The coast of Stewart Island, passed on passage to Bluff was just magnificent. Between Port Pegasus with its lonely channels and bays, to Patterson Inlet the long bush clad arms of Lords River and Port Adventure, had a dark beauty that I have not since seen. Names like the Snuggery, Sarah's Bosom and Little Glory abo-Und and aptly describe the value of the anchorages to the early sailors. These harbours evoke an awareness of the early whaling days, when tough and often ruthless American and British whalers knew these shores and inlets as well as the Stewart Island fishermen know them today.
After entry at Bluff, where we spent a few days, we returned to Oban at Halfmoon Bay, the Stewart Island settlement, where we spent three weeks, meeting Jack and Norma Crooks in "Turangi", which was subsequently capsized and dismasted off the East Cape of the North Island. On their cruise up the coast, without auxiliary power, Jack and Norma encountered what I found to be the characteristic New Zealand coastal conditions. Either not enough wind or too much.
The value of a powerful auxiliary was brought home to me with impressive clarity while cruising in Patterson Inlet. Intending to return to Halfmoon Bay as the anchorage in which we lay behind Iona Island was proving insecure, we ran for the entrance under power, the dinghy trailing astern. While raising the anchor, I saw the dinghy flipped over by the wind and as darkness was coming on apace, I decided merely to right it and, rather than delay further, tow it half full of water.
When near the heads, the wind increased to such force that it was clear that once through the entrance we could not possibly beat into Halfmoon Bay and would be unlikely to avoid the unlit islands that lay to the eastward. As quickly as possible I hoisted the 70sq. ft. fore staysail with boomed foot as I have always feared complete dependence on an engine in such a situation. With fare stays'l set and engine flat out, I steered south for Little Glory, a cove within Patterson Inlet.
The wind suddenly rose to an unbelievable strength, turning all, grey in the half light and heeling us down to the house. It was just possible to converse by shouting in each other's faces and only the oil pressure indicated the continued co-operation of the engine. I expected the wind to fall as quickly as it rose but it stayed in. The way in which the half full dinghy became airborne and emptied its contents in seconds, before falling upside down, was a most convincing prelude to the foredeck calamity. The clew of the 12oz stays'l just tore out While Jill struggled to douse the seemingly soundless, flogging remnants, I judged that we would fail to clear the leaward headland of the Lit tle Glory entrance, if we attempted to stand to the wind any longer. I put a knife to the dinghy painter and it was gone.
Without hope of a respectable offing I steered to just clear the headland and scraped by with just yards to spare, anchoring in total darkness. Never have I felt winds of such force. Two days later we recovered our beached dinghy so our lesson was learned at the cost of an oar and a ruined sail. At the time of writing this, I am busily engaged in fitting a new 70 h.p. diesel and I am convinced that when one really wants an engine close to land, only the most powerful is good enough. I always believed that 1 h.p. per ton was adequate as an auxiliary. The Stewart Island experience changed all that.
Mick Squires, a mate of Jack Crooks, stoutly repaired our sail before we sailed for the Fiords, carrying the easterly we had awaited through Foveaux Straight.