Stewart Island…The Sea

Stewart Island is really more than a single island.  It’s actually a cluster of 170 islands…

…most too small to support human habitation.  It’s what lives on those other islets that makes touring them so fascinating.

The sea around Stewart Island is crystal clear.  You can see deep into the water and still pick out what’s on the ocean bottom.

Stewart Island Oystercatcher

The shoreline is teeming with wildlife.

We chose to explore the shoreline with a tour company that put us on a glass-bottomed boat.

But first, they demonstrated how the water is swarming with fish.  They gave us a chance to put a line in the water.  In less than a minute, Carol was reeling in a Blue Cod.

The fish attracted a flock of albatross.  They live at sea, so we never got a chance to see them from on shore.  They are huge…four times the size of a gull…and very aggressive.  

More interesting were the Giant Petrils.  They were much faster fliers and would swoop in amongst the albatross and try to steal the fish from them.

Back to the glass-bottomed boat.

Not only was the water clear, but in many of the island coves were dense undersea forests.

The fish were harder to spot…because they spent most of their time hidden in the foliage.  By the way, this is a Blue Cod, like the one Carol caught.  They are used to make the best fish ’n chips in New Zealand.

Because Steward Island is free of predators, most of the animals have lost their fear of humans.  They let you get very close.  These New Zealand fur seals were almost wiped out by European fur hunters.

They are now a protected species.  Their populations are stable but nowhere near what they used to be.  

They too like the Blue Cod.

Like the seals, most of the species of penguins are also threatened.  We got just a brief glimpse of this small island which seemed well-stocked with penguins.  But it was not typical.  Penguins nest on land and spend all day at sea.  We spent two evenings and one morning staking out their nesting areas before we finally hit pay dirt.

Blue Penguin...the world's smallest

In our next post, we’ll show you we had a bit better luck finding penguins elsewhere.