Nelson through to Abel Tasman (March 25th)

Nelson Marina

We timed our trip into Nelson perfectly with miserable weather leading us in. However, with shopping, restocking the pantry, fridge and freezer, refuelling and getting some bits and pieces done on the boat we had plenty to fill our days. It was nice to take Jo out to tea on Friday at a nearby Marina Restaurant prior to her heading back to Hamilton to see Tazzy (our cat) and catch up on things there. After a lazy start Saturday morning we went to view a Nelson based boat that was for sale, she was a beast, 78’ long and a big volume boat totally suited to comfortable cruising, probably bigger than I need, after which we headed to down town to buy my wetsuit, followed by a coffee at an amazing award winning cafe that was big on roasting on site so it was the first time I have been asked if I want mild, medium or dark roast!

Do you recognise these people - if so please contact Countdown in Nelson.........

We did return them actually :-)

On Sunday Robin and I woke early - for us, and did our final tidy up of the boat, getting things ‘ship shape’ in preparation for the big trip south on Thursday morning. After spending Three days in Port we are ready to get back out to sea again! We are intending to go direct through to Milford Sound from Golden Bay Port which will give us four days to explore the Abel Tasman Coastline, probably not enough, based on what we have seen to date! Talking with locals and other booties it became clear that the risk versus reward of entering Westport and Greymouth probably isn’t worth it. Having enjoyed both places during a road trip last year, including Hokitika, we discovered that the marinas are not well suited to visiting boats and we would be wanting near perfect conditions to enter the two ports. We also have a great weather window presenting, that will see us cruising in 5 - 10 knot winds with a 1.75 metre sea running, so we don’t want to miss that! We filled up with water and did a small modification to the engine room hatches to get them functioning properly while enjoying our last Barista made coffee in Nelson.

Reversing in to fuelling jetty in Nelson

We left Nelson at 10:00am to cruise north west up the coast towards Torrent Bay, where we planned to stay the night as it offers the best shelter from the sea and wind in the Abel Tasman area. We had a slight swell and glassy surface which basically means we had no wind at all.

Lots of shallow waters to navigate (it was low tide) so we stayed off the shoreline a safe distance with the usual periodic pieces of debris to negotiate. The waters were still quite cloudy from the rain we had had recently but slowly improved the further we travelled from Nelson. We decided to head into Kaiteriteri, a beautiful spot which was a hive of activity. I think this is the first time I have been close to adventure tourism in New Zealand. There were cars and camper vans lining the full length of the beach. We had a young lad in a kayak approach us shortly after we anchored, he was very impressed with the boat and so we had a chat as his Dad who also paddled over in his kayak. I decided to invite them aboard for a look around, which they both eagerly accepted.

We chatted for a short time before realising that we had a connection through a boat we looked at the day before in Nelson and it’s owner. Does everyone know everyone in New Zealand?? Robin had designed the interior layout of this boat too, so it was very bazaar. They hopped in their borrowed kayaks and departed, but not before Shane (the father) rolled the kayak over and fell in the sea! The rest of his whanau came over too just to add insult to injury, poor guy. We had lunch and decided to cruise to Awaroa initially but every bay we passed was just so beautiful we decided to stop at Torrent Bay for the afternoon and evening. We would do Awaroa tomorrow. We passed at least 30 - 40 tandem sea kayaks on the short trip from Kaiteriteri, not to mention taxi boats and ferries running back and forwards!

Kaiteriteri where we chatted with some locals and stayed for lunch

On arriving at Torrent Bay we anchored up and went ashore for a look around discovering a walk of just half an hour duration up and over a hill into one of the bays we passed coming here. I managed top persuade Robin to give it a go, he has a bad foot from an old injury so I was pleased that he wanted to give it a go. We were fully equiped for the trek with bare feet and shorts, that goodness Doc have done such a great job with the tracks here, they were fantastic. Love to see them given more funding for the work they do, they seem to be doing such a great job, it truely must be a labour of love.

Torrent Bay was absolutely pumping, we have had a continuous flow of boats collecting large groups of people as they exited the tracks from Abel Tasman National Park. Most were tourists based on the accents when we greeted them as we past them on the trail. The tourists have clearly done their homework to find these places to visit, that many Kiwis are probably yet to enjoy! We think the last ferry with 50 - 60 people has just departed Torrent Bay (7:00pm) with a front mounted hydraulic gang planks that extend off the bow out onto dry sand. They literally put the nose of the Catamarans onto the beach, extend the plank and allow people to disembark/embark without anyone getting their feet wet!

We came back from our walk and returned to the boat in the dinghy where Robin put the drone up again for some aerial footage of the bay and Horizon III. I put on my newly acquired wetsuit and took it for a test run. It was nice and warm and gave extra buoyancy even through it was very light weight. I decided to check the props while I was in the water and dived down to take a look everything was perfect there were no marks on the Propspeed and no signs of deterioration. The only issue was I was fighting to stay down due to the extra buoyancy of the suit and needed to hold onto the rudder and prop to keep off the underside of the boat! We had the last of our Gurnard for dinner and spent the rest of the evening writing this entry for my Blog.

We both were looking forward to tomorrow and Awaroa Bay.