Picton, Queen Charlotte Sound, Capt. Cook Cove

Day 10:

We got into Picton early in the morning. Picton is a small town on the northern end of South Island and is the port used by the inter-island ferries. There seem to be two different ferry companies and some of the ferries are vast. We saw one disembarking cars from a top deck and a train from the lower deck.

The boys decided to have a lazy day and stay on board. Tim & Sarah wandered around the town. There was a lovely little local museum with hand-written signs. It obviously collected any junk that people found in their attics, but there was a lot about the local whaling industry.

The weather was beautiful - sunny and quite warm, with a nice breeze. We had a local beer in a pub and bought some of the local Marlborough Sauvignon Blanc.

Because the city was firstly a whaling port and now a ferry port, the dock is right in the town, so we could just walk around the bay with the ship tied up on the western side and the town on the southern side.

In the evening, we sailed out through Queen Charlotte Sound, which had been extensively charted by Captain Cook. We even got to see a monument to Cook in Ship's Cove, where he used to careen his ships. The wind was quite strong but we could see that the coves were very sheltered.

The "technical challenge" was not solved in Picton, so we are still running on one engine which will make us a bit late getting into port tomorrow.