Port Hutt
Chatham Island

We’ve been spending the last couple of days pretty casually, anchored out in sleepy little Port Hutt. Our only real encounter with the locals took place a few days ago. We’d been driving around for the day, and when we got back we found that one of the local fishing boats anchored in the bay had dragged its anchor all over the place and, judging by the blue skid marks on Tom Bowling’s side, had taken a swing at us on the way by. As it went, it managed to get our anchor chains all tangled together.

Fairly pissed by the damage, Ralph went in to ask the locals whose boat it was that was causing the trouble. Sure enough, the fisherman was there and the whole town seemed to have been watching all afternoon. “Oh yeah, it looked like your boat was getting bashed around a bit”. No one felt the need to do anything about it, of course. The only thing that seemed to get them remotely concerned was when Ralph pointed out that we may have dislodged his anchor when we retrieved ours from the tangle. Luckily the damage was minor and we won’t have a problem getting away in a few days, but it’s amazing how little consideration people have for outsiders. It’s almost as though they were enjoying our misfortune.

Oh well, that episode behind us, Ralph went for a dive across the bay this afternoon looking for a shipwreck, and bagged a huge quantity of cray (like lobster, but without the big front pinchers), paua (abalone), eel and octopus. Invoking the ‘living off the land’ clause in my personal vegetarian policy, I enjoyed an orgasmic dinner of fresh lobster and beer. We’ve now got enough seafood onboard to last us a week, since a few of the lobsters were bigger than 7 lbs and will barely fit in our biggest pot. Right on – we’re happy here for a bit longer at least.