June 4, 2016
I wasn’t exaggerating when I said we’d be leaving before dawn. These were the last views we had of Nelson. Note the expression on Rich’s face in the final photo: that’s not happiness to be leaving. (Click to enlarge/scroll through any of the photo galleries below.)
I will say things started looking up as the morning progressed into a calm, sunny day. By now we’d resigned ourselves to making this passage and were starting to enjoy it. It was fun going through the wild swirling waters of the French Pass again and nice that we could lead the way for an intimidated boat who ventured in behind us. (The French Pass is so notorious that some of the people here are afraid to go through it.)
Coming out of the pass I looked over at Elmslie Bay where we’d previously picked up a mooring, waiting for ebb tide, before heading south through the pass. It had been so windy and unappealing then; today it looked beautiful and serene. It would be nice to remember it like this.
Later we passed the huge dry bays of the north coast, ticking off landmarks as we passed. At sunset we ducked into the Queen Charlotte Sound, and what a joy it was to return to one of our favorite anchorages: Ship Cove. I was also nice to drop anchor in a new (to us) area of the bay, a wall of lush vegetation (pictured in the two right photos in the top row).
The next morning brought another calm sunny day, and we had an uneventful crossing of the Cook Strait and then 2 days motor-sailing up the east coast of the north island of New Zealand. We arrived at Gisborne early in the morning on the 7th. Below, a map of our route from Nelson to Gisborne.
By now we were excited to take our boat into Gisborne, a place we’d only seen by car. Best yet, we caught up to our Nelson cruising buddies there! We’d go on to enjoy a few days with them in Gisborne before making another jump up to Opua, but that will be the subject of future blog posts. For now this will be my final post for this cruising period. –Cyndi
