Not much wind, high cloud, the water is calm and flat and the light is too - softened by the cloud cover, rather muted. Altogether a gentle kind of day. And in the early evening, coming along the coast road I spied some stand up paddle boarders, taking courage presumably from the calm waters and making their way quite a daunting distance around to Island Bay.
Accompanied by a swirl of seagulls, and dwarfed by the setting, two people paddle their boards towards Island Bay. As they approach Taputeranga a fishing boat is heading out from the shelter of the bay. Island Bay is part of a marine reserve and the situation is unusual in that it also provides mooring for a number of fishing boats - which needless to say, have to leave the reserve area in order to do the fishing.
Fishing boat passing and paddle boarders approaching Taputeranga. They are almost invisible, swamped by the vastness of the soft blues of water and sky and the rugged rocky outcrops of the coast. (And one paddler was indeed swamped by the wake of the boat - but he got up quickly again, and all was well - they made it to shore.)