The last 36 hours in the Abel Tasman have been great. Despite our attempts to avoid getting into mischief, the Silver Fern crew seem to find themselves in it, far too easily. When 5 of the crew have friendships that go back as far as their university days (in the 1970’s), there is an endless stream of jibes, fun and laughter onboard, from people who know each other extremely well.

Yesterday started at anchor at Onetahuti with a plan to head north and drop the crew at Awaroa for some inland waterway exploration in the RIB. At 10am as the rain and 25 knots hit us at anchor, the enthusiasm suddenly waned for getting wet and cold. We decided instead to head to Kaiteriteri, as we had plans to buy fresh provisions and top up on fuel for our passage down the west coast.

The wind was 15-20 knots from the north, so we decided to unfurl the jib 80% and take an easy 10nm sail down the coast. Salt Lines had planned to head out onto Golden Bay for a sail for a couple of hours and given us their beast of a RIB (“the landing craft”) to babysit, to save them towing it across the bay and back again.

The sail south was going rather pleasantly until a rain squall dumped on us, along with a 150 degree wind shift to the SW. The wind quickly hit 30 knots and Johnny (on the helm) struggled to bear away quickly enough and the jib was now flogging in the head winds. As we bore downwind and head on into what had been following seas, we somehow managed to drag the Salt Lines RIB sideways and fill it to the top with sea water.

I had been inside and gone into the cockpit to talk through the bear away and preparation for furling the jib away. I looked down and noticed the RIB was full of water and the fuel tank had now floated overboard (still attached) and upside down. We put the jib away and went to neutral with the engine. I grabbed 3 buckets from below and Matt, Ray and I set about bailing out about 3 cubic metres (3 tons) of water, 3 buckets at a time. It was a good 15 minutes and a decent work out, before it was under control. We we did not realise until Sharon asked later, is that one of the oars had also floated away in the process of drowning the boat.

Once we had it sorted, we altered course to sail past Split Apple Rock, with Johny providing a hilarious commentary, using his best Australian tour-guide accent. Once the laughter subsided, we set about continuing the last 3 miles to Kaiteriteri and finding a spot to anchor

With rocks and a reef at the southern end and an access lane and commercial traffic at the northern end, its a busy bay. Matt picked a spot in 7m of water and we put out 40m of chain. It was early afternoon by now and the guys were keen to head ashore and explore (the waterfront bar).

Matt made a couple of drop-off trips in the RIB and I went along as well to stretch my legs. Ray spearheaded the mission to find a place we could book for dinner (so his team could avoid the galley duty that night). We settled on The Beached Whale pizza bar and cemented a table for 6:30pm. I had been to Kaiteriteri a handful of times over the years by yacht and by car and have many find memories of this sweet place. It’s a mecca for Kiwi’s and I think it was the first waterfront holiday beach in the South Island, to sell a beach house for more than $2 million.

After wandering along the waterfront, we all met at the Beached Whale and enjoyed a spread of every type of pizza on the menu (except Hawaiian) and some green salads. Some of the crew had been enjoying the festivities for a few hours by the time we got back to Silver Fern around 9pm. Some tired heads hit the pillows fairly quickly, but a few of us spent the next 90 minutes analysing the weather forecast for the west coast and researching an alternate plan to sail to the Chatham Islands and back instead.

The low pressure systems hitting New Zealand from the Southern Ocean and Tasman Sea, have been relentless for weeks now. There is very little downtime between them and most are packing gusts of 40 - 50 knots, with some as high as 80 knots. When you combine the snow, icy temperatures and big seas, it’s not safe to consider going anywhere near them and thats the dilemma we face once again, in this part of the world.

With no clear conclusion as to where to go next, we ‘hit the hay’ and decided to check todays forecast before making a final ‘go’ or ‘no go’ decision today. The anchorage was perfect and when we woke around 7am, Sharon confirmed that Salt Lines was heading south from Anchorage Bay and we would meet at 10am for a combined crews, weather and passage planning session. Salt Lines sailed in, looking majestic in the autumn sunshine and anchored nearby.

We piled onboard for the weather session and after 90 minutes of running multiple models and scenarios, concluded that the window for Fiordland and the Chatham Islands was not big enough to get there and back safely, so its off the table. Our plan from here is to head to D’Urville Island, have a fun race to Kapiti Island and back, then head to Akaroa on the South Island’s east coast for a couple of days, before returning to Picton. It’s a set back and disappointing for the crew, but safety is the priority and its clear to everyone after studying Windy and PredictWind, that there is a lot of bad weather to come.

By midday, we were done and dusted and had a plan, that includes a 4am departure Friday morning to time the tide for flat water at French Pass at 11:10am. The Silver Fern crew, headed up to Onetahuti for a drop off, for those keen to do the hike to Bark Bay, where Silver Fern would re-anchor and meet them on arrival. The crew had a great walk and activities included Emma swimming back to Silver Fern and Emma and Johnny collecting oysters off the rocks in Bark Bark.

Meanwhile, I went ashore with the Salt Lines crew and headed to Motueka with crew member Juliette, to pick up some supplies. Juliette lives nearby, so arranged for the use of her car. Its a crazy half-stationwagon, half-convertable Mitsubishi and the roof slides open. With 403,000km on the clock, its a great car, thats still going strong. Juliette had a fuel stop, supermarket and fishing store on her list and I just needed the supermarket and somewhere to dump our rubbish bags.

There are no 5 minute jobs or 1 hour car trips when it comes to boats. It was almost 3 hours by the time we returned from our Motueka roadie and the poor car felt the extra weight of the 240kg of the fuel-laden jerrycans in the back. Back at Kaiteriteri by 3:45pm, we loaded the supplies in landing craft and headed out to Salt Lines. With the anchor up, we motored up the coast to anchor 100m from Silver Fern in Bark Bay for the night.

I returned to a happy crew who had had, another great day on and off the water.

Emma’s husband Chris, has taken a lot of great photo’s and many of those posted in the blog are his. Thanks Chris!

David