An Abel Tasman Sailing Adventure

Despite waking up at 6:45am to partake of the sunrise in the frigid cold, there were too many clouds on the horizon for it to be spectacular.  Porters Beach was still a nice morning walk and you won't know if it's a good sunrise until you get up to check, so no complaints.  That is until we went to have breakfast.  At some point last night someone apparently turned the fridge down too low and all our food was frozen.

Because of my wrist I wasn't able to go kayaking, which is one of the reasons I had chosen this second week of the trip.  The next best thing was a sailing trip.  Martin, our skipper, was such a wonderful chap and had tons of facts about the area, which I love.  He picked us up and drove us to Kaiteriteri (the next closest town) to get the boat.  The catamaran was very nice and we had the whole thing to ourselves, which made it even better.

Our first sight of the day was Split Apple Rock (Tokangawhā).  Martin shared three possible explanations for its existence, one of which had something to do with William Tell, but I think I was the only one who laughed at that explanation.  One being that it isn't actually real, but simply a leftover prop from a movie.  The final one was a Maori legend about a fight between two gods, but I can't find it anywhere online and don't remember his explanation well enough to share it, sorry.  Oh, and to be clear, it is real, made out of granite, so you'll have to choose from the other two versions which one you want to believe.

We sailed by Adele Island, which is now a predator-free bird sanctuary, and it was amazing how many birds you could hear!  The difference between the island and the shoreline of the Abel Tasman was very noticeable.  A fur seal colony was our next treat of the day, but I wasn't able to get any good photos of them.  We started to run into some rain so he let us off at Te Pukatera Bay to do a short walk through the bush, which would keep us drier than on the boat.  The trail lead to Anchorage Bay where we planned to have our lunch anyway, so it was a perfect diversion. On our walk I saw my second rainbow of the day as well!

It may be faint, but it is there!

After a delicious lunch we hopped back on the catamaran and heading back down the coast.  Martin did an excellent job of somehow escaping the majority of the rain on our way back to dock.  But on the drive back to Marahau it started pouring down rain.  Although the rain wasn't our preferred weather, it was evening no big deal.  Well, what's an adventure without a power outage!?

About fifteen minutes after we arrived back everything the lights in our room went out.  All the lights weren't out though, so we thought it was a fuse or a bad lightbulb... After another 20 minutes of the storm no one had any power.  Somehow Sarah and Jed managed to make our tacos for dinner on a flat-top grill with a head lamp and a cell phone flashlight.  Our veggies to go with them were ruined because of the fridge-turned-freezer incident, but we still had cheese and salsa so all was well.  We camped out by the big fireplace and chatted while listening to the storm rage.  We all assumed the power would be out all night and were not looking forward to no heat in our rooms.  Luckily for us around 8pm everything came back.  Power to charge phones, heat in the rooms, lights to see our belongings...electricity is a beautiful thing.