We rolled into Port at about 1:00pm after stopping to pick up our dinner (gurnard & Blue Cod). The port is a little bit exposed but, you know what they say, ‘any port in a storm’. Thankfully we don’t have the storm. The port here came courtesy of Golden Bay Cement even though, soon after, they closed up shop here. It has left a great asset for the area. We saw a huge barge loaded with rock destined for Transmission Gully roading project supplied from one of the two Quarries nearby, so their wharf is still being used to commercial advantage, at least for one company!
The marina is reasonable in size and is home to many of the Commercial mussel harvesting fleet which we understand is poised to grow by an enormous amount in the very near future, not sure where all the pleasure craft will be accommodated??
I had to post some documents today so we walked the 1.6k to the general store where the mailbox was. They were very helpful giving me an envelope and selling me the stamp and a couple of items we needed. We walked back down the road to the local cafe and enjoyed an awesome coffee or two. On the way back we took some photos of the roadside features, predominantly rock formations. As you can see in one photo these were being exploited by participants in an Outward Bound activity. This was a seriously high vertical structure. The other photo shows a huge rock structure that rests on another. The one on the right was pushed over to meet the left hand side rock during an 8.2 magnitude earthquake around 1930. The rock was chiseled away from below to allow the road to pass through again. Some of these overhangs looked really precarious and I felt like running under them rather than walking!
Girls can do anything! This was a serious physical challenge and from the discussions going on was very demanding.
The rock structure on the right fell across to touch the other structure during an earthquake. They then had to carve out the stone to open up the road again. It is very clear from the structure of the rocks that this account is accurate.
After returning to the boat we meet our new neighbour, Bill who was travelling around NZ in a 18M steel yacht with his wife. A retired pre-flight inspection and testing engineer from Boeing, he took early retirement during a staff culling phase at Boeing recently. They were about to follow our track back to Auckland once they saw a good weather window. A bloody long haul at 6-7 knots! He liked our tender lift, so took some photos as he was planning to have something similar made for his boat; his was marginal for the weight of their tender (dinghy).
We woke to a beautiful day Wednesday after a wet and, at times, windy night. We certainly knew we were in a working Port! Last boat turned up 9:30pm and pulled in next to us with enough lights blazing to play a rugby test match under! The next time we heard them was when they started the engines again at 4:15am; these guys are certainly putting in the hours, four days on and four days off, but very long days!
After breakfast Robin set about trying to get the anchor light working again and after much perseverance, he managed to get them working. These lights are very useful when setting and retrieving the anchor in windy conditions at night, much easier than the head mounted torch, that is for sure! We worked our way through our check list, prepared the night before, to ensure we were properly prepared to run all day from Thursday 5:30am and on through the night to arrive in Milford Sound Friday afternoon at 12:00 noon.
We waved goodbye to Bill and his wife who set off for Cape Reinga in their yacht and set about sorting things out on Horizon III. We polished the top sides of the boat and glass so Horizon III is looking amazing! We need a wax coating to handle the massive amount of salt washing over the boat in heavy seas, ensuring we will arrive back in Auckland with very little deterioration to the external surfaces of the boat. Tomorrow we are expecting 15 Knots initially as we pass Cape Farewell Spit, dropping to 10 Knots as we progress further south with about a 3.5 Metre sea rolling in from the west, pretty normal conditions for this coastline and with light winds the swell will present no problems for us. All in all a relatively uneventful day for us. We saw a beautiful sunset over Golden Bay and watched the Auckland Tug Kurutai tow the massive rock laden barge out of the Port destined for Wellington. It is a long haul for them at a snails pace. Robin had the drone up so we got some great shots, some of which we have posted in this blog.
Auckland Tug Kurutai leaving Port with huge fully laden barge in tow - destination Wellington.
Horizon III in Port
We are just about to call it a day to get a good night sleep, our last for a day or two. I think I have all our meals sorted for this leg, so It is now time to get on with it. I enjoy the edge, just a nice amount of nerves for the challenge ahead. That is why we do these things; it certainly keeps one on your toes and most importantly, the ‘grey matter’ working. Next Blog Milford Sound.........................
Last shot of the day taken from the boat in Port Golden Bay