I had spent three Thursdays in Bluff now and the fourth Thursday was fast approaching with me feeling anxious about potentially being stuck here forever. Don’t get me wrong I have nothing against Bluff. Being a South Islander myself I was excited to sail from Hobart back to the mainland(as us Kiwis call it). The incoming weather was a beautiful mild sunny day and I explained to the Aussies that this is always what an NZ summer is like. Boy was I wrong. What to follow in my three Thursdays in Bluff was one of the coldest, windiest Summers I may have ever experienced in NZ. This was of course an unusually bad summer as the locals would assure me. I hadn’t been to Bluff for 20years so I was happy to take their word for it. I do however have fond memories of Bluff from that time as I came down to compete in my Starling in the South Island Champs. The Bluff Yacht Club was just as I remembered it and the people as accomodating as ever as you can imagine in a small town.

So why was my time in Bluff measured by Thursdays you may ask? Well this is the racing night for the yacht club of course! The first Thursday myself and a few crew who had come with me from Hobart agreed to come and sail in the clubs lasers and sunbursts for race night. Unfortunately the breeze never filled in and it proved to be a bit of a floater, but it was nice to get out on a dinghy after not having sailed one for a very long time! Lots of laughs were had and there was no capsizing which I think my Aussie counterparts were very pleased about.

The next Thursday I had agreed to take the club out for a sail on Salt Lines. Unfortunately it had been blowing 40kts throughout the day and I had my anchor wrapped around the mooring buoy(which is a tale for another time). The best I could do was offer a tour of the boats and provide hot chocolates and bikkies for everyone! That was enough for the club, and they enthusiastically motored out to see us on our mooring buoy. The third and final Thursday was spent with Sharon and I heading over to the club to talk about our own extensive(mainly Sharon’s) sailing careers and hopefully inspire some young sailors into chasing their own dreams! Special thanks to the club for being so accomodating while we were in town.

So as I mentioned the fourth Thursday was fast approaching………if I was to spend one more Thursday at the club they might’ve started asking me for my membership fees!

My new intrepid crew had started arriving in dribs and drabs over the space of a week. Unfortunately due to bad weather, our DOC inspection had been pushed back a whole week from our original departure time. Those who were happy to come early despite this were swiftly put to work with all the tricky jobs I’d left for them to do. We went over the boat with a fine toothed comb, making sure everything was secure and tidy for our impending inspection. Skipper Sharon arrived a few days after our ‘working bee’ had begun and made sure no stone was left unturned in terms of safety and reliability of our boat’s systems.

The major thing we had to worry about was being prepared to anchor in 50-60kt winds in fairly exposed anchorages. Steve and Paul set to work splicing our spare anchor to the anchor rode(thanks guys!) We don’t normally use this anchor but we would need to have it ready to go if our main anchor was to fail. Another consideration was potentially having to drop 2 anchors in the adverse conditions to hold us in place. Another snubber was purchased and reinforcing added to each snubber to minimise the risk of chafe under load.

Our newly fixed engine driven bilge pump was installed after a lot of head scratching and the realisation that half of the pump had been re-attached upside down. With this now installed this meant that if we were to experience a large amount of water ingress we could get rid of the water at an extremely fast rate(don’t ask me how fast). With our resident electrician Andrew onboard we also managed to install our new windlass pedal as the old one had burnt out(that’s also another story for another time). The new windlass pedal was wired up with a solenoid to hopefully stop the issue of the pedal overheating again in the future. Thanks Andrew!

As we patiently waited for our inspection date we decided to go for a training sail on what was probably the calmest, sunniest day I’d experienced in Bluff so far. This was perfect for us to pull out and rig up our storm sails and to check the halyard tension and sheeting points. We also methodically went through all of the processes of hoisting and reefing sails.

With our stock up of provisions arriving on the same day that our outboard conveniently decided to stop working, this proved to be a lengthy exercise having to use Silver Ferns tiny tender to ferry supplies back to the boat. The last exercise was to refuel the boat and pop some manus(bombs) off the jetty of course! I hadn’t thought about the cleanliness of the water at the time…..but if it was good enough for the locals it was good enough for me!

We were ready to go! Sub Antarctic here we come!

………Alas this was not meant to be, as the weather gods had other plans for us. With our inspection delay due to previous bad weather and another onslaught of low pressure systems headed our way our weather window had unfortunately closed. We made the tough decision to cancel our plans to head to the Sub Antarctic, and instead morphed our trip into a jaunt to Stewart Island and up the East Coast to Picton.

Understandably our keen crew were disappointed by this but accepted that it was the right decision to make in the interest of everyone’s safety. I’m impressed with how determined my crew were to make the most of their time with us despite the major change in plans.

Next stop, Stewart Island! We spent a few lovely days here kickstarting the trip with a little hike from Port William to Oban and a peruse of Ulva Island and it’s curious sea lions. We then headed down to the South East side of the island to the secluded areas which are only accessible by boat. On our way down we stopped in Port Adventure and took the dinghy out for a tour around the stunning bays. Our resident diver Matt went for a spearfish here and caught an abundance of Tarakihi, Blue Cod, Butterfish and Paua! Paul even caught a Red Gurnard off the boat. We were spoilt for choice. Aaaaand we were lucky enough to have a trained chef onboard who whipped up some amazing meals over the course of the trip. Thanks Luke!

The next day we sailed on down to the North Arm of Port Pegasus to check out the amazing Belltopper Falls and try and find the track to the old Tin Range. This I had visited about 6 years ago but failed to find the overgrown track this time as my navigation skills on land are fairly questionable.

The next day we carried on to the South Arm of Port Pegasus where Sharon took the crew up to the Bald Cone which I had previously climbed. The views from there are stunning and I had failed to remember about the traverse by rope up the shear rock face to the top(sorry guys). This was not for the faint hearted from what I hear and a few of our brave adventurers managed to make it to the very top. While our crew tried their best not to fall off the side of the cliff, Andrew and I went for a short walk from Communication Bay to Disappointment Cove which was anything but disappointing with it’s lovely secluded scenery. The rest of our crew did this walk later in the afternoon and came across a ‘friendly’ sea lion on the track! Let’s say I’m glad it wasn’t me who came across it, as I’d be running in the other direction.

With an abundance of seafood to be had from the spearfishing spoils, we had a joint dinner with Silver Fern and made our plan to head up the coast to Akaroa the following day. Our hopes of making it to the Chatham Islands were quickly dwindling as the weather had decided to not play ball again.

We had a lovely sail into Akaroa with the hectors dolphins out in full force as usual, and some stunning views from the heads. Having sailed in the harbour here a lot as a kid I was excited to see it from a different view. We had a short stay here with dinner ashore and then decided to carry on so we could make the most of the Southerly before the wind died out and the Northerly would start to get us on the nose.

This was the best decision to make as we had a great sail to the Cook Strait, and had some time to cruise around the Marlborough Sounds for a few days before…..surprise surprise…more bad weather hit. Our crew went for a hike ashore along the famous Queen Charlotte track while Sharon very patiently let me practice my anchoring skills. The next night we cruised on over to Blumine Island for another walk and then anchored up in Resolution bay with Silver Fern and Te Kaihopara! This was to be the first and probably the last time for a while that all three boats were to be in the same place. We had an awesome joint dinner on Te Kaihopara, where amazingly the group of over 30 people managed to spread out amongst her spacious design.

With the bad weather to hit later the next day, we had a race between the 3 boats into Picton. I’m not quite convinced there were no engines used in the process but we had fun nonetheless! We only had our engine on to charge the batteries of course……..

I was more than happy to let Silver Fern take it away and drive into the small marina berth before us. With little room for error we made sure to have 2 tenders in the water to make sure there was support if anything went wrong. Thankfully all vessels made it in fairly unscathed.

All in all we had a great trip despite the disappointing circumstances. The next trip for us is to circumnavigate the South Island. Fingers crossed for some more predictable weather this time, but we stay flexible as usual given the nature of the beast(Mother Nature that is!).

Till next time :)

Jess