Following a very overcast day at sea we awoke the next day to clear blue skies as we sailed through Queen Charlotte Sound / Tōtaranui on the northern tip of the South Island. We were sailing to Picton, the gateway to the South Island and ferry port for vehicles travelling to and from Wellington, New Zealand's capital city.
After docking and breakfast we caught a small boat tour that took us out into the Sound. Technically the area is not a sound, or Fjord carved by ice, but a ria, or sunken valley, formed when the sea levels rose.
A much larger cruise ship than ours was also coming into port.
Queen Charlotte Sound / Tōtaranui is the easternmost of
the main sounds of the Marlborough Sounds
In 2014, the sound was given the official name of Queen
Charlotte Sound / Tōtaranui as part of a Waitangi Tribunal settlement with
the Te Āti Awa tribe.
Like the majority of its neighbours, the sound runs
southwest to northeast before joining Cook Strait
White-fronted Terns, followed us as we sailed out into the main waters of the Sound.
Much of the shore has been left to the natural vegetation of New Zealand, most of which was cleared by the early settlers for farm land.
The ferns were very impressive.
Hundreds of small jellyfish were floating on the surface of the water having recently appeared over the last few weeks
It was a beautiful day with some lovely reflections in the water, that was very still.
I do like to contrast the white clouds in a black and white photograph.
A small waterfall in one of the bays, hopefully we will see more impressive ones in Milford Sound later in the cruise.
During pre-European and early contact periods, Queen
Charlotte Sound was important location for trade between North and South
Island Māori, including pakohe (argillite stone) from nearby D'Urville
Island, which was used to create toki (adzes).
It was from a hill on Arapaoa Island in 1770 that
Captain James Cook first saw the sea passage from the Pacific
Ocean to the Tasman Sea, which was named Cook Strait. Captain
Cook sheltered in Queen Charlotte Sound during each of his three voyages of
exploration at various points, and named it after Queen Consort Charlotte
of Mecklenburg-Strelitz.
The area was a base for whaling throughout the 19th and
early 20th centuries, notably at Perano Head on Arapaoa Island. And as you can see Queen Charlotte Sound has
calm water and is popular for sailing - a marked contrast to the notorious
waters of Cook Strait.
We stopped to try and encourage some Blue Cod to come to the surface to feed on bread, however the presence of this Pied Cormorant, or Shag as they are called in New Zealand, kept many at bay.
The Red-billed Gulls did not help as well.
But we did manage to see one. The New Zealand blue cod (Parapercis colias) is a
temperate marine fish. It is also known by its Māori names, Rāwaru, Pākirikiri and Patutuki, and
by its other names in English, New Zealand cod or Sand Perch.
It is exclusively found in New Zealand, in shallow
waters around rocky coasts to a depth of 150 m, though it is far more common
south of Cook Strait. It is bluish green to blue-black above with
white toward the belly
As we sailed back a view of the Township of Picton.
We spent some time walking around the small township of Picton, mostly one high street with shops and a small park along the waterfront. The guests from the larger cruise ship were now coming abord so we decided to return to our ship for lunch and an afternoon by the pool.
We left port around 18.00 and sailed out of the Sound in wonderful evening sunshine.
Moving further south the next day will hopefully see us finding some whales
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