The Marlborough Sounds are an extensive network of sea-drowned valleys at the northern end of the

South Island The South Island, also officially named , is the larger of the two major islands of New Zealand in surface area, the other being the smaller but more populous North Island. It is bordered to the north by Cook Strait, to the west by the Tasman ...

of New Zealand. The Marlborough Sounds were created by a combination of land subsidence and

rising sea levels Rising may refer to: * Rising, a stage in baking - see Proofing (baking technique) *Elevation * Short for Uprising, a rebellion Film and TV * "Rising" (''Stargate Atlantis''), the series premiere of the science fiction television program ''Starg ...

. According to

Māori mythology Māori mythology and Māori traditions are two major categories into which the remote oral history of New Zealand's Māori may be divided. Māori myths concern fantastic tales relating to the origins of what was the observable world for the pr ...

, the sounds are the prows of the many sunken waka of Aoraki.

Overview

Covering some of sounds, islands, and peninsulas, the Marlborough Sounds lie at the South Island's north-easternmost point, between Tasman Bay / Te Tai-o-Aorere in the west and Cloudy Bay in the south-east. The almost

fractal In mathematics, a fractal is a geometric shape containing detailed structure at arbitrarily small scales, usually having a fractal dimension strictly exceeding the topological dimension. Many fractals appear similar at various scales, as ill ...

coastline has 1/10 of the length of New Zealand's coasts. The steep, wooded hills and small quiet bays of the sounds are sparsely populated, as access is difficult. Many of the small settlements and isolated houses are only accessible by boat. The main large port is Picton on the mainland, at the head of Queen Charlotte Sound. It is at the northern terminus of the South Island's main railway and

state highway A state highway, state road, or state route (and the equivalent provincial highway, provincial road, or provincial route) is usually a road that is either ''numbered'' or ''maintained'' by a sub-national state or province. A road numbered by a ...

networks. The main small-boat port, Waikawa, is one of New Zealand's largest and provides a base for leisure sailors and vacationers. The main sounds, other than Queen Charlotte Sound, are Pelorus Sound and Kenepuru Sound. Tory Channel is a major arm of Queen Charlotte Sound, and between them, the Channel and the Sound isolate the hills of

Arapaoa Island Arapaoa Island, formerly known as Arapawa Island, is an island located in the Marlborough Sounds, at the north east tip of the South Island of New Zealand. The island has a land area of . Queen Charlotte Sound / Tōtaranui defines its western sid ...

from the mainland. Other major islands in the sounds include D'Urville Island. The Sounds are home to the entire breeding population of the rare and vulnerable rough-faced shag (also known as the New Zealand king cormorant) which nests on a small number of rocky islets there.BirdLife International. (2012). ''Important Bird Areas factsheets: Duffers Reef. Sentinel Rock. Trio Islands. White Rocks.'' Downloaded from http://www.birdlife.org on 2012-02-03. The

Department of Conservation An environmental ministry is a national or subnational government agency politically responsible for the environment and/or natural resources. Various other names are commonly used to identify such agencies, such as Ministry of the Environment ...

manages a total of over 50 reserves in the area.Marlborough Sounds
(from the

website. Accessed 2008-05-16.)

History

Pre-modern era

The sounds were extensively travelled and partly inhabited by

Māori Māori or Maori can refer to: Relating to the Māori people * Māori people of New Zealand, or members of that group * Māori language, the language of the Māori people of New Zealand * Māori culture * Cook Islanders, the Māori people of the Co ...

groups before the coming of the Europeans, using the sounds as shelter from bad weather and partaking of the rich food sources. Māori were also known to carry their canoes over some stretches of land on

portage Portage or portaging (Canada: ; ) is the practice of carrying water craft or cargo over land, either around an obstacle in a river, or between two bodies of water. A path where items are regularly carried between bodies of water is also called a ...

paths. However, as in most areas of the South Island, populations were smaller than in the North Island. European history of the area is considered to start with Captain Cook's visit to the sounds in the 1770s, discovering a plant ( Cook's scurvy grass) high in

vitamin C Vitamin C (also known as ascorbic acid and ascorbate) is a water-soluble vitamin found in citrus and other fruits and vegetables, also sold as a dietary supplement and as a topical 'serum' ingredient to treat melasma (dark pigment spots) ...

which helped to cure

scurvy Scurvy is a deficiency disease, disease resulting from a lack of vitamin C (ascorbic acid). Early symptoms of deficiency include weakness, feeling tired and sore arms and legs. Without treatment, anemia, decreased red blood cells, gum disease, ch ...

amongst his crew. On Motuara Island, Cook also proclaimed British sovereignty over the South Island. Some parts of the sounds also later developed a significant

whaling Whaling is the process of hunting of whales for their usable products such as meat and blubber, which can be turned into a type of oil that became increasingly important in the Industrial Revolution. It was practiced as an organized industr ...

history, and much of the sounds was (thinly) settled by European farmers in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Ferries and marine farms

The Marlborough Sounds are connected to Cook Strait at the north-east extreme. At this point, the

North Island The North Island, also officially named Te Ika-a-Māui, is one of the two main islands of New Zealand, separated from the larger but much less populous South Island by the Cook Strait. The island's area is , making it the world's 14th-larges ...

is at its closest to the South Island, and the inter-island road, rail, and passenger

ferry A ferry is a ship, watercraft or amphibious vehicle used to carry passengers, and sometimes vehicles and cargo, across a body of water. A passenger ferry with many stops, such as in Venice, Italy, is sometimes called a water bus or water ta ...

service between Picton and

Wellington Wellington ( mi, Te Whanganui-a-Tara or ) is the capital city of New Zealand. It is located at the south-western tip of the North Island, between Cook Strait and the Remutaka Range. Wellington is the second-largest city in New Zealand by ...

travels through the sounds. Marine farming, especially of

salmon Salmon () is the common name for several commercially important species of euryhaline ray-finned fish from the family Salmonidae, which are native to tributaries of the North Atlantic (genus '' Salmo'') and North Pacific (genus '' Onco ...

and

mussel Mussel () is the common name used for members of several families of bivalve molluscs, from saltwater and freshwater habitats. These groups have in common a shell whose outline is elongated and asymmetrical compared with other edible clams, which ...

s, is increasingly common, having started in the 1960s. However, the wakes caused by fast

catamaran A Formula 16 beachable catamaran Powered catamaran passenger ferry at Salem, Massachusetts, United States A catamaran () (informally, a "cat") is a multi-hulled watercraft featuring two parallel hulls of equal size. It is a geometry-sta ...

vehicular ferry services to the North Island have allegedly damaged farms and destroyed

crab Crabs are decapod crustaceans of the infraorder Brachyura, which typically have a very short projecting "tail" (abdomen) ( el, βραχύς , translit=brachys = short, / = tail), usually hidden entirely under the thorax. They live in all th ...

grounds. They were also blamed for stripping the local beaches bare of sand, and damaging landings and other facilities built close to the water's edge. This resulted in a dispute heard in the New Zealand Environment Court in the early 1990s, brought forward by the 'Guardians of the Sounds' group. The court, however, not only refused to restrict the fast ferries but also awarded NZ$300,000 in court costs against the citizen group which had brought the case. This was seen as a strong blow against civic action, and a curtailing of the powers of the Resource Management Act. However, as damage increasingly became visible, and protests continued, the fast ferries (which only operated for the summer season) were eventually restricted to a lower speed of 18 knots in the sounds (officially for safety reasons), reducing their time advantage over the conventional ferries.Fast Ferries
(from the ''Guardians of the Sounds'' action group website) They have since been discontinued. In July/August 2007, the 'Guardians of the Sounds' environmentalist group planned a 100-ship flotilla protest against scallop dredging in the sounds, which they consider damages the ecosystem of the sounds similar to bottom trawling in the open sea. The protest was intended to call attention to what they allege is the Ministry of Fisheries ignoring the detrimental effect of the practice. Commercial scallops harvesting companies have warned that protests could endanger lives if the protesters engaged in dangerous manoeuvres, while the Ministry of Fisheries has also noted that only 6% of the sounds are set aside for the dredging, though this had been much more extensive in the past.

Dangerous waters

The main channels of the Marlborough Sounds have calm water and are popular for

sailing Sailing employs the wind—acting on sails, wingsails or kites—to propel a craft on the surface of the ''water'' (sailing ship, sailboat, raft, windsurfer, or kitesurfer), on ''ice'' (iceboat) or on ''land'' ( land yacht) over a chose ...

. Cook Strait, however, is infamous for its strong currents and rough waters, especially when the wind is from the south or north. Because of this, some of the narrow channels closer to the Strait are dangerous to navigate. Notable amongst these is French Pass at the southern end of D'Urville Island, which has several vortices. The most notable shipwreck in the sounds is that of the Russian cruise liner MS ''Mikhail Lermontov'', which sank in 1986 in Port Gore, close to the mouth of Queen Charlotte Sound, after colliding with rocks. One crew member was killed in the disaster. The ship herself is now a popular dive wreck.

References

External links

NZ Maritime Museum's article on the ''Mikhail Lermontov''

Marlborough Sounds Restoration Trust
{{Coord, 41, 08, 30, S, 174, 05, 22, E, region:NZ-MBH_type:landmark_scale:1000000, display=title Landforms of the Marlborough Region Sounds of New Zealand Cook Strait