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| Orca at Havelock Marina |
The end of February arrived and with it our long anticipated trip to the Marlborough Sounds area. This would be our second trip to the Sounds, and once again our intention was to take Orca (our wee fizz boat) with us so that we could indulge our passion for fishing. Orca is nothing particularly flash but whenever and wherever we went out in her, we had an absolute ball. We could even overnight on her if we wanted to, which was the ultimate in excitement (yes, I know we're sad people!!).
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| Hoping for a bite - French Pass |
However, it soon became obvious that because of our new focus, we were going to have to rethink the practicalities of taking Orca with us. Towing the boat with the camper van was going to be something of a mission anyway but trailing Orca along whilst we looked at boats was just going to be tedious and time consuming. And we could always resort to our spin rods and surf casters to make sure our fishing opportunities weren't too compromised. So a trip minus Orca was how it was going to be.
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| Our home away from home! |
We loaded up the camper van and headed off. As we travelled north through the South Island, we chatted away about our plans for the next couple of weeks and as we did, it began to dawn on us that by the end of our holiday we could well have made a decision that would quite literally be life-changing. How scary is that?!
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| Cissy Bay |
The Sounds were everything we hoped for and then some. Picturesque bay followed picturesque bay almost to the point of sensory overload...and the fishing wasn't bad either! As we worked our way eastward from Golden Bay towards Nelson we became increasingly excited by the prospect of looking at yachts, so much so that by the time we reached Motueka we grabbed a coffee and then headed off to the marina to see what we could see. We spent quite a bit of time wandering along the various pontoons trying to guess the length of the various yachts we saw. We were itching just to go on board and have a proper look.
We moved on to Nelson, headed for the marina and called into the local ship brokers office. I have to confess that we did make out that we just might be prospective purchasers and asked what yachts we could view that were around the 36 foot mark. He showed us through a few and whilst none really excited me, they certainly started to give me a feel for what it would be like to live aboard. Was I convinced it would work? Was there some wavering going on? Perhaps! From Nelson we headed to Picton and repeated the same process at Waikawa Marina. And that's where it happened! We were taken aboard a Catalina 36 and I was completely blown away by her.
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| The fabulous Catalina 36 |
