Sailing on the Sound

We decided to charter a boat for a trip around the Poleous Sounds. OK not such a boat, more of a tinny for two! There are many 'sounds' in NZ. These are otherwise known as Fjords - a long narrow inlet with steep sides or cliffs created in a valley carved by glacial activity.

The original plan was to ride the 'post boat' through these sounds which acts as a life-line to houses that are inaccessible by road, delivering milk and bread along with the post. But the romance of this trip way out ways the cost of riding on it. The fellas going whatever so what's with the high costs for a couple of tourists to tag along? Sometimes you know that you're just being had in the name of 'tourism'.

Anyways after overcoming the disappointment of not delivering the mail we do a little local digging around and get put in touch with a character called Leicester Ball. A retired boat designer and now Poleous Sound resident. He decided to converted his bach (holiday home for those of you that haven't been paying attention) into a permanent shoreside base. It was easy to see why he'd reached this decision.  His new venture was to provide small boat safaris on the sound in a fashion where you, the tourist, would skipper your own boat for the day. While him, Leicester, guided you through the many networks of  waterways. As a boat designer Leicester had designed and built his small fleet. These small aluminium boats, known as tinnies, each had a sizable outboard motor that most non experienced boat types could easily control.

After a very quick Kiwi style safety brief, basically lots of 'she'll be alright' and many 'good as golds' he towed our boats down to the waters edge and we were off, full throttle from the off.  We both had a turn at being skipper. On our tinny, Seascape, local rules were put into place. Skipper must always be water wise and always wear the brightly coloured life jacket. But you know these things aren't all that cool so some wore them others didn't. Jacket wearing to one side though some obeyed the speed limit and some didn't! At one point you'd think we were in Miami Vice the way we were carving it up!

As we got deeper into the sounds and further out to sea we passed hill top homes that had no road access, only boat. These places where real secluded hideaways.  We slowed for some rays who were enjoying the sun in the shallows, they were huge, at least a metre across. The water temp on the Polerous Sounds is fairly warm considering it's a salt water tidal inlet but this results in a perfect environment for mussel farming. The mussel trade is big business in New Zealand, mega bucks. There are many mussel farms dotted all through the sounds but these bring benefits, locals see the need to keep the sounds as pollution free as possible and the business keeps many locals employed which results in them being able to work in the beautiful area in which they live, like generations before them have.

 

We stopped for lunch at a deserted bay, just us and the water lapping under the tinny. A short walk followed lunch, 2km to the next bay where good old Leicester had towed the tinnies around the point to save us doubling back on the same route. Nice.

On the way back to base we watched fish workers haul in many tons of the famous green lipped mussels. This was physical work and not for the glamorous. Each boat can collect around 60 tonnes of mussels per trip. Any small black ones (like we get at home and through Europe) are deemed below standard and are hacked off and thrown back in. These big green bad boys that are at least 3 inches long are then cleaned, de-bearded and then bagged, bound for New Zealand restaurants within 24 hours. A large percentage being exported, to Asia, of course. Luckily Leicester is very familiar with many of the mussel skippers and we were all well happy when he took us along side their vessel to exchange a empty bucket for a mussel filled one! No guessing what we had for supper.

Back at camp as the whoopers were  de-bearded, thoughts raced back to that fateful weekend in Woolacombe where the local catch didn't agree with 3 out of 4 of us!  So as the pasta and beans made way for shellfish we could feel the green eyed looks from fellow campers who were tucking into beans on toast, while we, on unpowered pitch no 17, cooked up a fantastic mussel-tastic shell fish delight. The Woolacombe experience couldn't be further from our minds, well at this point anyway!  It was great to cook up these green monsters knowing that only hours earlier they had been pulled from their hanging ropes within the Sound. We had to borrow a large pan from the campsite owner as we could only get about 4 in our largest pan. So moules mariniere it was, whipped up, smiles all round, and served with a cheeky local Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.

Quote of the night……'this is the only meal that you can get away with consuming a whole french stick'. Well you have to soak up that awesome sauce with something!………This wine wasn't too bad either.