Manapouri, New Zealand

OK, we voluntarily left our ship, The Navigator, in kayaks in a protected bay of Doubtful Sound in perfectly flat water. But Doubtful Sound DOES open up on the Tasman Sea, which we’re told has the most violent waters of anywhere on the planet. And it WAS raining.

Judy points out that we’ve hiked, bicycled and now kayaked here in New Zealand – all in the rain. But we’ve had our fair share of beautiful weather, especially in the beginning of our trip.

We started the day in lazy mode, not getting to breakfast until almost 10. We then found our way to Montepouri, the takeoff point for our Doubtful Sound trip. We first had a one hour ferry boat ride down the length of Lake Montepouri and then a twenty minute bus ride across a mountain pass to reach Doubtful Sound and our ship.

The mountain pass road to totally isolated. No other road connects to it. It can be reached only by water. It was built in the 1960s as a means for delivering hydroelectric turbine equipment for a generating plant fed from Lakes Montepouri and Te Anau. The plant is located underground and fed via a viaduct that runs from the lake to the Sound. In this way the engineers could maintain the lake levels at their normal levels. A conventional hydro project would require lake levels to be raised by 100 meters. The tree huggers said no to that idea; the plant went underground.

Once underway our naturalist Carol pointed out penguins, both swimming in the sea and on an island. Also a colony of seals. Later we had a great performance by a pod of dolphins; there must have been a dozen. They made magnificent leaps completely out of the water. I’ll have to ask Carol if there is some reason for this behavior other than the sheer fun of it.

Next the kayaking experience. We were out for about 45 minutes, paddling along the banks the of our cove. It was raining with low clouds and mist that made for a surreal but beautiful environment. Afterward there was a chance to dive in and swim. I’m kicking myself, but not too hard, for not taking the plunge. The water was Onawa in July temperature by the feel of it on my hand.

Then, at 7:30 a dinner buffet, followed by a desert buffet, was served. Both were great and made me wish I had paddled around the ship three more times.

Now we’re in bed – sorry, in our berth. We’ll be awoken by the ship’s engines at 6:30 with breakfast at 7:00 and more cruising to get us back by noon. A great adventure!

I’ll post this as soon as we return to the land of Internet.