We also undertook a 2 week voyage to the Auckland islands undertaking much needed restoration work to the historic buildings that are slowly deteriorating, this was under supervision of the historic restoration department of the Dep of Conservation (DOC0. We went there whit 4 skilled volunteers, the trip was supported finically by a very kind Waiheke island entrepreneur who took part in the trip himself  he had some very good skill to add to the group making it a very nice but also entertaining expedition, we did have a few good laughs.

Yellow eyed penguin survey team

We had another  long and intersting  season working in the NZ Sub Antarctic, starting with 20 day charter to the Snares working with the Salvins albatross  and then a one month long survey of the Auckland islands looking for yellow Eyed Penguins, this was the fist time such a  survey was carried out, the Auckland islands are the last bastion for these endangered species  this was early in the year and it seemed particularly windy, lots days with wind speeds 50 knots+ which made it more challenging then it already was. We also did a trip whit some slightly eccentric bird watchers which was lots of fun and we finished the season with a round trip visiting all the 5 NZ Sub Antarctic islands under charter to the University of Otago collecting sea weed and other intertidal species for there climate research work.

Tiama, Port Ross Auckland islands

Back to the  NZ sub Antarctic for another  series of 12 science, research  and logistical support  voyages for the NZ Dep of Conservation and the National institute of Water and Atmosphere.It has been a good summer with Tiama and her crew working hard but also having fun, and lots of interesting work being done by the clients, you can not help but love the Sub Antarctic islands, they are a magical place.

MAIN AREA OF OPERATION: New Zealand, South Pacific, Southern South America, Antarctic and Sub Antarctic and the Arctic regions (on request worldwide).

Tiama is available for all voyages as described . Unscheduled voyages will be accomodated where possible on request.

Bookings
For bookings contact us direct via , phone ++64 (0) 21 534003 or e-mail  tiama@clear.net.nz. We can also advise on your personal travel plans and accommodation to get to and from departing and arrival points.

Logistics
We are available to assist and organise any aspect of your travels or expedition requirements. Please contact us directly to discuss your plans.

Hundasted Propellor

We are in the middle of our busy season, The boat has undergone yet another  mayor refit this winter adding to the new engine installation we did last winter. She  now has a 160 HP Yanmar engine driving a 3 bladed Variable pitch Hundasted propeller, most of the  installation  was done by Whiting Power in Auckland and they did a fin job.  It feels like a new boat, what a difference, we  also added a fuel computer giving us a instant read out of liters per hour consumed by the engine, we hope to a archive a 15%  savings in fuel consumption from the combination of Variable pitch propellor and new efficient engine and so far it looks good, never mind the increased capabilities of the boat being able to punch into strong  head winds and  when sailing we can turn the  blades in the neutral position  reducing the drag normally created by a fixed blade propeller,  we are a sailing boat after all, it makes a noticeable difference especially in light winds. I,m a bit like a kid whit a great new toy, it feels very nice to have a complete new top of the range engine and propellor humming away under the cockpit floor,  we also renewed the sails, bought a new  3.9 meter Lancer Hypalon inflatable whit a new 30 hp outboard and last but not least replaced  the upholstery, plus a list of other smaller jobs that needed doing, the boat is in great shape and ready to work hard, the skipper is a bit the worse for wear but has cut his hair and still has a spring in his step.

Most of the other work for the season has been science and research support voyages, we also took the designer of Tiama, Alan Mummery for a 12 day trip to Auckland and Campbell island, the season ended with a charter for the NZ Geological and nuclear sciences institute conducting a geological survey of the Wild Fiordland coastline.

A charter for the New Zealand Ministry of Fisheries, doing an underwater dive survey of the coastline; bird and seal counts, as well as taking biopsy samples of humpback whales.

I just wished that they had picked a different part of the Antarctic to go to. The Balleny Islands have the distinguished reputation of being a hard place to reach and an even harder place to do work.

Before we left I spent large amounts of time looking at ice charts and consulting with ice experts, skippers and weather experts.  Most of them agreed that it was a bold but feasible plan. There were a few notable exceptions remarking I was a braver man than them to go there in such a small vessel. Of course one gets a bit worried about these sorts of remarks from knowledgeable people, but after analyzing and discussing all the various points of view I felt that it was possible to do it within acceptable safety parameters

The island group is very, very remote, rarely visited and locked in the ice for about 10 months of the year. The west coast of the island group is only ice free for about one month of the year and sometimes it does not get free of the pack ice at all.

No small boat had been to the Balleny islands since David Lewis visited them briefly 28 years ago on Solo.  The island group is situated in the friction zone between the permanent Antarctica high and southern ocean lows.

During our southbound voyage we had favorable westerly to north westerly winds 35 to 45 knots. Tiama loves this sort of breeze lapping it up under storm tri-sail and hurricane jib with a drop of Genoa rolled out when needed.  For this voyage I fitted a very small jib on the inner forestay. This was a tiny bit of rag built like a brick shit house and a beautiful thing to have in a stiff breeze.

The day we arrived it was flat calm with 3 humpback whales on the port bow. Work began immediately photographing their flukes for later identification and taking biopsy samples. On that first day we got several good fluke shots and one biopsy sample which was a good start for the science program.

This was real scientific whaling, unlike the slaughter that was taking place 2000 miles due east by the so called scientific Japanese whaling ships. It was good to know that my old Greenpeace colleagues were there at the same time trying to stop them.

We managed to carry out 90 % of the scientific program, which was a bit ambitious to start with.   The 4 scientists onboard worked hard, doing on average 2 dives a day in minus 1.5 degree waters, ice all around, and chilly just to watch. It was cold enough for the fresh water tanks on board to start freezing up.

The weather gods treated us kindly for this expedtion, and although all the historic records of the Balleny islands state that there is no shelter for boats, we managed to find shelter where previously nobody had found any. I think this was mainly due to the different view seen through the eyes of a small boat skipper compared to the view from the bridge of a big ship.  We can turn around on a penny, have a lifting keel that can reduce our draft from three meters to 1.2 meters in a few minutes and can find shelter in shallow waters behind cliffs, sand spits and islands.

Most of the better places to park for the night were close to the partly ice free Capes of the bigger islands or on the sides of the smaller islands that had more gently sloping hills and lower cliffs. Here we could get close in and find bottom without the threat of a house sized lump of ice landing on the deck. Unfortunately none of the anchorages that we found allowed for the luxury of the whole crew sitting down below over a glass of wine. We always had to have one person on worry duty topsides.

The North Eastern Cape of Buckle Island was by far the worst place that we used.  Anchoring in 80 meters of water with 120 meters of chain out is not really anchoring. It is more like having a small precarious foot hold. This foothold was accompanied by an active calving glacier 600 meters away, which sent regular small rivers of ice our way, bumping and scraping along the hull, which you can imagine meant none of us slept well that night.

For the trip back up north we had not so favorable west to North West winds, 3 big systems came through peaking at 55 knots each. Tiama is just a great deep sea boat, beautiful to watch as she works her way through the water, scary at times for sure, but just right.

We arrived back in Bluff March 5th, after 5 weeks at sea, with only a few minor cases of cabin fever onboard. I’m happy to report that we did not break much gear. In fact I only spent $150 in the hardware shop to replace a few lost and broken items. This is less then what we break on our regular NZ Sub-Antarctic trips.

I know that one needs drama to make a good story, so be assured the trip did make my hair go a bit greyer. Our contact at the Ministry of Fisheries asked on our return if we wanted to do another trip. I agreed to do so but suggested that we should have a year break in between to give the skipper a chance to catch his breath and put his feet by the fire at home.

 We did another refit on Tiama  before this expedtion and she is now fitted out with dive compressor, dive bottles etc for remote expedition dive work; a top of the range depth sounder which can record up to 700 meters and log depths, course, position, barometric pressure etc in a spread sheet form…. very fancy gear.

The remainder of the southern summer season was spent sailing to the NZ Sub Antarctic islands supporting various research programs.  One notable trip was collecting mushrooms for an American university sponsored by National Geographic with a weird, wonderful and eccentric bunch of scientists onboard. But nothing quite as exciting as the Balleny islands.

For the winter months we are back in Auckland doing maintenance work etc. Looks like  next summer we will be working again from the Port of Bluff sailing to the NZ sub Antarctic islands.

Tiama and her crew are well, Ruby has gotten her first commercial boat operator’s certificate, and occasionally sails as mate onboard Tiama. Bunny is desk bound at Greenpeace New Zealand. And I’m floating about as happy as ever.

Kind regards

Henk

A total of 12 trips to the Sub Antarctic, including 2 trips to Macquarie island  which is half way down between NZ and the Antarctic.  Its  a small long skinny island  in the middle of the Southern Ocean with so many penguins on some of the beaches that you can not see the end of the colonies. We were providing transport for  a BBC film crew. There is  no real anchorage at Macquarie Island and it has a seemingly constant rolling surf on the beach all of  which makes life interesting and does not help the grey hair department.

Most of the other  work we have been doing has a conservation/research twist to it.  We do seem to spend a lot of time with slightly eccentric sea bird researchers   onboard taking them to and from  the fair flung NZ Sub Antarctic islands where they  try to determine the impact different fisheries techniques have on the various albatross populations.  About   75% of the worlds albatross come to the NZ sub Antarctic islands for breeding.

The health of the populations also reflect the state our planet is in and in a way act as a barometer for the impacts of climate change. At times the crew get the opportunity to get our hands dirty working with the different albatross species as field assistants, this is great.  Funny how one ends up growing a passion for the big bird, I had never imagined myself as a bird person but  they truly are amazing creatures.

Another interesting job was providing logistical support for 2 geologists from the NZ  Institute of Geological and Nuclear Sciences surveying the outer and very exposed West coast of Fiord land. They were for sure in the eccentric department. We dropped them off on some amazing rock outcrops carrying  a big  geologist hammer, and then picked them up again in what were at times challenging circumstances without letting them drop in the water,  a good thing really as they usually had a big bag full of rock specimens between them.

We celebrated the tenth  birthday of Tiama on 7 December last year, she has 90,000 nautical miles under her keel and is going strong. It is interesting to see that a lot of the  gear and equipment starts giving up after 10 years of hard work.  During this winters maintenance period I will be replacing the stainless steel standing rigging, diesel heater,  wind generator, gas cooker, next year the main engine and hull sandblasting is on the list.

That is boats for you, as one hardware retailer  in Invercargill once told me , we are not here to make money we are just here to make friends .

And having fun of course, we still do that although at the end of the summer charter season it almost starts feeling like a real job, but that is only when we come and go from port, dealing whit yet another bag full of  laundry and a never ending grocery shopping list.  The actual time at sea still has plenty  of challenges. The southern ocean is forever changing and not to be underestimated.

Cheers
Henk

Articles

Beyond the Furious Fifties 
Expedition to the Balleny Isles with Dr Franz Smith
Forest and Bird Magazine Feb 2007 (pdf 1.6mb)

End of the Line
The MFish expedition to the Balleny Isles
Shelly Far Biswell
NZ Geographic Magazine April 2007 (pdf 4.8mb)

In the wake of David Lewis part one
Scientific Expedition to the Balleny Isles – Henk Haazen
Professional Skipper Magazine April 2007 (pdf 2.2mb)

In the wake of David Lewis part two
Scientific Expedition to the Balleny Isles – Henk Haazen
Professional Skipper Magazine June 2007 (pdf 2.5mb)