The good barque 'Dan-a'

Our Wednesday Paddlers group headed out to Quail Island again today, in gentle warm conditions; perfect! I endeavoured to get a wideangle shot of the interior of the Dan-a, the barque that is mentioned below, in an excerpt from NZ Geographic. The whole article is fascinating! Holding onto the prow with one hand, trying to keep the kayak from swinging in the swell, and getting a pano shot at the same time was, well, trying! Hope you like it.

The far hills are part of the Port Hills, and very close to where those ravaging fires were 3 weeks ago. What a fearsome time that was. 
For Wideangle Wednesday, H is for Hills.

Geologically, Quail Island is part of the crater floor of the vast but long-extinct Banks Peninsula volcano, and is the product of several periods of volcanic activity. That means that we paddle inside a eroded caldera. Yikes!

The most prominent wreck in Quail Island’s maritime graveyard is that of the 58m-long Dan-a, a sleek barque built for the Orient Line in 1865. It was a composite boat, with steel ribbing but a vast teak keel, six-inch thick planking and sheet metal tacked overtop. It was considered one of the finest and fastest ships of the Orient’s considerable fleet, initially a tea clipper and later an immigrant ship between England and Australia. Fire extinguished its glory in 1899, and its next 50 years were spent in ignominy as a coal hulk.