Ketu Bay - Ship Cove

This morning was an absolute stunner. Glassy water, clear blue skies, and we pretty much had the place to ourselves. You can't ask for much more!

Nathan made the most of the weather by jumping in the dinghy and heading over to the point where he finally managed to get into some blue cod. The point was just about swarming with fish, clearly shows you have to pick the right spot to throw your line in. Meanwhile Vela had edited her drone footage from yesterday's hike.

Being Friday, and with some average looking weather on its way for the weekend, we decided to make the jump from Pelorus Sound over to Queen Charlotte Sound. So we hauled up the anchor, logged our trip with Coastguard, pulled out our sails, and set off.

The sail started off with a leisurely motor sail, but as expected the wind built as we got into Cook Strait. We were able to turn the motor off and were averaging close to 9kt (we hit 10kt a couple of times) on a broad reach straight for the entrance to Queen Charlotte Sound. The water was spectacular and rough as we rounded Cape Jackson. A very tactical and safe gybe later and we were inside Queen Charlotte Sound.

We expected the wind to start to die off once we were inside, but it continued to increase, with our anemometer reading 30kt, likely closer to 35kt in reality. We quickly shortened our sails, rolling our Genoa away to about 1/3 its full size, and the main to about 1/2. This was still plenty of sail but the boat was much more manageable. We were still hitting 10kt at times though.

We made short work of the rest of our sail into Ship Cove and found it to be nice and sheltered with only the occasional gust coming over the hills. Nathan cooked up our first taste of blue cod for dinner with a side of fried veg - definitely in the top 3 of fish species we've eaten on this trip!

We packed the boat up in preparation for some stormy weather on Saturday morning, and settled in for the evening.Read more