Motuarohia (Roberton) Island, Bay of Islands
Ship Cove, Queen Charlotte Sound
Deep Cove, Doubtful Sound
Endeavour Inlet, Marlborough Sounds
Oke Bay, Bay of Islands
Hike a section of the Milford Track
Kayak beneath Fiordland’s waterfalls
Watch sperm whales off Kaikoura
Lunch at a Marlborough vineyard
Snorkel the Poor Knights Islands marine reserve
Waitangi Treaty Grounds, Bay of Islands
Milford Sound, Fiordland
Queenstown
Hole in the Rock, Cape Brett
Abel Tasman National Park
New Zealand’s cruising season runs from November through April, the Southern Hemisphere’s late spring through autumn, when daytime temperatures in the Bay of Islands average the low-to-mid twenties Celsius. December through February is peak summer and the busiest at anchor; March and April bring calmer winds and a quieter Marlborough Sounds, with the grape harvest underway in the vineyards just inland from the coast.
Auckland (AKL) is the main international gateway and the easiest connection to the Hauraki Gulf and, by a short flight or drive, the Bay of Islands’ own airport at Kerikeri (KKE). For the South Island, Queenstown (ZQN) serves Fiordland, while Nelson (NSN) or Blenheim (BHE) put guests closest to the Marlborough Sounds and Queen Charlotte Sound.
Motuarohia Island in the Bay of Islands offers sheltered water and a short walk to a lookout over the bay’s 144 islands. In the Marlborough Sounds, Ship Cove, where Captain Cook anchored five times in the 1770s, remains one of the calmest overnight stops. Fiordland’s Deep Cove, reached only by water or a mountain road, adds a genuinely remote night at anchor beneath thousand-metre cliffs.
The Bay of Islands rewards four to five days, enough to move between its sheltered bays and still fit in a day at Waitangi. The Marlborough Sounds, with its maze of drowned valleys, is worth a full week. Combining the two, or adding Fiordland, generally means flying between regions rather than sailing the open Tasman coastline between them, so most guests choose one region per trip.
The New Zealand Millennium Cup, the country’s own superyacht regatta, now races out of Auckland’s Waitemata Harbour each year in late January or early February, having moved there from the Bay of Islands in 2023. It draws some of the world’s largest sailing yachts for several days of racing and is worth building a charter around if you want to see them competing up close, though Auckland’s marinas fill quickly that week.
