Date: 26/04/15 Position: Golden Bay, Patterson's Inlet, Stewart Island
We lost Thursday morning, it was somewhere in the fog that hung low over the inlet. A few smudges appeared in the late morning which indicated where the water stopped and the land began. We decided to take our two 20L water containers ashore and fill them up from the 500L water tank behind the day shelter at the beach. Three hours later and with numerous dinghy trips back and forth from Ambler to the beach we had finally filled our water tanks to capacity and left enough water in the tank for others to use. Our trusty tea strainer came in handy and acted as a filter between the tap on the water tank and our containers. We emptied the wrigglers out of the tea strainer onto the top of the tank after filling the containers and after returning from Ambler to refill the containers again we would find the wrigglers gone and in their place lots of little bird footprints. This was repeated each time. While Wayne continued being the water monitor I took the opportunity to follow a track around to an old Norwegian Whalers Base. It used to be a ship repair facility not an actual whaling base. The beach was littered with discarded rusting steel propellers that had suffered ice damage in the Ross Sea.
In the afternoon the fog had lifted enough to navigate our way across Patterson's Inlet to Little Glory Cove where we dropped anchor for the night. On our way across we decided to motor through the Bravo Islands which is made up of about five small islands. The friendly DOC lady told us that some Yellow-Eyed Penguins breed on these islands. These penguins are rare and sadly like the sea lions they are threatened with possibly less than 2000 pairs left. Armed with the binoculars in hand we slowly motored along in very calm water which helped us to spot the penguins swimming on the surface. We counted 21 Little Blue Penguins swimming either in small groups or on their own. After leaving the Bravo Islands we glanced to our left and saw something big break the surface. Honing in with the binoculars we realised it was a Yellow-Eyed Penguin!! Its yellow eye and lemony/yellow head was very distinctive. It was also much larger than a Little Blue. Apparently Little Blues are up to 40cm in length and the Yellow-Eyed are up to 66cm. We felt very fortunate to have seen one of these rare penguins.
On Friday morning we rose in the dark at 5am and were ashore by 6am walking across the piece of land that separates Little Glory Cove from Ocean Beach. In the pre dawn light we spotted two kiwis foraging on the beach leaving behind a trail of huge footprints and numerous holes from digging. We walked to the southern end of Ocean Beach and found two wooden uprights that use to hold a sign to signify the start of the walk to Chew Tobacco Bay. We sat on the beach and waited for the sky to lighten before heading off on the overgrown and obviously little used track to Chew Tobacco Bay. There was no sign of any trail markers to be found so we headed up the ridge following well used deer tracks. A kiwi darted out from behind a fallen tree and trotted ahead of us before disappearing amongst some ferns. Once on top of the ridge the forest opened up and walking became much easier. We spotted a few random orange tapes that didn't continue or lead on to any others so we stopped and had a muesli bar as we decided what to do. On our phone we had the NZ topo map but it didn't have the track marked, however the NZ navy chart showed the rough location of the track and we used this chart to navigate from, referring back to the topo map to distinguish features as we went. We walked along open forested ridge tops and up and down ferny creek gullies. It was beautiful bush with some massive old trees and fallen logs that crumbled under the weight of our feet. We listened to a huge repertoire of bird song as we tramped along and were lucky enough to see a white tailed deer with its head just above the fernery. As it bounded away its white tail bobbed up and down. About halfway to Chew Tobacco Bay we came across some original red trail markers nailed into tree trunks. We were able to follow these markers until we reached the wide, open beach of Chew Tobacco Bay. We walked along the beach noticing that the area above the high tide mark was covered in deer and kiwi foot prints. As we ate our lunch we spotted a male sea lion swimming along just behind the breakers, each time he surfaced he would turn his head and scan the beach probably looking for a female. Thankfully he took no notice of us and continued on his way. After lunch the sun broke through and we followed a more direct route back between the way points that we had previously marked on our phone, whilst keeping a sharp look out for more evidence of the original track. A fantail kept us company for about half an hour as it flew along with us excitedly chirping and flaring his tail, whilst keeping a sharp look out for insects disturbed by our movements. It had been a very satisfying walk through beautiful bushland. As we dinghied back to Ambler we watched the fog roll in from the sea and by the time we reached the boat we were surrounded by fog.
The last two days have been pretty low key with getting a few boat jobs done and moving to a better anchorage in expectation of stronger winds. It has rained steadily today with mist covering the tops of the hills behind us at Golden Bay. We are now waiting for a good weather window for a two day voyage north to Dunedin.
All is pretty cruzy on board. Kathy and Wayne
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