South Island At Last
After 3 days and nights a of continuous winds of 25 to 40 knots intersperced with horizontal rain, the weather forecast predicted improving conditions throughout Saturday so we decided to get out of Port Taranaki. We weighed anchor before dawn in howling winds although that was not easy, I had both engines in drive to unload the anchor and we were standing still, normally I would be doing 5 knots! With Robin watching the chain, we hauled up our 50 metres of chain (needed to hold the boat), radioed our trip report and vacated Port for our next leg to Nelson. The sea was calm, and we cruised at 15 knots knowing that we would soon be crawling in big seas and needed to cover some ground. As soon as we rounded the point towards Opunake we were exposed, first to 2 metre seas then 3 and ultimately 4 metres. That in itself was ok but when you add an outgoing tide, 2 knots of current and 30 knots of wind in the opposite direction it became interesting. Robin was on the helm now and was braced in the helm seat as we tackled the sea. We were taking the sea on our Port quarter which made for a rough trip for us, but easy for my boat. Horizon III handled the conditions beautifully and predictably, a credit to the design of Alan Warwick, at no time did we feel at risk. We endured 6 hours of making 8 knots and the occasional ‘closed throttles’ as we dropped of the back of waves we were thinking it would never end. We were burying our nose up to the handrail in the next wave in what was a very short sea ( waves close together) then climbing the wave to repeat. Every time I lifted the speed I found I had to slow again with rogue sets coming through. I pushed as hard as reasonable could and eventually found we were doing 10, then 12 and finally 18 knots for the last 60Nm of our crossing. We arrived 12.5 hours later and washed the boat to remove all evidence of a challanging crossing from a Cook Straight that lived up to it’s reputation.
After a late dinner of chicken burgers, following my earlier entre of Pumpkin soup and toasted buns we were both ready for an uninterrupted nights’ sleep in the calm of the Nelson Marina............... more to follow soon