Tarakohe boat dwellers a unique community
Darryl Dickerson uses an inflatable tender to get himself to and from his boat, Maariri. Photo: Gerard Hindmarsh.
One of Golden Bay’s most unique communities is made up of those “live-aboard” boat owners who call Tarakohe Harbour their home.
Last summer, around 15 “full-timers” resided there, including three families with two kids each.
Many of those have since sailed off to warmer climes, but five individuals still currently live in the harbour, watching the winter comings and goings of mussel farmers, boaties and recreational scallopers, ready for the inevitable arrivals and departures of yachts again this summer.
The longest live-aboard resident at Tarakohe is Darryl Dickerson, whose 14m ferro-cement Maariri is moored out by the outer breakwater, not far from the harbour entrance.
Apart from a year-long excursion in his boat to Vanuatu and Queensland last year, he has resided at Tarakohe for seven years, using a small inflatable to get to shore.
Darryl doesn’t own a car, and instead cycles five days a week to his carpentry jobs, the last three conveniently located around Pohara.
From his boat the panoramic view of the mountains is spectacular, and even though 60-knot winds can whip through the harbour at times, he still vouches for the weather there.
“It’s just not as cold as on land. Very rarely do we ever get a frost. If it is cold, like when I come home late, I just light my wood range and within a few minutes it’s 23 degrees inside the cabin.”
Darryl pays around $81 per month for his mooring, compared with marina-berthed boats of the inner harbour, which incur fees of between $60 and $90 per week, depending on their size and whether services like power and water are laid on.
John Chapman has one of those berths. He shifted aboard his 15.2m Shilo after selling his property at Parapara around four years ago.
“No lawns to mow. I love it,” he says, “I’ve been working on boats now since around 1970, so I feel very comfortable living on the water.”
An AB (Able Bodied) Seaman, John finds work aboard seismic and oil exploration boats, mainly around Taranaki.
Much of his earlier days were spent in the fishing industry and he has many tales to tell. In August 1975, a trawler he was working on, the Phoenix 1, foundered in heavy seas 30km southwest of Greymouth. Two members of the four-person crew drowned, but he and the skipper were picked up in a life-raft several hours later.
Not quite so seafaring in comparison, but still dedicated to his boat, is Oliver (Oli) Mitchell, owner of the Pirate Espresso Ship Physalie. He purchased it in Nelson in November 2007 after receivers had sold its engines because of a default by the previous owner, which meant he had to get it towed here from Nelson.
Oli has since installed an impressive art deco Has Garanti 2kg coffee roaster and a Wega coffee maker into the cabin of his 19.5m-long vessel, effectively turning it into a floating café.
He came up with the idea of roasting and selling free-trade coffee (he’s not licensed to sell food) to cover his $90 weekly “rent” at Tarakohe.
Built in France in 1957 out of 750-year-old French oak, and with with teak decks, the boat has an impressive history. Oli explains: “Jacques Cousteau owned it for a while and used it in his oceanographic research, but it goes well beyond that. This boat has caught around $25 million of fish in its time. And it’s sunk three times, twice at a wharf and once in 1985 for three months in 30m of water off the Abel Tasman before the Navy helped salvage it.”
Oli also enjoys observing all the marine life that finds shelter within the Tarakohe breakwater and in its rock hidey-holes. “You see all sorts of things, from huge stingrays with 5m wingspans to big conger eels, octopus and schools of small fish. Sometimes the whole place just pulses with jellyfish, or even a few seahorses dancing around the jetty piles. Last year a 3.5m dolphin came in to calve, that was really special to witness.”
Harbour manager Allan Kilgour says he enjoys a good relationship with all the live-aboard boat owners in the harbour.
“I make sure they get their mail and keep an eye on their boats when they are away. At the moment the live-aboard boats are scattered around the marina, but when we eventually get to extend the marina complex, we’ll have one wing of it dedicated to live-aboard boats. They’re an asset to have because they keep the place alive and naturally help keep an eye on everything going on. The place just feels a better community with these permanents about.”
Gerard Hindmarsh
