It's not always smooth sailing

I imagine quite a few of our friends and family have been a little envious at some point while reading this blog (well ok, they’ve told me as much), and most of the time, envy is probably justified. After all, why would we be doing this if most of the time it wasn’t a lot more fun than sitting in the office? But, I want this blog to reflect all of the realities of our sailing trip and not just the best parts. So, here are a couple of things that have happened in the last week that have not been so much fun. Admittedly, nothing too terrible, just enough stress or discomfort to make me wish for a few fleeting minutes that I was back on dry land.

The sun doesn't always shine when you're sailing

On dry land, you don’t have to worry about your home going walkabout!

Anchoring is definitely both a science and an art. When choosing an anchorage we must take into account the depth, the type of sea floor (mud, sand, rocky), tides, wind speed and direction, swell, and our distance from the shore and any neighbouring boats. In Abel Tasman, we also had to account for the wind shift that happens twice daily due to the sea breeze. This meant that Desolina would usually sit on the anchor during the day facing out of the bay into the sea breeze, but swing around to face into the bay in the evening when the wind dropped off. As the boat swings around the anchor, the direction of pull on the anchor changes, and the anchor needs to re-set itself.

The Anchorage

On one of our last days in Abel Tasman we left the boat to go for a walk after sleeping the previous night on the anchor and then waiting for the sea breeze to turn the boat around and the anchor to re-set itself. We assumed all was fine as we didn’t notice the anchor dragging at all before we left and the anchor had re-set itself all of the previous days without fail. However, we got a shock when we returned to the boat later that day and found that our neighbours had needed to secure Desolina after she went on a little walkabout dragging the anchor behind her. We can only assume that on this one occasion, the anchor did not re-set itself successfully and we didn’t notice any drag before we left because there wasn’t much wind. We are incredible grateful for the help we received in this instance. We hate to think what the outcome might have been if we had been anchored alone in the bay. This incident has definitely dented our confidence and no doubt we shall be double and triple checking the anchor in future.

On dry land you aren’t kept awake all night by violent rocking (except maybe in an earthquake!)

We have definitely had a few uncomfortable night bobbing up and down on the boat. Probably the worst night we had was at Adele Island in Abel Tasman the night before we had a 5am start to sail back to Marlborough. Neither of us got much sleep that night as the boat lurched back and forth in the waves and there was nowhere we could go to escape it. After a night of very little sleep, a 5am start and seven hours of beating into wind and waves to get back across Tasman Bay we were definitely two very tired and grumpy sailors.

Adele Island

But after all that’s said and done, to quote a cruising couple that we met who were in their 80’s, you forget the bad memories and remember the good one’s, otherwise you wouldn’t still be sailing.

Abel Tasman

We had a smooth day of sailing from Catherine’s Cove on Durville Island to Torrent Bay in Abel Tasman National Park. We were looking forward to the reliable sea breezes we had heard blow across Tasman Bay in the afternoon after the fickle winds in the Marlborough Sounds. Sure enough the sea breeze kicked in around midday on our crossing after very little wind in the morning. We were promised a steady 15kts, which we got. What we weren’t expecting was for the wind to continue building throughout the afternoon to a gusty 25kts by the time we reached Abel Tasman.

Crossing Tasman Bay

We left Catherine’s Cove at 8am and arrived at Torrent Bay around 4pm.  About half way across Tasman Bay we thought we had caught our second fish of the trip as we had been trawling a line behind us the whole way across. Unfortunately it turned out to be a Barracuda that we threw back. Barracuda are not recommended for dinner as they can carry parasites. If you haven’t ever seen a Barracuda before they are pretty mean looking with very sharp teeth. Dave wore his steel wire fishing glove to handle it while getting the hook out.

The passage through French Pass at the start of the day was quite nerve wracking. French Pass is the narrow channel between Durville Island and the mainland, which is the entrance to Tasman Bay from Marlborough. This little passage has a big reputation and deservedly so. The currents that run through French Pass are extremely strong, and we had been told NEVER to attempt going against the current. We had to be especially careful when we went through, as it was a spring tide, which meant that the tides and currents were at their strongest. We went through the pass a couple of hours before slack water so that we would have a little current with us to speed us on our way. The currents at that time were still quite strong. That morning was dead calm and the sea was flat as a millpond so we could clearly see the currents running through the passage, it looked at if the water was boiling. It felt more like running some river rapids than sailing at sea. As we went through we hit 11kts on the GPS, which meant we had about 6kts of current flowing with us. We had heard that small whirlpools can form in the passage because of the strong currents flowing through, they definitely weren’t kidding. As we passed through the narrowest part we could see whirlpools forming on either side of the boat.

Swirling currents in French Pass

Nevertheless, the overall journey went smoothly enough and we are now enjoying the impossibly golden sandy beaches of Abel Tasman. We spent the first couple of nights in Torrent Bay at The Anchorage. 

Torrent Bay

There is a nice walk from the bay to Cleopatra’s Pool just off the Abel Tasman coastal track. The bays at Abel Tasman are very tidal and the whole river estuary floods at high tide. We discovered that we could kayak up the river from the bay near high water and decided to go back to a good swimming spot we had found on the previous day’s walk. The swimming spot there has a layer of warm salt water trapped underneath a layer of VERY cold fresh water. We had great fun diving down into the warm layer of salt water and then getting the sudden shock of cold water as we surfaced.

River Estuary at Torrent Bay

Swimming near Cleopatra's Pool

Since Torrent Bay we have spent a night in Bark Bay and are now anchored next to Adele Island. Bark Bay was beautiful, with easy shallow anchoring. Dave was able to dive underneath at low tide, stand on the sandy bottom and reach up to touch our keel. The water here is also the warmest we’ve had so far at 22c. We’re planning to spend a few more nights here before heading back over to Marlborough later this week.

Dave and Desolina

Abel Tasman sunset