Queen Charlotte Sound (New Zealand)
- 41.25174.01588333333Koordinaten: 41 ° 15 '0 "S, 174 ° 0' 57" E
The Queen Charlotte Sound is the easternmost of the major inlets of the Marlborough Sounds in the South Island of New Zealand. Like the other estuaries of the area there is a sunken valley and continues as its majority in southeast / northwest. He eventually empties into the Cook Strait.
The town of Picton, the northern terminus of the railway and road network in the South Island, is located near the end of the Sound. The other settlements are small and are isolated. Often there are individual plots, which are due to the rugged terrain often only accessible from the water.
To the east of the Sound are the island Arapawa Iceland and the Tory Channel. There are several ferries between the North Island (Wellington ) and South Island ( Picton ) run their routes lead all through the Tory Channel and Queen Charlotte Sound.
In the north- west of the Queen Charlotte Sound parallel runs of the Kenepuru Sound, an arm of the other major arm of the sea of Marlborough, the Pelorus Sounds. Some of the small side arms of the two arms of the sea are separated by only a few hundred meters of craggy hills. A settlement on the south coast of the Kenepuru Sounds called " Portage", since boats on the 1.5 km long were worn Torea Road from one into the other channel between the coast only about 800m away.
From a hill on Arapawa Iceland saw James Cook in 1770 for the first time the sea route between the Pacific Ocean and Tasman Sea, which was named after him Cook Strait.
The area, especially Perano Head on Arapawa Iceland, during the 19th and early 20th century was a base for whaling.
The waters of Queen Charlotte Sound is quiet and therefore popular with sailors - in stark contrast to the harsh conditions because of their notorious waters of Cook Strait. Many ships sank near the entrance to the Sound, most recently, the Russian cruise ship Mikhail Lermontov, which sank in 1986 in Port Gore, after it had reason contact with rocks.