Cook Strait

Categories: Straits | New Zealand coastline | Marlborough, New Zealand | Wellington Region

Cook Strait, the strait between the North Island and the South Island of New Zealand, takes its name from Captain James Cook, the first European commander to sail through it (January - February 1770). On the north side of the strait lies the harbour of Wellington. On the south side are the Marlborough Sounds and Cloudy Bay.

The two large bays, Golden Bay and Tasman Bay, lie on the South Island coast immediately to the west of the strait, and the North Island coast to the west recedes towards the giant curve of the Kapiti Coast and South Taranaki Bight. To the east of the strait, the South Island recedes, the coast running south-west after reaching the headland of Cape Campbell. The North Island's short south coast stretches along Palliser Bay, terminating at Cape Palliser.

One can clearly see each island from the other in good weather. At its narrowest point the Strait has a width of 23 km (between Cape Terawhiti in the North Island and Perano Head on Arapawa Island in the Marlborough Sounds). Counterintuitively, at this point the South Island's coast lies further north than that of the North Island.

Regular ferry services run between Picton in the Sounds and Wellington. The Strait often experiences rough water and heavy swells due to strong winds, especially from the south. But New Zealand's geographical position directly athwart the Roaring Forties also means that the gap between the North and South Islands funnels westerly winds into itself and deflects them into northerlies.

The Strait is on average 128 metres deep.

History

When Dutch explorer Abel Tasman first discovered New Zealand in 1642, he mistakenly thought that Cook Strait was a bight. He named it Zeehaen's Bight, after one of the two ships in his expedition. James Cook discovered the fact that it was a strait in 1769.

Cook Strait attracted European settlers in the early 19th century. Because of its use as a whale migration route, whalers established bases in the Marlborough Sounds and in the Kapiti area. From 1840 more permanent settlements sprang up, first at Wellington, then at Nelson and at Wanganui (Petre). At this period the settlers saw Cook Strait in a broader sense than today's ferry-oriented New Zealanders: for them Cook Strait stretched from Taranaki to Cape Campbell, so these early towns all clustered around "Cook Strait" as the central feature and central waterway of the new colony.ar:كوك (مضيق) de:Cookstraße et:Cooki väin ko:쿡 해협 nl:Cookstraat pl:Cieśnina Cooka pt:Estreito de Cook fi:Cookinsalmi sv:Cooksundet zh:庫克海峽