First nights at anchor

We have achieved a cruising milestone and spent our first couple of nights at anchor in Mistletoe Bay instead of using fixed moorings. The bay seemed like a good anchorage for the Marlborough Sounds as many of the bays shelve off steeply and have rocky bottoms with not very good holding. In Mistletoe Bay we were able to drop the anchor in about 10 metres of water with a muddy/sandy bottom and had enough room to swing freely, rather than having to tie a stern line ashore. We seemed to lay the anchor pretty well on the first attempt and, after reversing hard onto the anchor to set it, we were feeling pretty satisfied.

Desolina at anchor in Mistletoe Bay 

It was a little bit nerve wracking spending our very first night on the anchor, but by the second night we were sleeping soundly. To ease our minds we did set some depth and wind alarms on the boat instruments to alert us in case it started to blow harder during the night, or if we dragged into shallower water. We got a bit of a scare when our depth sounder jumped from 10 metres to 1 metre. However, we did see quite a few large stingrays gliding around the bay though so we think it might have been due to one passing underneath the boat.

Peninsula walk overlooking Mistletoe Bay

During our stay in Mistletoe Bay we paddled ashore and walked up to Te Mahia Saddle on the Queen Charlotte track and then looped back around to do a peninsula walk overlooking the bay. It was good to get off the boat and stretch our legs – I was getting a little cabin feverish! We were also invited over for drinks after dinner on a neighbouring boat, Bee’s Knees, which had sailed up from Christchurch. The owners, David and Megan were very good company and as it turns out David was an Ocean Yacht Master, so it was nice to chat through a few of our plans with him. Now we’re looking forward to exploring the outer sounds, and practicing our anchoring some more.

David enjoying the hammock chair