We have all gotten used to the “noise” of modern life. Sometimes louder, sometimes just in the background – but it is always there. Iron Lady is a quiet boat. Her systems in temperate climates allow her to run at anchor on battery power and inverters for up to 2 days before turning on the generator or running the main engine. Our first night at anchor was VERY quiet and it took some getting used to Iron Lady’s various noises while at anchor. Amazingly, the servos in the sat phone were an irritant until we tracked it down and turned it off.
When we got up the next morning, the world was totally quiet and still. No noise – not a whisper. We found ourselves whispering to each other so as not to break the total silence. The morning mist shrouded the anchorage and hills, and when looking out to sea, the sea and sky blended into one scene. I drifted away from the boat in the dink and shot the following picture.
We almost seemed to be drifting in air.
As the world started to wake up, we decided that the first order of business was to collect dinner. Guess you know where are minds are. In New Zealand, there is a substantial commercial greenlip mussel aquaculture industry. Just down the bay was a mussel fram.
In New Zealand, you are entitled to stop buy and collect your own bucket of mussels free of charge. the procedure is simple.
I hold Steve by the ankles with his head down in the water. When he has thrown a sufficient quantity of mussels back on board, I let him surface for air ;). The result is mussels with linguini for dinner.
With dinner secured, Deb and went off for a trek thru the bush for a three hours.
Back at the boat, Steve was cleaning the mussels. With time short, we moved on late in the day to another bay and anchored before last light. The bay was home to a whaling station in the 1700’s where over a period of a few years, over 20,000 whales were netted and processed.
More later.
CHeers to all.