Pelican Island

-Retracting away from Nelson counter-culture Graeme Bird, Mark Nichols and Bruce Wilson broaden their minds and horizons..

- Graeme's crayfishing brother had often told us of his missions through Cook Strait in rough seas and his stories of secret reefs and fabled point had often tantalised our taste buds and finally on Sunday we broke free of city that binds us and went in search of the mysterious "Pelican Island". Everything seemed so wrong leaving Nelson whilst it was recieving a solid swell but at the same time we were all very excited at the prospect of finding something new....

-Arriving in Picton with boat and boards we really did look out of place with the random old timers joke to us "pretty big waves out there" , pointing sarcastically at the mill-pond like conditions, I dont know but when "non-surfers" point out lack of swell it really gets my back up but we shook it off with a laugh all the same.

Punching out of the sounds in Bruce's pimped out IrB felt pretty good until halfway to our destination we realised that we had lost a surfboard and had to spend the next hour searching for it. Anyhow, after back-pedalling we quickly regained the pace and as soon as we hit open ocean I kept having these visions of those highspeed jet-boats doing backflips as Bruce was merciless on the accelerator.As Pelican Island came into view our excitement turned to deflation as the heavy 5metre swell forecast didnt seem to be penetrating the island outer reefs and thus only allowing a small amount of swell into the bay. Somewhat "anti-frothed", we reluctantly suited up and had a grovel in the 1-2ft waves on offer.

-Despite the lack of swell and the realisation that perhaps Pelican Island wasnt the dream ride we were all hoping for we all had an awesome time and there were plenty of "high fives" at the end of the day. The old saying "half the fun is getting there" truly was the case this day and despite the odd over-exaggeraton its great to get out and about and smell that salty air....

thanks again,