Standing on the narrow bridge, I was admiring the expanse of the fast-flowing Whataroa braided river on the wild west coast of South Island New Zealand. A black four-by-four drew up. “Did I fancy a helicopter trip above the snow-line of the Southern Alps?” We negotiated an irresistible price and I joined three others and the pilot in a tiny Hughes 500 helicopter. Heading south at first, we flew above State Highway 6, along which I was engaged in a photo-project. A real bonus to get some shots of the road from several hundred feet. Gaining height the pilot turned inland, flying first over the Franz Joseph Glacier, then higher still over the Fox Glacier to land on the high plateau. Strange to be walking on the ice, basking in sunshine, dressed in a tee shirt. Cameras where popping everywhere. After taking-off again we attempted to get over the Main Divide for a view of Mount Cook but some serious buffeting soon put paid to that. So then, just some breathtaking views of snow-propped mountain peaks, serpent glaciers snaking downwards towards the sea and ice-encrusted cirque edges hiding dark and mysterious gullies. Following the descent of the Gunn River until it joined the Whataroa, we arrived back at the grassy knoll that passes for the helipad on the riverbank. I hung about watching a party of four kayakers take off next, complete with their four kayaks slung below the aircraft in a cargo net. This is a place for high-tech machinery and high adrenalin adventure to come together in harmony.

Just as we were coming into land, I had spotted a white heron standing on a rock at the edge of the water and went in search of it. It had gone, but I found Michael instead. Well-protected against the sand-flies, he has spent the last six months turning rocks and shovelling sand into a water trough prospecting for gold on the river-bank. And he has been moderately successful- he showed me today’s catch. It didn’t look a lot for all that graft but it must bring it’s rewards.    None of this had been on my agenda for today but carpe diem also brings its own rewards.  What a splendid way to spend Sunday morning.

The road to Totaranui is hardly there any more- closed, washed away in the pre-Christmas storms. A narrow, twisting, gravel switch-back reaching out across the hills from Takaka like a serpent’s tongue. But it has been devastated, simply washed down, falling into bottomless gullies in places. Gone for good more than likely.

Totaranui is a camping ground, wide open and luscious beside a half moon bay of golden sand edged by a lagoon and a lazy river that disappears at low tide. Even with the road open you had to make an effort to get there but by golly it is worth it.                                                                                                    Seventeen of us boarded the Sea Shuttle at Kaiteriteri, loaded down with kit- bedding, victuals, surf skis, cycles and a kayak for a week in a very special place. No shops, no phones, no internet, only nature at its best, until the boat comes back for us in seven days time. The chain gang on the beach brought it all ashore, bound for the old homestead- a grand wooden bungalow with wide verandas that left us feeling  like old colonials. The camp ground was not a quarter full and all the beach gear was cheerfully left unhindered on the sand all week.                                                                            The days were full- swimming, paddling, walking (even running for those who embraced it.) And we celebrated- Yags’ birthday, Australia Day, ourselves and the winner of the Totaranui Four Buoy swim with a trophy made from pickings off the beach.            Simply glorious!

Encouraged by recent kayaking ventures, I took to the water for a Sunday morning paddle approaching full tide. It was a beautiful sunny morning with hardly a breath of wind. On the far side of the estuary, a cluster of white dinghy sails stood glistening- almost motionless. It was a scene of utter tranquillity and a far cry from the small hours of the night when a 5.1 magnitude earthquake with an epi-centre just off the beach, half a mile away, came crashing through our slumbers. I paddled upstream intent on passing under the bridge where the estuary narrows to a river, about three miles distant. Just before the bridge I paused to pass the time of day with an older fellow paddler. We commented on the loss of the  little yacht club that had stood on the bank here for seventy years. But last February’s earthquake had done for it; at high water I was able to paddle across what once had been the pontoon and the clubhouse, and around the lampposts that used to light the car-park. Passing under the bridge, suddenly I was being headed by a strong wind caused, I thought, by the tunneling effect. But no, the wind had certainly picked up. Turning to head for home, back under the bridge the wind was on the starboard quarter and I had trouble maintaining a straight course. The wind increased- there were white caps everywhere. Squeezing past the end of the old jetty, I turned to keep close inshore. I was pretty determined to complete the paddle back yet within two more minutes I judged the wind to be around Force 6 and suddenly the water was no place to be. I beached and hauled out under some trees. Perhaps if I wait a few minutes it will die down again. But not so, it grew even stronger- it had been the right decision. In fifteen minutes it had gone from nothing to gusting Force 8- the land suddenly seemd a far more friendlier place, earthquakes or not!

On Boxing Day, three of us made a short kayak expedition along New Zealand’s Catlin Coast and found an unexpected little cove. We entered through a narrow channel between the rocks, judging the swell to get safely in. Masses of thick sea kelp clogged the water in startling green and yellow rafts, their giant fronds swirling and reaching, octopus-like, around the boats. Caves and rocky islets lined the cove and a young seal plopped into the water at our approach, while a fully-grown adult swam beneath one of the kayaks. On shore, a pair of sea-lion pups watched us cautiously but a family of nesting shags happily ignored the intruders. White royal spoonbills circled overhead against a cloudless blue sky: isolated, wild, unconstrained- striking a blurred edge between the sea and the land.

There was an aftershock at 1.25am this morning, five days after I arrived back in NZ. It was not a big one- 3.5 magnitude, but it was enough to wake us up- a short, sharp shake-up. “What was that about?” groaned Beti. “Don’t know” I muttered and turned over to go back to sleep. 3.5 doesn’t sound a lot and it isn’t, but, as we now know, the epi-centre was barely 300 metres away- out in the estuary, and just six kilometres below ground.  Six kilometres or three-and-a-half miles on the other hand, sounds rather a lot, but not in earthquake terms- that’s pretty shallow. In fact, it’s very shallow- and close! No wonder it woke us up. Welcome back to Christchurch.

It was meant to be fun. Fleur was still on her mooring on a grey, blustery, spitting-with-rain sort of day, when three men and a dog called Charlie, took her to sea. Well, truthfully, for a turn around the Bay. Down wind in the southerly was good. Then, caught between a tack and a gybe, we chose the former and got the latter. After a brief pause for recovery we went off in search of the Treasurer’s Hat that had been swept away in the flurry. The skipper was bringing it up nicely on the port side, the Secretary on the foredeck poised with the boathook, when a sudden twitch in the wind pushed it to starboard. Forsaking the helm for a second, the skipper made a lunge over the starboard rail and plucked the hat from a watery grave. Success- at the price of a second involuntary gybe. The dog sniffed in disdain- but it was meant to be fun Charlie, it was meant to be fun and it was. Only when we were safely tied up back on the pontoon did we find that the bolt securing the mast to the tabernacle had lost its nut and was part way through a bid for freedoom…

The boatman delivering bread

As summer passed into autumn, Beti and I joined friends aboard Kate, a new Dufour 40 yacht, part of a flotilla sailing out of Marmaris Bay on Turkey’s west coast. An empty, barren, starkly beautiful coast full of headlands, islands and mysterious deep-water inlets. Serce, completely hidden from the sea, reached through a narrow concealed channel guarded by a sentinal rock, but which opens up into a natural harbour big enough to hide an armada. Total habitation was a ramshackle wooden restaraunt serving good nourishment. Not even a rickety jetty here, the boat is moored to a small buoy with a long stern line tide to a rock on shore. I slept under the stars in the cockpit and woke to the creaking oars of the early morning boatman delivering freshly baked bread.

A smattering of ruins on the shore may be Greek or Roman, Byzantine or Otterman. In the summer of 1522 Sultan Suleiman the Magnificant assembled a fleet of 400 ships in these waters to carry 100,000 men the twenty miles across the sea to Rhodes to lay siege to the Knights of Hospitaller, whose piratical activities were a source of irritation to Otterman interests. Great history, fine people, good tucker and fascinating sailing on ancient seas. An altogether different Turkey to the one I met forty-two years ago in a Ford Anglia.

September passed into October in an unlikely burst of sunshine at the end of a mixed summer. I took Fleur out into the Bristol Channel for a last sail before laying her up. Under a cloudless sky, with a bit of imagination the water almost looked blue … No wind was apparent when I hoisted the main, set the mizzen and unfurled the gib on a glassy sea, yet the sails filled as we ebbed slowly towards Lavernock Point. Then suddenly, we were being hurled around the Rane Buoy as the fierce tides ripped around the corner. But it soon settled and a light following wind sent Fleur idling past Sully Island and on to Barry. We turned with the tide at the Merkur Buoy somewhere off Cold Knap and were just able to make a course to take us between the two Holm islands; sometimes touching 5 knots on the incoming rush. But then the wind all but gave up the ghost and we tacked to settle for the shortest way home. The south cardinal marking the Wolves rocks steamed past our stern faster than the Queen Mary and the sea whispered its warning as breaking water surfaced barely a hundred yards away. Soon we were becalmed though and the outboard took us the final mile and a half and safely back through the cavernous locks of Cardiff barrage. Six hours of inordinate pleasure; sometimes it’s just the simple things…

When asked to fill out some form or other, I have a habit of recording my occupation as my true status- Wandering Pauper. Today, I realised my dream when I received a letter from the city council addressed to Wandering Pauper Ltd!

Welsh Gaffer

Welcome to Welsh Gaffer’s log on watermarks. Here you can find comment on things nautical and not so nautical and a sprinkling of photographs.  I have worn many hats through the days of my years, and followed many different paths. But- it is often said it is better to be on the quayside wishing you were out there, than being out there wishing you were on the quayside. Or is it?