Susan Buckland: Skip through the Sounds

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In the Marlborough Sounds, dab-hand skippers come in contrasting forms. First, there's Chris Godsiff, a fifth-generation Marlborough man who uses drowned valleys to navigate like city dwellers use roads.

Being a man of Marlborough I half-expected Chris to bring Adam (Eve's friend) into the conversation. In a water taxi depot earlier I had overheard a local saying that so-and-so hadn't lived in Marlborough "since Adam was a cowboy". Those of us from Auckland did not want to look quaint by asking if Adam had been a cowboy.

Anyway, Chris had plenty else to say as we skimmed off on his mussel farm tour. The Sounds are not only beautiful but home to 450 green-lipped mussel farms. Apart from Kermit the frog, Americans don't like buying things with green lips so the tasty shellfish exported to the US are labelled "NZ green shell mussels".

Chris was a mussel farmer for 25 years, helping to pioneer the industry with mussel-hanging rafts made from 44-gallon drums and manuka poles. He still owns a mussel farm but gave up the hands-on involvement.

Chris hinted at Viking ancestry. As a man of the water the Viking link appeals, even if it's news to Chris' cousin Stewart Gosdiff. But they agree that their first ancestor arriving in 1860 in Nelson was on a boat called Flirt. And that's "dinky dye".

After a four-month walk from Nelson to Titirangi in Marlborough the first Godsiff to step on New Zealand soil worked with his Pakeha mates for the local Maori. In today's peaceful Sounds, the fifth- and sixth-generation Godsiffs like a game of golf. Cousin Stewart has a nine-hole course on his waterfront farm. Entry is over an electric fence, to keep the sheep off the greens. The entry must be timed when the bloke in the golf house flicks the "off" switch. Otherwise it plays havoc with your golf. So says Skipper Chris.

On another boat tour to the bird sanctuary island of Motuara (and the place where Captain Cook raised the British flag), I came across a skipperess. Sarah Williams, at 20, is in command of the 14m, 220 horsepower boat.

Viking ancestry was not alluded to, although Sarah does have pigtails. She got hooked on boats while working in a boat charter office during school holidays. Now she takes people out on the Sounds for nature tour and marine biologist bosses Amy and Dan Engelhaupt.

The pair took us close to dolphins, seals and sea birds on the way to the bird sanctuary island. Amy (who also has a skipper's ticket) was tour leader while Dan was home minding their three-week-old baby. If an engineering problem occurred, Sarah would have sorted it while Amy took the wheel.

Two women from the Marlborough Sounds Adventure Company were also on board, to take half the passengers walking along the Queen Charlotte track and the other half kayaking. Chris the Viking would have to agree that girl power is alive and well in modern-day Marlborough.