Water World

Abel Tasman has its back to the mountains and its face to the water. The bach is right on the inlet at Awaroa and life is ruled by the tides, which sweep in and out with twenty five hour cycles of the moon. High tide and low tide shift by about one hour per day. If the tide is in, you can't get across the bay to the car park to go shopping. If the tide is out, you can walk across. If the tide is half and half you can wade, but it all depends on whether the moon is full, for then the water can be deeper and wading turns to swimming.

Or you can use the little yellow boat which just about takes three passengers - Tom, Barbara and me. Yesterday was a walking trip, but as the tide was half in, half out there was quite a bit of wading up to our waists.

Some of the pleasures of the water lie in the creatures to be seen. A couple of days ago, from a track overlooking the sea, we saw an enormous creature arc out of the waves. It might have been a dolphin but looked to be too big so we are still wondering if we saw an Orca - a killer whale - pods of which have been spotted off the coast in recent weeks. But of course I didn't have my camera ready so it was the one that got away.

We were luckier today. We piled into the boat early (well before the wind gets up around midday) and set off out of the bay, in the dirction of a small cove to the east. Chugging along, propelled by the smelly two stroke outboard, we'd just got into the open sea when there was a commotion about two hundred metres away to the left. The head of a huge creature was shaking the hell out of a fish, probably one of the local Eagle Rays (the type with a vicious sting laden tail that killed Steve Irwin, the crocodile expert). The creature was larger than a seal and we think it was probably a sealion. As it thrashed about, gulls landed all around, hoping for some scraps from the meal. Then suddenly all was quiet again as the creature vanished from sight.

Towards the hidden cove where we planned to swim, shags preened on the rocks lining the coast, before dropping down to the surface of the sea. At the cove, the swimming was pure joy - water as translucent as air over a sandy bottom with a few rounded rocks to stand on. Coming back, against the tide pourng out of the bay, was hard work for the engine which whined and stank worse than ever. We made it before the water had all ebbed away, watching out for the rays which hug the sea floor where they feed on crustaceans. Waiting on the shore to greet us were row upon row of Oyster Catchers, waiting for lunch on the bay sand which would shortly be drained, leaving the small crabs and crayfish high and dry.