Crossing Cook Strait
When the alarm went off at 4.30am, I realised that staying up partying on the boat until 1.30am means you don’t get enough sleep to feel refreshed and ready to go. Will we ever learn? Still it had been a fun impromptu evening which had started with a flight delay in Christchurch, meaning we’d had to partake in a few extra glasses of wine in the Koru lounge to keep us entertained there, followed by a couple more wines at the Royal Port Nicholson Yacht Club in Wellington when we landed, and concluded with more wine and rum back on the boat with our new sailor friends we’d met at the club. Thanks for a great night Katie, Irene & Stuart! I feel like a bit of a rock-star crew member being flown in for a delivery trip, and I must admit it is very refreshing to simply turn up for a passage as crew and not have to consider all the logistics, weather, safety, planning, organisation and everything else that falls on the shoulders of the skipper – thanks Vic! Anyway back to that damn 4.30am alarm… I hit snooze and then heard the heavens open and the rain drumming on the deck, it was freezing cold. So much for Spring! Still the weather forecast promised a favourable breeze and as “Time and Tide waits for no man” we begrudgingly hauled ourselves out of our sleeping bags and in to our wet weather gear, cast off the lines and pointed High Voltage’s bow out of Chaffers marina and out in the direction of Cook Strait.
Thankfully Craig had the sense to go to the supermarket when he’d arrived in Wellington off the ferry, so we sipped on hot coffee and nibbled on croissants and Stugeron as we motorsailed out of the harbour, dodging navigation lights and InterIslander ferries along the way. Cook Strait is a pretty intimidating stretch of water to go sailing in. A quick google search brings up all sorts of scary comments designed to strike fear in the minds of any sailor or Interislander ferry passenger: “A violent body of water” “Treacherous horror show” “The most dangerous and unpredictable waters in the world.” “A formidable gauntlet” Gulp…!
