Port Gore

Scream spent the first night of our Christmas holiday in Port Gore.  We had intended to travel all of the way from Wellington to Guard's Bay, but despite a wonderful and long day flying our cruising chute we weren't traveling fast enough to make the distance before dark.  We had a lot of bottom growth slowing us down, but honestly there just wasn't much wind and we received little current assistance traveling through Cook Straight with the tide.

The windward side of Cape Jackson was becalmed, so we were quite surprised to find 15-20 knots of wind blowing out of Port Gore.  It took about an hour to motor against this into Waimatete Bay.  If we had been a little smarter we could have used this wind to our benefit and arrived in Guard's Bay only a little later than we got to our anchorage at Waimatete.  We tucked as deep into Waimatete as we dared, still in 20m well past the 17.1m marked on NZ  chart 615.

We spent the night under the cliffs, with northerly back eddies gusting at us at 20 knots, despite the 15 knot southerly forecast.

Port Gore is scenic and unspoiled.  There are tall cliffs and hills with native brush and birds.  There is no sign of humanity, and no cell service.  VHF signal was quite weak tucked into our anchorage.

We left early the next day.  The northerly gusts lasted all night, but once we were in the western half of Port Gore we were becalmed, and saw variable 5 knots for the rest of the day.

In short, we recommend avoiding anchoring in Port Gore.

5 thoughts on “Port Gore

  1. Dad ensslen says:

    thanks for this report and the salty terms and the smiling conclusion

    - 10 C with new snow on ice and a wind, for an alternative reality check

    danke schoen

    dakuyu dushe

  2. Dad ensslen says:

    looking forward to a picture of the southern night skies/southern universe and a commentary or two

    thanks

  3. Dad ensslen says:

    yes, the pleiades and everything else is upside down, down there, or as the late neil armstrong said in jy 1969, somebody is upside down, as the command module and lunar lander separated in lunar orbit with him and Buzz on the way to the surface of the moon, and Michael remaining. Michael later added, God only knows what is behind me on the dark side of the moon..

    the white island, nz, volcano is in the news today.

    calm harbours!

  4. February 4, 2013: Hi guys, long time no see. Just realized you were in NZ. Us too, in Opua. Will try to do a road trip south. Maybe we can meet up. Where are you now? We are heading north and onward through Indonesia.

  5. Steven says:

    Hi Jordan & Judy, We're tied up full time at Chaffer's Marina in Wellington. It would be wonderful to see you. Please look us up if you're in town.

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