The new GPS really proved its worth many times over, and made things so much easier. Max is of the generation of using a sextant to shoot the stars to calculate the position when he sailed around the world in the 1970’s. So having a map with your position in seconds was a real luxury. We still did use the charts of course. 

We timed our arrival at Paterson’s Inlet with the dawn, as the rocks can be tricky, which meant sailing all through the night with watches. The stars were out with a good moon, and only occasional clouds. When Rowena was in the cockpit on watch, there was a sudden fluttering of wings right beside her, and a pair of trusting little eyes looking up. A grey bird (from looking at our book I now think it was prior) hopped onto her hand, walked up her arm and snuggled into her neck! She was astonished but happy to oblige so that is where it stayed until the end of her watch. Inside the cabin she tried giving it food and water, but it showed no interest. It even stayed snuggled up while she got into the sleeping bag and settled over her heart.

“Well, you know what’s going to happen next don’t you?” she thought.

But no accidents happened and 2 hours later back on watch she made it a little nest of rags. Then while Max was on watch dawn was coming, we got closer to land, and the bird hopped up his arm, on his head, had a good look around and headed for the nearest rock. The bird life is fascinating, and prolific so that was a really nice introduction for us.

Bad weather was on our heels, so we headed into an all weather shelter at Little Glory Bay and stayed cozy for 4 days while the wind and rain whistled around us. The bay was full of jellyfish. We ventured out kayaking in between, and on one trip Rowena found a mussel tree!

So we had mussels for dinner, but that isn’t all. Max spent a lot of time and strategy with fishing from the kayak, but Rowena was getting bored so Max gave her a little reel and hook. Within 5 minutes she had a huge barracutta!!!!!!

“Max, what shall I do?” she screamed as the barracutta pulled her and the kayak along…….. “Put it in the kayak.” said Max. Funnily enough Rowena said “No way!” so Max took it into his kayak. (Have you ever seen the sharp teeth on a barracutta?)

Kayaking was a lovely experience in Stewart Island with many fascinating sculptured rocks, beaches, native bush and streams, as well as the wild life.

One beach in Little Glory Cove where they kiwi-spot at night was lovely, with a walk through to another beach on the ocean side. We both got used to long kayaking trips with picnic lunches.

Millars Beach in Patersons Inlet has a jetty and huge picnic shelter with a walk to the site of the Norwegian whaler ship maintenence base.We were thrilled to see a wild deer here. Rowena’s favoured clothes for kayaking were the wet suit, gumboots and jacket….not quite the summer holiday she had been imagining! There weren’t many sunny days - in fact shorts and T shirt only came out on one day of the 2 months there.