I'm aboard the former patrol boat HMNZ Moa , as it enters Dusky Sound through a cluster of pretty islets casually dismissed on the chart as ‘‘Many islands''.
In 1773, when Jimmy Cook noodled in through these Many islands, the first Maori he saw, cautious citizens, decided to decamp.
While our own boat is smaller than Captain Cook's Resolution, it is clearly navy, and is new to Fiordland. So when Southern fishermen first saw her looming, a couple of them deduced the swine at Fisheries had upped the ante.
They scuttled off as quickly as the earlier inhabitants. Their panicked retreat was unnecessary. Moa is now decommissioned and has become a charter boat, nicely renamed Flightless.
Sean Ellis and Maria Kuster, with Jen Foote, another Fiordland veteran, have sailed her south, and Dad's Army is their first fishing customer.
Readers may recall that Dad's Army is a crack squad of highly trained once-weres. (‘‘Once-were'' is the polite form of the pejorative adjective ‘‘has-been''. All has-beens are once-weres. You knew that.)
The Dad's Army once-weres include an Irish bank manager who'd have Captain Mainwaring seething, a couple of matured computer nerds, a farmer, a flyer and sundry nabobs of business and education.
The army's Commanding Officer is titled Admiral. (Don't ask how. He took his papers in insurance). Dad's Army almost sank the last boat it sailed on.
The seas were rough and the craft was pitching wildly when a more senior midshipman entered the toilet, and unzipped his fly. Realising conditions made accurate fire unlikely, he adopted the method recommended in the training manual.
He dropped his trousers around his ankles, and lowered himself towards the civilised position. Unfortunately, while he was mid-manoeuvre, the boat was struck by a larger wave.
The elder statesman, his sea legs now cuffed by his lowered tweeds, stumbled backwards, administering the toilet's cistern a sharp crack with his nether regions. Unused to such abuse, the cistern exploded, as if bombed by the Dambusters.
With this, the loo plumbing also blew, and cascading, noisome, torrents began to flood the chamber.
It could have been total disaster. But the midshipman, a sensible chap, had seen Titanic, and learned that faced with catastrophe, it is wiser to panic. He wrestled the door open, and (the Admiral claims) roared
‘‘We're sinking.''
It could have been a close-run thing, but Dad's Army survived to take on the fish of Dusky Sound. Dusky is worth a rave. It pretty much defines ‘‘remote'', it's superb and has a good chance of staying that way.
Flightless is one of only a dozen craft who have restrictive, pernickety licenses to work in the Fiordland National Park's remotest sounds. They make little impact, so Dusky remains safely clear of the Milford hubbub.
For five nights Dad's Army lived and dined like wilderness kings. While the army joyfully caught blue cod and groper, kayaked and visited Pickersgill Cove, where Cook and his crew tied up for six weeks, the Flightless crew simply got on with their jobs.
Between them they share 35 years' Fiordland experience and in a nicely Kiwi way, they're so good it's ludicrous.
Each day they dived for Dad's Army's mess extras - squeaky-fresh crayfish, mussels, scallops, kina and paua - and then cooked them beautifully.
All three have skipper's licences; they dive commercially, salvage, tow and engineer; answer even the stupidest questions about fish, ocean, birds and plants; and are still smiling when they go off to do the bathrooms.
I presume that on nights off, these guys are away conducting the symphony or managing the electricity grid. There's no manual for assembling a group quite like this one.
They've come together through Fiordland experience, networks and friendships - and are a capable sort of crew, who can deliver an NZ experience at the level they do.
There's no manual on how you locate this ‘‘do anything'' competence, and then how it can be pulled together into providing such an exceptional NZ tourism experience.
If I was Lonely Planet's travel writer, I'd give Flightless in Dusky Sound three stars for accommodation - it's a boat for God's sake - and a fanfare 10 stars for the overall experience they masterminded for us.
● John Lapsley is an Arrowtown writer.
