Dingo's log: Resolution Bay, Queen Charlotte Sound, 17th February 2012

Picton was delightful as we took a 3-day berth in the marina in the town centre.

bike ride in Picton

Picton marina

Rejane made it to the cinema (16 seats, no one else viewing), we ate blue cod at a funky restaurant in the ancient beached scow Echo (110 ft long built in 1916), visited a gallery, the hardware, supermarket, chandlery (for a nut for the prop shaft and wheels to haul the dinghy up the beach - a sure sign of old age).

Echo, the scow

inside Echo

We met three delightful young German journeymen carpenters, belonging to an ancient guild, dressed in their finery and destined to travel for three years and a day before going near their homes. What impressed us was their paucity of baggage (12 kg including tools), their resourcefulness (they were sleeping in a an old truck in a scrapyard), and their beer drinking ability.

the Jouneymen

We sailed down the sound next day and finding it hard to locate an anchorage as all bays and coves seemed to be choked with moorings for the many cribs/batches/holiday homes that occupy every available plausible niche (and some of them not so plausible).

bush bath on the shore

Late the next morning we realized we could skip round Cape Jackson into Pelorus sound and so we did, ending up in an idyllic deserted cove late in the afternoon after 30 miles of motorsailing.

Over the next week we darted around this remote sound and walked the tracks and tried out various anchorages. In one of them we came across Shaun. A 25 year old American who had bought a 27ft yacht for $1200, done it up with self steering, an electric outboard motor (the original engine was stuffed), 8 golf cart batteries and two huge solar panels.

tight anchorage in Hallam cove

Shaun came aboard for one of Rejane’s hot cuisine meals (fresh cockle fritters and chips) to regale us with tales of his solo sail from San Francisco to Samoa (4000nm), then the Cook islands and New Zealand. He fancied his chances down the West Coast to the Fjords. We advised him not to.

One of the best track we walked is the Nydia Track. Beautiful scenery of ferntrees, clear water streams and hardly anybody.

Havelock is a tiny village with a very long shallow approach channel and after the usual first flush of endless showers and a beer and meal ashore we left for more remote coves.

wreck in St Omer bay

In Kenepuru Sound, I walked a stage of the Queen Charlotte track, while Jim/Jamie moved the boat to meet me in the next bay. This famous and beautiful track is part of a longer track that runs from Cape Reinga at the northern tip of New Zealand to Bluff at its southern end.

monkey in the bush

In Dillon Bell Point Cove we met Earn and Marion, snugged into the corner on their yacht Mondial. It turned out Earn had sailed Mondial round the bottom of South Island and into the Fjords in 1993 and that Mondial is the boat featured on the Mana crusing club yachties’ Fjordland Cruising Guide front cover.

Tennyson Inlet 2

In their mid seventies they had spent their lives growing flowers, and cruising the Marlborough Sounds for thirty years or more.

Tennyson inlet

With the clock ticking on an April/May departure for the Pacific islands we headed out of the sound to re-round Cape Jackson and rafted up next to Mistletoe and captain Dave, a Wellingtonian fireman. Dave plied me with beer while Rejane went ashore for a walk. As a result she missed a dolphin circus that started at one end of the cove and gradually worked its way up to the boats, skipped round us and carried on to the far side. Jumping, twisting, tail beating acrobatics for a full half hour.

walking in kiwi bushland

Today India and Helen both sent emails which pleased me no end.

Kenepuru Sound (and resort)

I dived for the first time of the season, using the hookah, mainly to check the new lock nut fit the prop shaft (we need to change the old moth eaten prop for the new one in Wellington) and then to have a look at what’s at the bottom of the bay where we are anchored for the night. Plenty of scallops but unfortunately I realised only a couple of days ago that the scallop season has just finished, so I missed on my favourite seafood … A very curious large blue cod came to check me out. Too beautiful to eat…

Next stop Wellington where we will celebrate the captain’s birthday, 65, pension age!!