Wild Waikawa

The day started off beautiful and calm, and we relaxed watching some of the interislander ferries heading past. Lunch was leftover shark (dogfish) curry, which was absolutely delicious and I highly recommend.

We had teed up with Amin and Cil to come and visit us for the afternoon, so before they arrived at headed ashore to visit Burnsco for some extra fishing supplies. We then crossed the road to the Jolly Roger where we enjoyed watching the resident short tailed stingrays park up in the corner (there were three all trying to park at one point). One of them was particularly large and awesome to watch - stingrays are one of my favorite animals to watch.

After Amin and Cil joined us, we headed over to Picton where we were introduced to Toastie Lords, which made a spectacular toasted sandwich with salmon, pickles and cream cheese - highly recommend. And we washed this down with an iced coffee. While we were enjoying our food and drink by the waterfront, the wind really picked up. It was incredible watching it whip through the marina, causing boats to get an uncomfortable amount of heel on. The wind was strong enough to knock Vela's iced coffee out of her hand!

The conditions had us a little nervous about leaving Starling unattended, but fortunately Lissa and Andrew from Cape Landing had eyes on from Waikawa marina so we knew she was alright (thanks team!).

Afterwards we made a quick stop at the supermarket in Picton before we bravely launched the dinghy, said a final goodbye to Amin and Cil (thanks heaps for looking after us, we promise to come back and visit!) and headed back out. The chop was quite incredible, but fortunately the wind had dropped significantly from the 40kt recorded earlier. Vela sustained a minor injury to her toes when climbing out of the dinghy (caught between the dinghy and Starling's transom) but after a bit of ice she was fine.

We settled in again for the evening and had probably the best sunset we've seen to date. I tried to capture a bit of how choppy the water still was at this point as well.Read more