting them know that we’d be actually arriving on this day, 7/7/22. We didn’t wait long at all before a series of lovely officials came and cleared us and Allora into the country. Quite a bit nicer than standing in those long airport lines!We had to take a Covid test before we left NZ and upon arrival in Fiji. Once clear of that, we had biosecurity come and take any of the items I was silly enough to offer up (read: too many), we let go of some honey, nuts, grains and fresh vegetables … anything which could have pest issues. Being vegetarian helped, as they’d have confiscated our meat, too, if we had any. Customs and Immigration also made their stops and within about an hour, we were all cleared in, cruising permit in hand.Miles and miles of smiles and memories – ta, Mad.Vuda Marina (pronounced, ‘Vunda’). Lots more about this neat little marina in further posts. We ended up spending almost a month while waiting for our engine replacement parts to come from the States. During this time, we also secured a cyclone pit here for the upcoming season, from Nov. to April.
Maddi’s time in Fiji was already going to be pretty short, after waiting in Opua for weather, so we just couldn’t stand the idea of hanging out in the Marina, working engine or not, even though that would obviously be the prudent choice. We hadn’t seen the blown bearing yet, so blissfully ignorant, we decided that we would sail out to the reef for a couple of nights. We picked a spot that looked like we could sail onto anchor, and off, if we had to. Namo (our dinghy) was also standing by to push us along if all else failed. The wind cooperated (which is lucky because the engine quit again just after we got out of the marina and got our sail up), and though we didn’t have to sail onto anchor, we did have to manually drop it since the rough seas of passage had managed to drown a supposedly waterproof fuse box on the windlass.
Our ‘Obi Wan Sknobi’ survived the passage!!!! She rocks! We had her in the gimbaled oven so she wouldn’t get tossed around quite as much as we did, since we heard they don’t like being ‘agitated!’ Who does?! Anyway, we are still able to have our daily Kombucha, yahoo!!! Scoby Doo!!!We have 2 guitars, a uke and now a RAV VAST drum on Allora!Another boat on a mooring off Namotu Island in the Mamanucas.Namotu Island Resort has just 11 ‘bures’ and caters to surfers; the world famous ‘Cloudbreak’ is just offshore here. We watched some spectacular launches off these impressive waves and stuck to snorkeling with ‘not enough time,’ as our convenient excuse! This particular resort chooses to keep exclusive and they ask that ‘yachties’ don’t come ashore, while other places seem to welcome the extra company and business and go out of their way to be inclusive. Either way, we were free to enjoy the surrounding waters and just enjoy being on anchor in the fresh breeze.Being on anchor at sunset is probably one of the most obvious things we missed while living in the marina in Lyttelton, NZ. It was sweet, too, but just not the same thing.Maddi’s always keen to get on the paddleboard, making us glad we have it still.Time to relax – after a lot of paying close attention to all things boat safety related. Thanks for being so mindful, Captain.Thought she might go right on into the orange spot!
Maddi watched this Banded Sea Snake for awhile as it exhibited some strange behavior, almost trying to get aboard Allora. We learned later, they’re highly venomous, but generally don’t strike unless provoked. No temptation there.
The night before we had to take Maddi back for her flight, I woke up feeling pretty sick. Diana was feeling a bit off, too. She thought it was the rolly anchorage, I thought it might be bad food. By morning I was slammed. So Diana and Maddi brought Allora back without my help.
Unfortunately, there wasn’t a scrap of wind, so they motored the whole way, with Diana in deep psychic communication with the Yanmar 4JH80, to keep it together until she could get all the way in the narrow marina entrance and tied up to the circular quay at Vuda. I watched from below – first the palms of the channel drifting by and then our neighbors’ masts as she wedged Allora into her spot, bumper to bumper with boats on either side. Flawlessly executed. We realize we really need to trade jobs now and then, just to practice for occasions like this. ~MS
The minute I pulled Allora in to the dock, I felt a flush of sickness and within minutes I realized I was actually quite sick, too. I kept thinking of that Rilke quote: “Let everything happen to you: beauty and terror. Just keep going.” Maddi had to see her parents gravitationally challenged on her last day, and she was the only one who could ‘keep going.’ She tended to us with grace and positivity, then took a cab to the airport all by herself and was off, whoosh, back to Bozeman. Marcus tested negative for Covid and we both felt fine the next day so I didn’t even bother checking. Bizarre end to some sweet days. Go well, Mad. You are lit like bioluminescence and we miss you big already!
For this blogpost Diana asked for some words about “the reality of time,” which seems rather an ambitious metaphysical topic for a blog about two people goofing off on their sailboat in beautiful places. But here goes.
Time? What time? As sailors “living the dream” obviously, we don’t ever have a “schedule.” We do whatever we like, whenever we like, for as long as we like. With a few caveats.
First there are a few not insignificant constraints imposed by Nature — forces in the natural world beyond our control (so all forces of nature), stuff like sea state, wind, cyclones, storms, calms, ocean currents, physical laws governing displacement hull speed, gravity (this is a big one), the sun (and the massively destructive force of UV), the evil spirit that inhabits machinery, salt (never to be underestimated), electrolysis, whatever it is exactly that makes rust, and also biological forces like the stuff that grows on Allora’s bottom no matter how much expensive, toxic paint we apply, and Covid 19.
Then there are a few, also not insignificant constraints imposed by Governments — most importantly border formalities, and arbitrary human designations of authority abstractly represented as nationalities.
Then there is the stuff absolutely everyone contends with, sailor or no, like the second law of thermodynamics and Space and Time, or spacetime, or whatever this stuff we all swim about in is properly called.
We calculated that we were two months worth of Time behind “schedule” for most of 2021 and well into 2022 when all of the above mentioned irresistible forces collided with the expiration of our New Zealand visitor’s visas (extended at least four times because of Covid) on June 30, 2022. (And also, Winter, that ominous and unpleasant climate event of the mid and high latitudes which seems to come up much more frequently than a reasonable, fun-loving sailor might like).
We had a mighty to-do list, and spent most of the months of May and June feeling fairly overwhelmed as we tried to play catch up.
As to the metaphysical question of Time, perhaps it is philosophically or scientifically possible to question its objective existence (not that those are arguments I could ever hope to follow), but when all these forces converge, time can definitely feel in short supply, cramped, and very real indeed. We tried to remind ourselves, during rare moments of pause, that time, whatever it is, doesn’t really contract or expand. There’s always just today and what’s happening right now. Right? All of this busy-ness is just so we can sit around and procrastinate later, and find ourselves once again, about two months of time behind.~MS
Hauling Allora out of the water for the first time since Whangarei (Northern North Island) in 2019. Her ‘bottom’ looked pretty darn good after all that movement in Fiordland’s cold waters. After just 2 months in the tropics, you would have an aquatic biome! One of the perks of being in these latitudes!Time to hit an actual supermarket!!! Love the translations: grab some ‘te Reo Māori’ with groceries!Whenever we go to the store together, Marcus will sneak an item into the cart which might seem out of keeping with my typical purchasing pattern. It works best (in his mwahaha scheme) when I don’t see it till checkout and then have to say that I decided against it! This was an especially good one!Here, I asked Marcus to look like he was inspecting the prop, hence his non-actor expression! The metallic parts of your boat need to be insulated with zinc anodes to prevent their corrosion, so all the silver bits are the zincs and they will need to be replaced after we clean and paint the prop.A few Outbound owners had some issues with the original Sikaflex batch of caulking around the cabin windows. Ours weren’t as bad as some of our sister boats, but after 7 years, they are needing our attention. We’ll be doing a huge overhaul of their installation in Australia, but meanwhile, I got a lesson from the yard owner on the proper way to execute a solid ‘stop gap’ measure.Being up on stands with nothing but concrete below, I had to be extra mindful not to ROLL off!Would be waaaay handier to be a sprite when it comes to boat work. Our evolution hasn’t been to work on boat engines with ease.Definitely time to buy this replacement set. Yeah, corrosion is REAL!The high point of the flurry and frenzy of boat work was our cherished time in Blenheim, (just a half hour away), with these two beautiful humans, our eldest, Haley and her partner, Liam.A bit of New Hampshire or northern Michigan’s seasonal palette!While we were in Fiordland, my mom moved from Southern to Northern California. Siblings rocked that into reality while I just cheered on with words. It can be really hard to be so far away when big life events happen, as they do.Shiny new prop, painted with PropSpeed and adorned with new zincs, ready to spin (when we have no wind) its way to Fiji soon!The Tirohanga hiking track, quite nearby our Airbnb in Picton. Sweet day.Oops, selfie 101, make room for everybody?!Hiking joys!
Enough fun, back to work for Allora’s crew … Where’s Waldo?Fiordland brought us immeasurable joy, but also massive condensation issues. We took apart the entire boat to do a vinegar wash down to offset the inevitable mold. Also, time to ditch some stuff on the boat which wasn’t getting enough use to justify the space it occupied.Liam and Haley’s Mom’s Day Lilies added the only bit of sweetness on a boat filled with cleaning products and clutter.We rented a cargo van from the hardware store (unusual, but the only way I could find one) and cruised down to Christchurch from Picton (5 hours south) for a quick set of days to see friends and clear out our small storage space.We finally met Sasha, the luckiest kiddo, to have lovely Saree as his mama. She fed us well every dreamy Farmer’s Market Saturday in Lyttelton! Truly special connection.Another set of wonderfuls: Virginia and Brian opened their Lyttelton home to us for our stay and Herbie (on the left) came to dinner, too! We met Herbie and Maria (not pictured, she was in Germany) also at the Farmer’s market – she’s an artist and seamstress extraordinaire and kept me warmly clothed for each of the two winter’s we were in Aotearoa. Later, we did intuitive painting classes with Maria and met Virginia! Friends introducing friends … in this way, we’re reminded that the world is small and we all seek connection.No use waiting for a sunny day to ‘splash’ Allora back in the water!Can hardly see them, but sea lions waved flappily as if to say bye as we left the inner breakwater of Waikawa Marina.We moved just around the corner, from Waikawa Marina to the Picton Marina and took an in water berth for the last projects.With NZ’s borders open to Aussies, Liam’s folks, Gerard and Jenni, came for the first visit since Covid! We had met them in Dec. of 2019 before all the whole thing had begun.It was a sunny, yet quite brisk day on the water. Sadly, no wind, but we took them on a 3 hour tour of Queen Charlotte Sound.Happy Mama! These guys brought a beautiful picnic lunch for us to enjoy in ‘Bay of Many Coves.’Spinning yarns, Captain?!It just doesn’t look as chilly as it was?! This Ferry runs between Picton and Wellington, across the Cook Strait.Family.Had a total BLAST with Haley as we went all Jackson Pollock and giggled our way through an afternoon of flying paint! HOW did we never do this for a kid’s party?!You know the boat jobs must be nearing completion when hurling paint becomes a priority! Thank you, Haley, for manifesting this vision! I will always remember these antics and our time in Blenheim.Jobs done, we knew this was going to be tough. Letting water and distance come between us brought tears. There was no extra wiggle time for Allora to make her way up to the North Island before our visas were set to expire. Ahh, bureaucracy 🙁
Making our way from Bark Bay to Torrent Bay, Abel Tasman National Park.The famous ‘Coast Track’ is along this route. Bark Bay has a hut and Torrent (also called Anchorage Cove) does as well. Took some adjustment to get used to other boats and civilization onshore!And company on Allora!We loved being greeted by the local birds! We thought about lowering Namo so we could hike a bit of the Coast Track, but found ourselves just being content as is.In the channel at Nelson. We were appreciating our ‘soft entry’ back into the world of people, but the cool little town of Nelson drew us in. Marcus also walked a wheel barrow into town to fill up 3 jerry cans of diesel to be sure we had enough to get to Picton.Nelson Marina. First time in a Marina since February when we left Lyttelton.First order of business! EDIBLE GREEN THINGS!!!Cool mushroom (need to ID all of these!) in the park on the walk into Nelson.We’re not in Fiordland, anymore!We only spent a quick couple of nights in Nelson – great town, but we were Picton bound with heaps of boat work on our minds.The day we left Nelson the sea was insanely glassy and serene.
There I go again!
These fish farm buoys were in quite a few places in Croisilles Harbor, so we had to look around a bit before we found an anchorage without them. It was particularly noticeable, in contrast to Fiordland, the impact of human use on the environment, both land and sea.Ended up in a spot called Whakitenga/Squally Cove, but it wasn’t!Still the NZ bush just GETS me!The smooth mud that came up off our anchor in Croisilles Harbor could be a wildly pricey spa treatment!We had to poise ourselves the next morning to go through French Pass, the narrow gateway between D’Urville Island and Marlborough Sounds. It’s a tricky bit of water, known for its treacherous tides and currents; the pass has the fastest tidal flows in New Zealand, at up to 8 knots (4 m/s).The lighthouse and lookout at French Pass. We actually arrived about a half hour early and went for it. This pic makes it look rather placid, but we did see 1.5 knots against us. Marcus ran 2400rpm’s on the engine with some serious concentration to stay out of the back eddies which have been known to spin boats in the wrong direction.Nukuwaiata Island in Chetwode Nature Reserve sits at the entrance to Pelorous Sound. This was our last sweet stop before REALLY immersing in civilization and all the imminent boat projects.It’s forbidden to step foot on the beach (the nature reserve is a predator free island), but I could kayak a loop around Middle Bay.Cormorants and Fur Seals call this home.The birdsong was spectacular here!
No lines to shore, just easily holding in 50′.Read a really beautiful and important book recently called, ‘Islands of Abandonment,’ by Cal Flyn, about the resilience of landscapes when mankind’s impact on nature is forced to stop. It’s lovely, but also sobering.Hard to see in this shot, but the morning we left, these two Little Blue Penguins swam right by and all the way around Allora!On our way to Queen Charlotte Sound, we took a slow loop around Titi (Muttonbird) Island, another predator free Nature Reserve.
And still more Little Blue Penguini!I watched Allora do her thing and felt so thankful for my life on the ocean…… with this dear person.After passing Cape Jackson, we gybed down into the opening of Queen Charlotte Sound.Allora, resting at the temporary dock at Waikawa Marina, awaiting haul out. She’s worked so very hard to get here!Waikawa’s just 4 kilometers from Picton, which is just 30 minutes from Haley and Liam!!!
It was a bit spooky sailing out of Milford at midnight without a moon. We had our inbound tracks on the chartplotter to follow, but it’s pretty amazing how disorienting darkness can be, even for feeling whether to turn to port or starboard to follow a line. Also with the steep granite walls, we didn’t feel 100% confident in our GPS. Diana went to the bow, and I stepped away from the helm to try to orient myself every few minutes, as we moved cautiously down the fiord. Though the GPS did seem to have a decent idea about where we were, it was also reassuring to have radar confirming the distance to the rock walls on either side. But what helped me relax most at the helm, was when Diana shouted that the dolphins had come to escort us out. I leaned over the rail and could just see and hear them splashing off our port headed for the bow. It was hard not to feel like they’d showed up intentionally to reassure us.
South Island of NZ and our sailing track. We spent 3 months in that lower SW corner and then dashed up the whole island on the west side in 3 days!
One of the many challenges of the passage from Milford up around Cape Farewell into the Cook Strait, is that there is only one place you might possibly stop, but that requires negotiating a river bar entrance at Westport (just north of Cape Foulwind!), which is safe only in decent weather. Otherwise, it’s a solid three day run (if you keep your speed up), which just barely fits into the cycle of weather shifting from South to North. The weather window that presented itself to us seemed pretty typical, catching the end of a southerly, motoring and motor-sailing through variable winds in a race to meet the Cape with relatively light winds rather than the usual NW or SE gale.Leaving sooner, we’d have had more wind to sail with, but we’d risk arriving too early for the switch of winds at Cape Farewell.
Diana took the first watch just after 2 AM after we cleared the hazards on the north side of the entrance to Milford and could head more directly north. “Really cold, icy hands,” she wrote in the margins of the logbook. “Overcast skies heading further out to clear Arawua Point/Big Bay Bluff.” Just after sunrise on my watch, I got a glimpse of the mountains south of Mt Aspiring, which reminded me of Wyatt’s 100 mile run the length Aspiring National Park. I wondered if he could have seen the Tasman Sea from any of those lofty ridge lines he traversed?
NZ’s wild west.Hard to sail away from that remarkable corner of the universe. Allora always seems up to the task, even if we’re a bit reluctant.I’m afraid we have a stowaway!He looks about as eager as I did for this passage.His ‘foulies’ are cooler than ours!There are mountains in them thar clouds!Sunrises and sunsets don’t go unnoticed out here.
Also in the logbook, I see a lot of scribbles in these notes about fuel rates, and estimates of actual fuel burned for miles ‘made good.’ Allora carries 190 gallons full which is more than enough for the distance as long as the weather is reasonably cooperative, but it makes a difference if you’re burning 1.5 gallons/hour or pushing the engine and burning 2.5 gallons/hour. The extra gallon doesn’t double your speed. People better at the maths would probably be able to calculate exactly what fuel rate is most efficient. I settled upon 1.6 or 1.7 as an nice compromise of efficiency, speed (to make our date at Cape Farewell) and comfort.
We had rain. We had current steadily set against us. We had dolphins streak by in the night leaving comet trails in the bioluminescence. We fussed about the wind, almost-but-not-quite-enough to sail, ever creeping up on the nose. We almost lost a batten in the mainsail. Then later, Otto, our autopilot made a sudden decision to turn hard to starboard out of nowhere. The switch for the high pressure pump on the watermaker heated up and set off the smoke alarm (naturally at night-while I was off watch). We saw no other boats besides the occasional fishing boat working closer to shore. We caught a glimpse of Aoraki (Mt Cook) at sunset, and at Cape Foulwind a couple of seal lions waved as we passed by.
And my lil’ camera could not capture how stunning this scene was!
On the last night, as seems to be a theme lately, Diana drew the toughest watch of the passage. There was just no way to completely avoid a patch of heavy winds slated to meet us as we approached the Cape, straight on the nose. We tried to time it for the least possible, but Poseidon wasn’t going to let us off feeling too clever. For her whole watch, Allora slammed into 20 knots on the bow clawing her way up the last bit of coast to Cape Farewell. Finally, after calling Farewell Maritime radio to try to find out whether it was generally considered advisable to cut the corner at Kahurangi shoals (which they weren’t really able to commit to), we decided it probably wasn’t, so we slogged on. Diana went off watch and very soon after, we were able to fall off the wind. Just five degrees made a big difference. Pretty soon we were motor-sailing and by Diana’s last sunrise watch she was able to shut the engine off and sail along Farewell Spit, an amazing 25km sandbank off the northwestern corner of the South Island at the opening of Cook Strait. The winds were light but sweet. Finally! ~MS
We had to ‘hot bunk’ which (sounds better than it is), means sharing the same berth in shifts because the boat is heeling too much in one direction to utilize the other side. I left Marcus a chocolate on his pillow to further sweeten his off watch experience!Gotta love modern times – ship captains of yore didn’t used to provide their first mates with latte’s as a wake up! Feeling grateful …First light on the last day of our passage.Oh hello dawn, we see you!The same sunrise unfurling.Allora and her crew get some sweet, smooth motion before finally rounding Farewell Spit and finding an anchorage.Allora seems to keep a steady pace, but her crew at this point can feel like horses heading back to the barn, anxious to just GET THERE! It’s definitely a lesson in savoring what IS!Before we even tucked into Abel Tasman, my phone started ‘bleeping’ frantically, the first Wifi messages in nearly 3 months came flooding in. I have to say, both sides of the phone equation are awesome – putting it away, disconnected from the world and then THIS! Siblings reunited for the first time in 3 years! Love in pixels!And Grandma Elizabeth sandwiches are always delicious!Marcus’ reaction when I shared these pics.Bark Bay, our first anchorage in Abel Tasman. We contemplated getting Namo off our foredeck and exploring that little sweet beach, but instead, we just sat on deck and savored the stillness.This gull landed as we were just feet away on deck.Grey skeletal remains of wilding pines (invasive conifers in NZ).
Logbook entry says, ‘Choppy Sloppy!’Marcus usually smiles and hand steers through the rough stuff!
The run outside between Caswell and George Sounds is around 14 miles. We left early to try to beat some forecast rain and gusty NW winds, and almost made it. The rain started just as we made our turn in. Diana logged the max wind at 27.2 knots, then went down and crossed it out to a revised 29 knots. By the time the wind had blasted us another two miles down the sound, Diana had crossed that out to record 42 knots. Looking on the chart with the wind howling behind us, we were concerned if Anchorage Cove would be able to offer any shelter from this angle of wind, even though it’s listed as an ‘all-weather anchorage.’ We worried it might be too gusty to safely negotiate the narrow spot between the river bar and small rocky island. We decided to poke in and check it out if we could. Right away the wind dropped into the low twenties then the teens, which still felt like a lot to try getting into the tight spot where fishermen had set up a line we could theoretically side tie to. The rain hammered down as Diana watched from the bow for shallow rocks off the island and I maneuvered Allora in, ready to back out if we needed. Despite whitecaps just outside, the winds this close to the little island dropped to near zero and Allora was able to hover effortlessly while Diana (in the kayak) quickly tied lines on the bow and stern, getting absolutely soaked in the process. It was a kind of a crazy feeling, the sudden stillness and security of that spot with gusts in the forties not half a mile away. We wouldn’t have guessed even from a couple hundred yards out that it was worth chancing. ~MS
Super tricky spot to get Allora tucked up into, it required getting sidled alongside the fishermen’s line while keeping Allora out of a couple way too shallow spots. We sat in 6’8″ of water at low tide and we draw 6’6″!Good thing I love RAIN! (less so, freezing rain!)We were tied between an island and the very close shore, with all sorts of debris having also been deposited in the relatively calm cove.Weather’s clearing! The George River valley as seen from our small spot called, ‘Anchorage Cove.’A new day dawns!!Heading up with Namo to explore the George River (Marcus with fishing gear, me with a camera, both with awe).Might we hear Wyatt saying, ‘watch your back cast Dad?!’Luscious landscape!
I meandered along the trail in the woods while Marcus ambled upriver casting. People often ask about how we manage to find alone time living on a boat – this is one way.
When I saw this ‘rock of plenty,’ I knew I’d not make it too much farther up the trail!
Found this online: “Nurse logs are described as offering a verdant opportunity to contemplate the passing of time, the generational handoff, and the support we can offer each other.” HERE, HERE!
I was right there with this and still don’t know what it is I was seeing?!
No fish, still smiling – tough day on a beautiful river.Heading back out of the river just in time for some new rain to fall. Allora is just there on the other side of the river bar.Before we left this anchorage for another, I had designs to see if the existing water hose was flowing so we could fill our tanks. My outfits are devolving, but my motivation was intact!This was the waterfall right near Allora which was off color from the recent downpour, but the hose would have been buried far above in cleaner water (I hoped).Sadly, the hose wasn’t producing more than the faintest trickle. There was a fair surge in this little cove and the thick, heavy hose was all entangled in the exposed low tide rocks. Got that cleared but still no water. After some soaking wet, slippery scrambling a ways above the falls, I found the other end of the hose and ‘yahoo’, all I needed to do was secure it back in the water! I was PRETTY tickled with my own cleverness and couldn’t wait to tell Marcus about my heroic efforts (yeah, I’ve been reading about the role of the ego, yeah, I still need to read more!) but you probably can sense the anticlimax here – it didn’t work!!! UGH. So sad. I was exhausted and deflated, but thankful that I’m also reading about gratitude so I could be appreciative of our water maker!We moved down to the end of the sound, poked into a somewhat famous (for sandflies) anchorage called, ‘Alice Falls,’ but didn’t stay because we were itching (pun) to sit at an old school free- swinging anchorage, which was also an option at the head of the bay.More typical weather for Fiordland.
Little Blue Penguins seem pretty tiny to handle what Fiordland must dish up?!My mom moved from southern to northern California while we were in George Sound. Thank you, dear siblings, for manifesting such an effort! Wish we could have helped, but know that we were sending soggy hugs from Fiordland! Weird to be on the other side of the planet when bigger life changes occur.
The rain eased but the wind came up in our free swinging yet exposed anchorage, so we moved back over to Alice Falls – tucked back in a very sweet cove offering lots of protection. Believe it or not, besides the prolific sandflies, this place mainly gets complaints about the noise from the roaring falls!
The next morning, we had glorious sun!Good thing, because EVERYTHING was wet! Scenic laundromat.We took Namo over to the George Sound DOC hut, to take the hike up to Lake Katherine.Again, mainly a hunter’s cabin, but it was past the season, so we found it empty.
This hut is mainly used by hunters during the season. There is also an ‘expert’ rated 18 km (one way) tramping (backpacking) route from Lake TeAnau to George Sound, but it’s seriously overgrown and described by Wyatt as ‘burly.’ We hiked up just 2k (one way) to Lake Katherine and it took AWHILE on some very soggy but ‘georgeous’ trail!Nicer hut than the Caswell 2 person.
One of the first things we had to do was something Marcus had hoped to avoid entirely – a classic 3 wire bridge with no netting or boardwalks. These are being replaced almost entirely by swing bridges or suspension bridges, but some remain in Fiordland. This river was just too high to try to wade.So many glorious hours spent traipsing through Fiordland’s grand forests. In Japan it’s called, ‘shinrin-yoku,’ or eco-therapy forest bathing. (It was our most frequent bathing!)Noticing the wee ones.Textures, too.And oh so fresh mountain water!!!! (Consider that we normally drink reverse osmosis water from our de-salination system).
Some Root Beer gummy worms?
Had hopes of seeing this Wapiti at the lake since this track was so fresh.Lake Katherine.Look what showed up just as we arrived?!Sweetly imperfect.Colorful plate mushroom.
Our return. More my kind of thing – I’d have paid to go on it!Idyllic scene, lovely day.It’s entirely unnerving to send that drone up and off the deck of Allora. I give Marcus huge credit for being willing to face the tummy tumult -maybe he’s tempted by the comfy clothing?He uses the screen and I watch the actual drone, just in case.So worth it, right?!We tried scrambling up the true left side of Alice Falls the next day to maybe reach Alice Lake, but neither of us had what it would take!After 5 nights in glorious George, we set out on a ‘splitter bluebird’ day for Bligh Sound. Too cold for sandflies on this sunny am!And LOOK WHO accompanied us, smiling all the while?!Thanks for the mighty sweet escort!
We glided through Thompson Sound early in the am so as to avoid forecasted weather and seas on the outside.On our way out to open ocean. Had to go check out this unusual formation?!What looked like snow was actually bare white stone under shallow rooted vegetation (including trees) which ‘slide’ in big rains.This mauve color was authentic and WOW!The rocks at the fiord ‘mouth’ are always treacherous and we keep PLENTY of distance. This weather is more characteristic of the area than the gorgeous month + we’ve been wildly lucky to enjoy.Of all the fiords, we only skipped Chalky Inlet and Nancy Sound. This was the narrow entrance to Nancy and although you can’t see it in this pic, it looked sufficiently tight and rough to make us feel ok about our earlier decision to give it a miss (based on our need to get to Picton for some much needed boat work before our Fiji passage in June).Charles Sound/Taiporoporo. It had rained the day before, and often we are on the lookout for debris, but this downright tree wasn’t going to be missed! Later, we did hit a log at full speed and never saw it, just heard the dull thud on Allora’s hull 🙁
Charles Sound doesn’t have quite the extensive ‘tentacles’ as Doubtful or Dusky – there are only two! We chose Gold Arm and found such a dear spot for Allora just through this narrow gap, behind Catherine Island. There was a fisherman’s line in place, so we pulled right up alongside it and secured Allora at all 3 cleats, Voilá! (No anchor.)Birdsong and sandflies aplenty!The shoreline of Charles is entrancing!
Seaweed left high and dry on display at low tide.
Abstracts
My favorite of Diana’s photographs from Fiordland are the “abstracts,” which she discovers by looking in a very careful, unique way, at the tidal line along the rocks, that magical transitional space between the hidden world underwater and the green, vibrant life-on-fire world above. Bare stone, stained and painted with time and color, bent and reflected by the still, secret, freshwater shimmering over the tide, the infinite, creative capacity of nature. Diana uses framing to share this vision, to point out Nature’s mastery of abstract art. It’s no surprise (and no accident) that these images feel so profoundly connected to her mosaic work. Most of the time these photographic expeditions are her solo meditations, which she shares with me when she gets back to Allora (after hours in the kayak!). But I’ve also been with her, paddling Namo gently into position, sitting right next to her, appreciating the wholeness of a beautiful place but without quite seeing what she is seeing. These images, for me, represent a particular (and particularly magical) collaboration between Diana and this very, very special world we are navigating in Fiordland.~MS
We heard dolphins exhale RIGHT beside Allora, so donned our goofy outfits, lowered Namo off the davits and went out around the corner to see if they’d still be about. A visual feast: the bush, the shoreline, dolphins and the water, ahhh!!!There were 6, and they were nonplussed by us. (I just went down a Wifi wormhole reading about how ‘nonplussed’ is a contronym!)See the dorsal fin shape in the intertidal zone, too?!
After that glorious evening light, we settled in for what would be torrential rain all night. We saw 38.5 knots of wind as our max, but from the N/NW – a good direction for this location.In the morning the water was chocolate colored and there were gushing waterfalls EVERYWHERE!
We had hopes of taking Namo up the Windward River at the head of the bay, but it was a raging ‘NO!’
Sinuous lines, ‘tidelines’ of foam where two currents meet.
Instead of moving Allora over to Emelius Arm, we left her tucked by Catherine Island and ventured 5 miles with Namo in the FREEZING early morning! Visibility was almost nil, but we went slowly and visualized a log free path!By the time we arrived at the head of Emelius Arm, the sun had started coming up over the peaks, so we knew we’d be warm soon! It’s always harder than we imagine to find where the river (which comes from up high in the canyon ) flows into the sound. Sometimes our guide books showed an approximate position, but not always. We were tempted to follow these shadow arrows, as they seemed to be pointing the way!Found the Irene River, though at this early stage it was as still as a lake. Our plan was to take Namo up as far as we could and then hike up beyond that until the tide dictated we return.Hallelujah for the sun!Sun makes us all so warm and fuzzy!Through a narrow little offshoot, trees all around, we took Namo back and in (following the sound and a glint of white water) and look what we found?!
Looked it up on our favorite (offline) app, NZ TOPO 50, and learned that this beauty is Marjorie Falls!
Super hard visibility for seeing the myriad snags. It was gorgeous, but took intense focus getting upriver.
Time to hike/fish and let Namo rest.And to the cicada’s surprise, two new creatures showed up!
Happy to get in the forest on foot and lay some hands on these wise elders!Marcus didn’t end up seeing any fish, but it was such a pleasure: gravel beds, a reasonable trail on the true left bank, deer sign and a sun dappled forest.I left this for Marcus so he might see it on his way back down river. Glad I took the pic, because he didn’t!
A fine, fine day!Had to tear ourselves away and still we left about 1.5 hours after our intention, so the water was REALLY ‘skinny’ for our return.
We negotiated snags the whole way and had to walk/pull Namo out the last 200′!
What a beautiful sight, to see Allora peacefully resting just as we’d left her! Phenomenal day!Left Charles Sound at 10am – 3 days of solitude and bliss.
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 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
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.
Our wake was the only disturbance as we slinked up Acheron Passage toward Wet Jacket Arm.Did the whole Astanga practice in sandfly attire on the foredeck, underway but oh so calm.
In our past experience, being this close to shore would NOT feel like where you’d want to be in a big blow, but when in Fiordland …We’re tied every which way!Lavishly colored intertidal zones.It’s always fun to explore after we get Allora all set and secure.Not sure if the sandflies avoid us because we’re covered or just too dorky.Me if we stayed in Fiordland much longer.We just kept cracking up at our ‘get ups.’These teensy charmers were just about a half centimeter!Nature has some clever solutions for seed distribution.Walked up this creekbed for a ways. In general, we managed far more hiking than in most places, despite the clear challenges.
