Foveaux Strait (Māori: Te Ara a Kiwa) separates Stewart Island/Rakiura, New Zealand's third largest island, from the South Island. Three large bays, Te Waewae Bay, Oreti Beach and Toetoes Bay, sweep along the strait's northern coast, which also hosts Bluff township and harbour. Across the strait lie the Solander Islands, Stewart Island/Rakiura and Ruapuke Island. The strait is about 130 km long (from Ruapuke Island to Little Solander Island), and it widens (from 14 km at Ruapuke Island to 50 km at Te Waewae Bay) and deepens (from 20 to 120 m) from east to west. The strait lies within the continental shelf area of New Zealand, and was probably dry land during the Pleistocene epoch.
Captain Cook sighted the entrance to Foveaux Strait during his circumnavigation of the South Island in March 1770, but thought Stewart Island was joined to the mainland. The strait's European discoverer was Owen Folger Smith, who found it in 1804. It is named after Joseph Foveaux, Lieutenant-Governor of New South Wales at the time.
Foveaux Strait is home to the Bluff oyster fishery, the oysters are harvested by a fleet of dredging boats between March and August each year. Oystering began on Stewart Island during the 1860s, and gradually moved into the strait with the discovery of larger oyster beds there in 1879.
The strait is a rough and often treacherous stretch of water. In 2006, six muttonbirders died when their trawler sank while returning to Bluff. During the previous ten years, another six incidents occurred in the strait, costing eight lives.
John van Leeuwen swam it on 7 February 1963, in a time of 13 hours 40 minutes.
Famous quotes containing the word strait:
“We approached the Indian Island through the narrow strait called “Cook.” He said, “I ‘xpect we take in some water there, river so high,—never see it so high at this season. Very rough water there, but short; swamp steamboat once. Don’t paddle till I tell you, then you paddle right along.” It was a very short rapid. When we were in the midst of it he shouted “paddle,” and we shot through without taking in a drop.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)