ADVENTURES AT SEA

Brad Avery

Editor’s note: This is the fourth in a five-part series about OCC’s

Alaska Eagle’s voyage from Tasmania to New Zealand.

We’ve spent the past few days exploring Preservation Inlet, and Dusky,

Doubtful and Milford Sounds. A high-pressure system over New Zealand has

created beautiful warm weather, making the verdant fiords and islands a

cruiser’s paradise. Fiordland, at the southwest tip of New Zealand, spans

100 miles along the coast, featuring a dozen steep-walled inlets reaching

up to 30 miles inland.

This huge, empty and spectacular area was settled by native Maoris.

Captain Cook explored and charted two of the fiords in the late 1700s.

Whaling and prospecting followed. With waterfalls and incredible views of

distant peaks and ranges, Fiordland looks similar to Maine or Canada’s

West Coast.

Except for Milford, no roads reach here. It remains remote, the province

of abundant wildlife, perhaps a hundred commercial fishermen and the

area’s most ubiquitous and annoying resident, the sandfly.

The sandflies did a better job driving us off the beach here than the sea

lions did at Auckland Island. And they didn’t stop at the beach, either.

They swarmed aboard and into our cabins. The sea lions never did this,

although we wouldn’t have put it past them.

Fiordland sandflies, unlike mosquitoes, seek your blood during the day.

Virtually no anchorage is safe; if the sun is up (as it is now between 4

a.m. and 10 p.m.) the sandflies are out in force. After a few days of

battling sandflies, we started to look forward to being underway and

dreaded dropping anchor in some beautiful cove.

One sandfly encounter came during our attempted historical reenactment of

Cook’s landing at Pickersgill Harbour in Dusky Sound. Upon arriving

through a narrow, rocky passage Cook had used, we were disappointed to

see two small cruising sailboats already anchored in the famous spot

where Cook spent several months in 1773 aboard the Resolution brewing

spruce beer and waiting to record the transit of Venus.

We didn’t see anyone aboard the boats. We let our anchor go and backed

into the wooded cove, coming within feet of where Resolution’s stern

lines went around trees. As soon as Andy and Don had our stern line

secured, a gentleman came up from below on one of the cruising boats. He

greeted us, gin and tonic in hand.

“Hello!” he called out in a friendly kiwi accent, “Sorry we’re not more

sociable -- we’re all below, hiding from the Sandflies!” Soon the whole

crew looked like they were break dancing -- arms flying, hands slapping

necks, legs rubbing legs. We quickly forgot about reveling in nautical

history and got underway while our neighbor hastily returned to his

cabin, via a shroud of mosquito netting.

We motored to nearby Cascade Cove and came alongside two fishing boats

tied to an old steel oyster boat now used as a helicopter pad. Aside from

blue cod and tuna, Fiordland fishermen trap crayfish (lobster) during the

season.

Helicopters are used to get the crayfish to market alive. Soon a chopper

came swooping in, just clearing boats and trees, and landed on a tiny

patch of plywood on the rusting oyster boat’s stern.The helicopter

remained in a high-pitched idle while hundreds of pounds of crayfish were

unloaded from the boats. The helicopter’s rotors kept the sandflies away;

but when it took off, the sandflies moved in. We noticed that the

fisherman were oblivious to the flies. When asked about this, they

cheerily held up their beer cans.

New Zealand fishermen are very outgoing and helpful. When the helicopter

left, one skipper handed over three big crayfish. Kiwi Bruce turned the

crays into a salad so big there were leftovers, which is rare on the

Eagle.

Fishermen are also the best sources for local knowledge. Several times

we’ve had fishermen come alongside for a chat, always leaving us with

good information about the weather, local hazards or the best anchorages.

Fishermen throughout Fiordland knew about Alaska Eagle. “Thought I’d see

you,” they’d say, nonchalantly. “I’ve heard about you through Mary.”

Mary is the official voice of Bluff Fisherman’s Radio, a clearing house

for fishing vessels at the bottom of New Zealand. Known as “Good As Gold

Mary,” (she uses the kiwi phrase “good as gold” in no less than every

third sentence), she’s on the air twice a day, keeping track of where the

fishing boats are and how they’re doing.

If the fish aren’t biting, Mary is consoling and says tomorrow will be

“good as gold.”

We finally met Mary in Bluff. She had been expecting our first call, and

was concerned that we hadn’t checked in earlier. It’s a small world down

here and word gets around. She knew we were coming and she’s been keeping

track of us ever since.

We radio in with the fishing fleet and tell her how we’re getting along.

We recently told Mary that the only thing biting aboard Alaska Eagle is

the sandflies; but as long as we keep moving, we’ll be all right.

* BRAD AVERY is the skipper of the Alaska Eagle.

FYI

WHAT: Brad Avery will be narrating a slide presentation of Alaska Eagle’s

1999 Sydney-Hobart Race and the voyage to the Subantarctic

WHERE: Lido Isle Yacht Club

WHEN: April 20 at 7 p.m.

CALL: (949) 645-9412