World's End

After leaving Havelock we spent a few days in Kenepuru Sound. The bays in Kenepuru were some of the most enjoyable anchorages we have had during the trip so far. The ambience of Kenepuru is distinctly different from Pelorus or Queen Charlotte. Most of the Sound is fairly shallow which gives the water a beautiful turquoise hue and means it’s quite warm for swimming.

I had a good swim in Kenepuru Sound, but not with these Jellyfish

After Kenepuru we started to make our way back out of Pelorus Sound, with the aim of eventually getting to Nelson. We really enjoyed the couple of nights we spent around Tennyson Inlet with our friends, so we decided to go back to this area and explore a little more on our way out. We spent two nights anchored in Ngawhakawhiti Bay, which came highly recommended by some friends back in Wellington. Plus we couldn’t resist sailing to “World’s End” which is the name for the stretch of channel next to this bay. 

Dave swimming around the boat at Dillon Bell Point on our way to World's End

As coincidence would have it, we bumped back into David on “Bee’s Knee’s” who was also anchored in Ngawhakawhiti Bay on our first night there. We first met David and Megan in Mistletoe Bay in Queen Charlotte Sound, ran into them again on New Year’s Eve in Resolution Bay and Ngawhakawhiti was our third chance meeting. It was like bumping into old friends!

Evening sun at Ngawhakawhiti Bay

Ngawhakawhiti was a fabulous bay with access to walking tracks. The only problem with beautiful bays surrounded by native bush is that sandflies quite like hanging out there too. It’s a good job we have some mosquito nets to cover the hatches, but somehow they still managed to find their way in. I now have an assortment of sandfly and mosquito bites despite my best efforts at thwarting them and liberal use of insect repellant. They just seem to find me especially tasty (Dave has not been nearly as inflicted). Needless to say I have had a couple of very itchy and restless nights – the price to pay in paradise it would seem.

View of Ngawhakawhiti Bay from the Nydia Track

On our second morning in Ngawhakawhiti we were woken by the sound of bubbles being blown under the boat, and slapping against the hull. Now, we have been startled awake once before by a similar sound in the middle of the night, which turned out to be a seal playing around the boat so we were quite excited to get another look at one close up in the daylight. As it turns out, the sound was not a seal as we thought, but a small group of Yellowtail Kingfish.

Now we have not yet managed to catch a single fish on our trip so far, "surely this is our moment", we thought. Dave dangled a line over the side of the boat with some bait on it. Nothing happened. The fish were distinctly unimpressed by the bait and carried on with whatever they were doing underneath our boat. Fail! So we tried a sparkly orange octopus lure. Another fail. After waving the line around in front of them for a while to no avail we decided to change tactics.

Yellowtail Kingfish

Dave dug out another fish lure which looks like a sardine and wiggles like a fish when you pull it through the water. Now we had their attention! A group of Kingfish stalked the lure as Dave walked the length of the boat dragging it through the water, like kittens following a piece of string. But still they did not bite. Finally, in a desperate attempt to get them to bite, Dave started to swish the lure faster through the water and pull it up as if the sardine were jumping out of the water. The Kingfish went frantic and suddenly there weren’t just a dozen of them, but about forty in a foaming frenzy. Not much skill was involved but one of the larger fish somehow got hooked.

The triumph of finally catching a fish was bittersweet. These fish were so beautiful in the water, part of us (the former vegetarian in particular) wanted to throw it back. Before we came away we thought we’d fish quite a lot, but when you are living in the marine environment, and you see and appreciate all of the wildlife around you, it makes you think twice before you take. We certainly appreciate our sushi all the more for it.

Sushi for starters