ADVENTURE NEW ZEALAND 8 SUMMER CRUISE

Alex and Lesley Stone share the story of their summer cruise around Aotearoa, New Zealand

- Alex and Lesley stone

 The thing about Covid is that it upsets the best-laid plans, as it did for the Island Cruising Club, a New Zealand-based outfit that organises flotillas to sail to the Pacific Islands every year. When casting around for alternatives, Viki Moore, the cheerful convener of Island Cruising NZ, lit upon the obvious solution – the Te Wai Pounamu, the South Island of New Zealand, otherwise known as the Waters of Greenstone.

Sixteen yachts and their crews took up this idea, including half a dozen catamarans. So in a real sense, she really was herding cats – cruising yachties being a fairly free-spirited lot at the best of times. We were among them, on our Schionning-design 12m cruising catamaran, Skyborne. Also in the fleet were Lisa and Martin Bennett on Champagne, although Lisa often followed along in a campervan with their dog.

ELUSIVE WEATHER WINDOW

We mustered at Opua in the Bay of Islands, North Island, a day or so after Christmas, and awaited the call of Bruce Buckley – the professional weather forecaster Viki had engaged for the safety of the fleet.

This is where our first challenge set in. There simply wasn’t a decent weather window to allow us to sail up around North Cape and Cape Reinga (at the northern end of North Island), and then down to Abel Tasman National Park (on the north tip of South Island), our planned first landfall. Unless, said Bruce, we were prepared to endure two, maybe three days of strong winds on the nose after rounding Reinga. In reality, you have to sail a further 20 miles out to clear the notorious Pandora Banks – breaking seas in all conditions.