Queen Charlotte Departure

After waiting for a weather window (and recovering from winery tours), we finally got what looked like a 3 to 4 day window to head south. Our intended destination was Stuart Island at 50 degrees South but Mother Nature had other plans for us.

BTW, I have been advised by a number of old salts that our departing log entries should never state departing “to” a place – always “bound” or “headed toward”. It is considered bad luck to specify your destination explicitly – only your intentions.

More about where we ended up later but in this post, lots of pictures as we were leaving Queen Charlotte Sound via the Tory passage.

Morning of our departure as the morning mists and clouds cleared.

Some nice shots as we proceeded down the sound.

The sounds are also home to commercial Salmon farms.

The end of the Tory Channel is extremely narrow and the commercial ferries also run thru here.

We met one head on in the narrowest stretch. Tonnage rules – he with the most tonnage wins – we got out of his way.

The narrow channel with all the water contained within the sound also generates some very impressive currents.

The trip down the coast during the day was beautiful.

And yes – that is snow.

As the day went on, the winds began to build.

A “small” disturbance had been forecast. Turned out to be anything but small. After nightfall, the winds continued to increase – right on our nose as we approached the Banks Peninsula. Lots of distant lightning hinted of more bad stuff ahead. Around midnight, the winds had increased to a steady 35 knots with gusts to 40 knots. By 0200, we had steady winds over 40 knots with gusts to 50 knots and monster square waves. We were taking a very serious pounding and pulled the throttle back as well as bore off to keep the boat in the water.

By 0400 we made the call to seek safe harbor. Around the corner on the Banks Peninsula was Akaroa – a wonderful all weather harbor. As the sun rose, the harbor was in front of us and a wonderful sight it was. More about that and the damage this “small” disturbance did to Akaroa and surroundings in my next post.