To Tasman Bay

[Kyle]For the trip to Tasman Bay, we had a lot of headwinds, although at a manageable strength. The seas were kept down by all of the surrounding land, so tacking wasn’t uncomfortable. It was actually nice to have an excuse to zigzag around having a good look at things. The trip into adjacent Admiralty Bay was very pretty.

When we got to our intended anchorage at Kapowai Bay, we found it too full of moorings to leave room for us. I was heading around the corner to the next bay when Maryanne suggested we continue on and just go through French Pass.

A gentle sail through French Pass

French Pass is quite notorious for being horrible. Our plan was to go through the next morning at slack water, just before the current changed in our favor. Tacking had taken so long that we were almost at the afternoon slack by now. It looked pretty smooth from where we were, so we decided to give it a go and deal with a little bit of adverse current before the nearest anchorage.

It worked out fine, with no drama. In less than an hour, we were tucked into a one-boat anchorage behind a mussel farm in the northeast corner of Waikawa Bay. The view here is stunning, with cliffs and lots of tree topped pinnacles. Now we were a day ahead of schedule with a day of calm winds as extra. It looks like the perfect place to break out the new kayak.