Dusky by name and Dusky by nature!
Dusky Sound in the gloom
We set off to the entrance of Dagg Sound to travel south to Breaksea Sound in 15 knots of wind and on taking a look at the entrance we reckoned it to be about 75% of yesterday so we knew this would be an easier journey today (about 3 hours or so). The weather information that we were able to decipher on the radio said it may reach 25knots in the afternoon with the corresponding deterioration of the sea conditions. It is amazing though how our scale of measuring sea conditions has been adjusted to the southern parts of NZ already, 3-4M sea seems like a very reasonable day to put to sea whereas in the gulf we wouldn’t even venture out! We had figured out after 7 days of terrible weather that if you don’t want to be here for ever, you need to make the best of the opportunities that do present. We set off straight out to the west to get a nice turn to run down the coast as the sea was running from the SW. We sat on 8.5 knots and selected auto pilot and she was tracking beautifully. We still needed to monitor closely for rogue sets, of which there were always a few sneaking up on us.
Without drama, we rolled in to Breaksea Sound and cruised all the way down the Acheron Passage to Cook Passage Dusky Sound. The look and feel was quite similar to other sounds but really hard to judge properly in the terrible weather we were having. With only one half-day of patchy sun in 8 days, we are beginning to feel the gloom of isolation. No cell, internet, barely any VHF coverage and unable to receive a complete weather update, it makes it very difficult to plan. We had rain and heavy mist all the way in, that is about 19Nm inland! We had some anchor chain counter issues that meant we would prefer not to anchor but rather take a mooring. We had seen none so far and we were over half way in. I decided to tuck into an inlet on one of the internal Islands which was quite sheltered from the swell and wind ripping through to see a house boat moored up with a fizz boat attached. We cruised in to see if we could tie up to the house boat but with no one there and a few obstacles close to the houseboat we decided to look deeper into the sound. I had been radioing on VHF, ‘all traffic Dusky Sound’ for some time, trying the local call up channel and the new repeater channel 18 but we got no reply. That was because we were the only ones there! Just as we turned to go deeper into Dusky a helicopter flew in over the hill like Tom Cruise in a action movie, he swooped straight down over the hill turned hard to the left and was balanced on top of the houseboat in a matter of a few seconds. I was impressed! Remembering that helicopters also monitor channel 10 I prepared to call him once he hopped back in to the chopper. He was busy firing in empty jerry cans, he was disconnected from his radio. With rotor still running he was soon back in the chopper and off. I took the opportunity to call him and he responded immediately. I explained that we needed a mooring for the night and he said to head into Supper Cove by the Doc hut. So we cruised towards our spot. We had been running for only 5 minutes or so and he radioed again to let us know that he had just passed over the bay and confirmed that the mooring was free. We passed on our thanks and he wished us well for our stay. God only knows how these guys fly through here, visibility was absolutely terrible and speaking as a former light plane pilot, there is no way I would be up there!
About 45 minutes later we rolled in to Supper Cove and saw the mooring ahead. We cruised up and Robin worked his magic up front hooking the line and drawing it up into anchor well. Most boats have their bowsprit on top which makes tying up to mooring very easy indeed but our through-hull anchor makes it a lot harder. Once we were secure, we set about looking into the anchor sensor problem while Robin reviewed this I carried out some repairs to our port side windscreen wiper arm which had rattled loose, two key fixing screws had gone over the side in the heavy sea conditions. I cut down some spare screws we had on board and got it sorted also checking that all the other wipers were secure. Some others were coming loose also so I simply nipped them up again. We can operate any three or all wipers so we will rest the port wiper where we can. After our two jobs were complete we had a great meal of chicken breasts wrapped in bacon with our usual fresh salad and potatoes to accompany them. It is worth noting, that we have been running for 12 days now without any addition food supplies. We have only two complete meals left so we will need to be catching fish tomorrow or we will be eating anything we can find! We reckon we can go another 5 days before we start looking at each other as a possible meal?? Whole lettuces are amazing, we just give them a little water every couple of days and the last one is still fresh! We still have lots of Avocados, Tomatoes, Beetroot , grapes and other fruit so we have been eating well all the way. The lobster and fish we were given by the Hansen brothers a couple of days ago certainly helped us extend our meal supplies.
We both were tired after another long day on the helm in tough conditions so by 9:00pm it was off to bed with high expectations of a fine day tomorrow! Yeah right!