Nirvana – Page 4 – Allora Voyage

Broughton Arm, Breaksea/Te Puaitaha Sound, Captivating! – Fiordland.

Drying out the PRADA on Allora’s lifelines!

Moving from Wet Jacket Arm to Breaksea Sound.

Reflections

Being at sea, on the sea, there is always a close and present awareness of the line which divides the landed world and the underwater universe, though normally, the waves demand our attention and keep that parallel universe well hidden, and away from our thoughts. The eerie sense of depth creeps in at odd moments when something reminds you of the rocky bottom and the multilayered world of fishes below. In tropical water sometimes the bottom is visible at enormous, ludicrous depths, as the time we motored into the Gambier on a glassy sea and Diana could see sharks clearly in the pass a hundred feet below us. But in Fiordland, the water is usually hundreds of feet deep within just a couple boat lengths away from the “shore.” The water is not murky but light barely penetrates. Stillness is legendary here, also the shimmering layer of freshwater floating atop the tide, that looks like heatwaves in the desert. You can peer straight down and see golden leaves tumbling in the current above the darkened depths. But most of the time, the Sounds keep their secrets well hidden and the water mirrors back the soaring peaks and luxuriant waterfalls and exuberant beach and fern forests, doubling the awe. As stunning as it is, the obvious trick of the mind is to delete the bottom half of the image as “merely” a repetition. Sometimes I had to be reminded to see it another way. Perhaps because she was photographing these landscapes, Diana learned to see these reflection even more vividly, to delight in the ubiquitous natural Rorschach.~MS

Neat that this stunning landscape so often gets a glimpse of itself!

One of the handful of times we were able to actually pull a sail out – too much or too little winds to work with.

‘Real Journeys’ run tour boats through some of the fiords. They never stay put for long.

Approaching the ‘head of the bay,’ to anchor, we’d have to be really cautious about the typically steep sided, silty sandbank which gets created by the river outflow.

We were primed to love Broughton Arm. Tony, a New Zealand sailor we met in Tonga (from an Auckland sailboat building family) got there ahead of us and posted his impression, the humbling sense of privilege he felt to be in the remote presence of such mighty granite walls and peaks. “Paradise found!,” he exclaimed. It’s hard to think of a way to convey the heart sense of moving through pristine and unpeopled areas like this, the sense that goes beyond the imagery, the waterfalls, and magnificent trees, the wildlife. The sense of living stone and water and place. You look at one of the these peaks soaring above the the fiord continually stunned by the mass and energy represented there, and then by the bounty of life exuberantly, vividly greening those granite flanks. And water, water, water everywhere. ~MS

When the sun shines overhead, the sandbank (and its’ creatures – see the ray?) are super visible and too shallow for Allora’s 2m draft.

We found a deeper edge (50′) where we dropped our Australian made Sarca Excell anchor. Started with one shore line and added another later when the wind picked up.

The fog came flooding out of the canyon head early in the morning and I ran out (coffee in hand), jumped in Namo and started rowing into it to take some pics. Didn’t realize I was still in my warm fleece onesie and had no sandfly protection. Totally worth it.

The sun reached the highest peaks and it only morphed the fog into yet more beautiful iterations.

This is a close up from the lower left corner of that last photo!

Whitebait are eaten whole with the head, tail guts and the lot still intact – most often fried, the tiny, delicate nature of the fish make them a highly sought-after dish. We were generously given these and they were described as if they were a truffle, so I was hoping they’d taste like lobster!

Been vegetarians for a couple years, but pescatarians, really, since we live on the sea and can catch FRESH fish. These were only attempted because they were a gift.

Prepared/Disguised as described by the local fishermen, in eggs, but they were a no go for me. Marcus ate them but said he wouldn’t walk across the street to get some more.

My kakak excursions were often 2-3 hours and almost a meditation with the slow movement and extreme focus on details. Instead of covering distance, I got into just looking closer and closer at EVERYTHING!

It had rained the night before, so everything was drippy and bathed with fresh water. The top 10 metres or so of the fiord is freshwater. The area gets 7-9 meters (22-29′) of rainfall every year, emptying into the sounds via its many rivers and waterfalls. On its way, this runoff picks up tannins from plants and soil that stain the freshwater the colour of tea.

Even the boulders share their world with lichen.

Suddenly 10 of these HUGE 1 meter (3-4′) fish darted all around me! They had a shark like, predator attitude and I only learned later that they were Kingfish, or Haku/Kahu in Māori. It definitely broke me out of my close focused, serene mental state!

Saw this and had to go closer to see if I was imagining a ray shape?!

A New Zealand/Australian Eagle Ray (*Myliobatis tenuicaudatus*)! (Looked it up later – I have never seen an eagle ray like this).

I did a double take on this daisy, as it was the ONLY one I saw in Fiordland, EVER! Must have been early or late season?!

Time to head back to Allora when this is what I’m seeing!

Not the easiest thing to pilot from aboard a sailboat, but at least we’re at anchor!

A much clearer view of that sandbank we need to avoid.

Another phenomenal day dawns in Broughton Arm.

We’ve had to carry all of our trash since leaving Oban in Stewart Island, so we clean and cut any plastics, smash our aluminum cans and stack paper. Talked about making this a weekly practice, but usually we’d wait till the buckets were overflowing!

And the kind of Kokopelli-esque shadow?!

How ’bout Narcissus seeing his own reflection?!

Hehe. Couldn’t resist. (Marcus, in sandfly attire, was actually looking at fish!)

Heading from Broughton Arm to Vancouver Arm.

Wet Jacket Arm, not just any Arm – Fiordland.

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 …

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.

Possibly another lichenized fungus, but I’m not sure?! Will research!

We ended up with buckets of rain and big winds from the west. At night there was bioluminescence as the raindrops hit the water!!!

The next day there were waterfalls everywhere, and the creekbed we had walked up was a river!

Lots to captivate ~ lingering rainbows, new waterfalls, breathtaking bush, dolphins and surreal reflections while moving up to the end of Wet Jacket Arm. I wrote these words in the logbook from that day: ‘OH MY GOODNESS – A VISUAL FEAST!’

A group of maybe 12 Bottlenose cruised along the shore, paralleling our movements for :45!

Sphagnum magellanicum, commonly called Magellanic bogmoss.

Another stunning move to our next anchorage NE of Oke Island. Happy me.

While trying to decide if we’d head out on an afternoon hike at Herrick Creek across the bay, this rainbow arched directly over the access point, so our decision was made!

We should most definitely look up to them.

As if ‘normal’ colored mushrooms weren’t rad enough already?!

And THESE?!!! (I’ll hope to edit in some names later).

Heard there are no poisonous berries in NZ, but we didn’t dare.

Time time time

the blink of an eye

this old tree stands

long passed her prime

twists and turns and bends

green and tattered limbs

once a luxurious crown, thin and brittle now

built a mighty trunk

roots bound to ancient stone

deep fissures of wisdom

etched by sun and boundless sky

age like vines creeps in

dancing with cruel and gentle winds

obliging every whim

mist and storm, drought and deluge

now these wooden branches

broken and hollow

hang as open arms

rings within rings

home of a million creatures

grateful or indifferent

loss and love make her beautiful

mother to a forest ~MS

A shelf mushroom with the same myriad colors as our magic tree.

These water droplet patterns reminded me of molecular structures from Chemistry.

There are more. Message me if you want the full repertoire?! I kept thinking that our Magic tree might know just what was being communicated here.

Mountains and Waterfalls and Reflections, oh my! Preservation Inlet/Rakituma – FIORDLAND,

Heading across the Tasman Sea, the farthest South Allora’s ever been!

I took this pic of Marcus cozily sleeping off watch …

… and without knowing I had, he took this of me in the same state!

Last Cove, Preservation Inlet

My first series of thoughts were about the precariousness of our situation, and how much we depend on our engine, despite being a sailboat. What in the world would Captain Cook do? We had arrived at the entrance to Preservation Inlet a couple of hours too early, despite our attempts to slow Allora down. No wind but a big southwest swell colliding with a northerly chop was making going slow under power uncomfortable, the mainsail slatting back and forth despite the preventer. We had already decided to edge up toward Dusky Sound (another twenty miles onward) and go in there instead as long as the forecast northerly held off. I’d barely turned Allora in that direction when the wind began building, directly on our nose, gusting up to 16 knots. No harm in poking a little further that way, to kill time. The Puysegur lighthouse flashed bright and high on our beam, a reminder of where in the world’s oceans we were. Puysegur hosts gale winds or stronger 300 days a year. The weather models showed the next gale arriving by afternoon, by which time we needed to be safely tied up at anchor. The first issue with the engine I noticed was that the display at the nav station was off. Weird, I thought. Then I noticed the gauges in the cockpit, shutting off and popping back on. Very weird. Then the engine warning came on, beeping insistently. What the heck? Thinking mainly at this point of not waking Diana who’d had a very rough night already struggling to get to sleep for the first few hours of my watch, I quickly shut the engine down. Then as we slowed in the airless swell, I pushed the button to start it back up. It flashed and went off. I tried again, it stayed on long enough for me to get a couple slow, battery dead, rolls of the engine. I had been thinking it was time to replace this starter battery, in fact, I had just had a conversation with Willy on Pazzo about how you know when your starter battery is dead. I should have known better than to bring this up with him, since the last boat conversation I’d had with him was about our flawless autopilot, which literally failed the next day (the first time in six and half years). For a few panicked moments I couldn’t think about anything except the weather forecasts I’d been looking at that predicted wind on the nose if you tried to sail for Dusky and no wind at Puysegur until the arrival of the gale. I guess Captain Cook would just have had to sit there roll in the three meter swell and wait for however many hours it was going to be until the gale chased him in. I didn’t like the sound of that at all. I went below and switched the starter battery to combine with the house batteries and the engine started up. Phew! But the engine warning was still blaring CHCK ENGINE. Amazingly, Diana was still sound asleep, despite about the blaring warning lights, or me running up and down the companionway, starting and stopping the engine. Okay, I checked the oil. I checked the temperature. I checked the cooling system. I checked the transmission. All good. The engine sounded absolutely fine. I’d installed the display at the Nav because supposedly it might give me more information than just CHCK ENGINE… how about check battery, or check electrical system? I reluctantly woke up Diana to tell her about the situation. It definitely did not seem like a good idea to head toward Dusky, we agreed. I figured out how to make the engine warning beep a little bit quieter below and she tried to get back to sleep. I started a slow zig zag toward Puysegur lighthouse, chugging along at under 3 knots, keeping a wary eye on the churning cauldron of Balleny Breaks less than a mile northeast of us and slowly got used to the steady ringing of the engine warning. We motored up the stunning Preservation Inlet to Last Cove as I kicked myself for ignoring my instinct to replace that starter battery. I’d checked it and it seemed okay, but it would have been relatively cheap and easy to replace it, just in case, and not be in this situation. Our first anchorage in Fiordland. We’ve been working on how to set our anchor and lines, a sleepless night from the passage and an engine with a steady CHCK ENGINE still blaring did not make it easier. With a big blow coming we wanted to get it right. 300 feet of rode and two lines to shore.

The weather models, all four that we download via satellite, predicted this narrow window for rounding the great cape on Stewart Island and sailing with an easterly breeze up to the notorious Puysegur before the wind switched northerly with forecast 50+ knot gusts. We put a lot of faith in them, and they were spot on. After a long nap, I started the project of dealing with the starter battery. My idea was to replace it with one of the house batteries. In the process, I had the thought to check the Duo Charger which regulates the battery charging from the engine’s alternators. The installation showed two fuses and as I pulled the wires to find the inline fuse, I noticed the one for the starter battery was a bit loose. I tightened it up, started the engine, and the charging voltage jumped up right to where it belonged. A loose wire. That was all. Three turns of a screw. ~MS

Dropping the Mainsail. Last time we’ll be sailing for quite awhile. Fiordland is either glassy calm or all out gales.

The new GEEK garb, protected (hopefully) from sandflies and the chilly temps!

We started to learn about seeing in this new dimension of the reflection!

The tides can be sizable and what’s revealed at low can be a wonderland of color.

Stern tying still takes awhile to finesse.

Let the storm begin! This is another ‘all weather anchorage,’ so we hoped the name was apt.

Most of the time it was calm inside and were spared the fury of the wind.

Adjusting the snubber and letting every bit of rode out.

These rainbow williwaw’s would wash over Allora with about 40kts of wind – I had to hold on tightly to get the pic!

Cascade Cove, Preservation Inlet

We arrived as the announcement came over the PA on a small Real Adventures cruise boat anchored at dead center in the cove, “the generator will be turned off at 9:30 and then back on again at 6:00 for your convenience…” Two crew walked to the bow, short sleeved black uniforms and to our delight, weighed anchor, the boat disappeared past the head of the cove and left us to the cheerful sound of a small waterfall pouring down the rocks next to a stout blue shoreline. We dropped our own anchor and tied up a boat length from shore. One of our books said that brown trout inhabit the river which flows into the lake above the dramatic falls at the head of the cove. A mere two kilometers as the Tui flies. All we needed to do is scramble up the side of the falls, then bushwack along the lakeshore. We clambered up, relying on roots and branches for hand holds, worrying about the way back down, and somehow made it to the top of the falls. The steep sided outlet of the lake forced us up and up over fallen mossy logs and broken rock faces. Every step was a miniature triumph as we inched and wiggled and scooted minutely closer. The edge of the lake, walking in the shallow was better for a while, until it became a mote of surprise waist deep holes and fallen logs. After hours invested in about a kilometer of progress, we admitted defeat and turned back, now knowing what lay ahead. Many times we expressed gratitude for the near absence of sandflies and the forest herself was pure magic of green mosses and deep ferns and wise old trees. Back at the outlet of the lake where for a brief time there had been trail flags to follow, we found a row boat pulled ashore that we had walked right by. Those Long River brown trout will never know how close them came. The biggest challenge was finding our way back down to the dinghy tied up in the outflow below the falls. We had cleverly laid out markings with sticks on our way up to mark the way, but those didn’t work out any better than bread crumbs did for Hansel and Gretel. We cliffed out, over and over again, but eventually, banged, bruised and muddy found a way down, never more happy to find Namo, dutifully waiting to take us home.

Cascade Falls, as seen from our anchorage.

Some anchorages had water hoses attached to falls (fishermen installed) so we filled up our tanks by scooting RIGHT alongside this wall, keeping Allora’s mast clear of the overhanging trees.

I know, let’s climb to the top of the Falls! And then cross that lake up there to get to the river beyond. Extricating limbs from branches. The adventure begins …

Fiordland’s stunning (and impenetrable) bush.

We kept calling out to each other, so as not to get completely lost!

You could spend a lifetime learning about all the ferns of Fiordland.

Words cannot describe the magical trees of Fiordland’s bush.

So close to that river, and yet so far …

We ‘hiked’ to the top of Cascade Falls/Cascade Basin

That river is so close, but without deciding to swim, we just couldn’t get there.

Cascade Falls in low light upon our return.

Allora stays put while we go off adventuring.

Heading over to our last anchorage in Preservation, Isthmus Cove.

Marcus was able to maneuver Allora crazy close to these walls because the steep drop offs and sufficient depths.

I found myself seeing abstracts in the tidal zone.

Next stop: Fiordland/Dusky Sound