For nearly 30 years, Steve Kafka has ferried scientists to the Subantarctic for vital research and protection of wildlife but he’s soon to down anchor for the last time.
There’s a sound like a soft roar just before dawn at the Snares, a group of islands 200km south of Bluff, a sound not unlike that of an orchestra warming up, or waves crashing, or a mix of the two. It’s the sound of 1,750,000 pairs of tītī – that’s 3.5 million muttonbirds or sooty shearwaters, as they’re otherwise known – greeting one another before blackening the sunrise sky as they take off for their day’s fishing.
There are more seabirds nesting on the 340ha Snares than across the entire United Kingdom. Not only those tītī, but 8700 pairs of the very beautiful Buller’s albatross, and 1200 pairs of Salvin’s albatross on the group’s chain of islands to the west.
Tītī can fly as far south as the Antarctic pack ice and back in just a few days, and all the way to the Bering Sea and the Aleutian Islands in the Northern Hemisphere over a year – that’s close to a 65,000km round trip. And – here’s the best bit – they’ve been recorded diving as far as 80m below the surface of the ocean. (You have to wonder just what might be down there to find and eat.)
I heard that roar at the Snares as Captain Steve Kafka was on deck letting the anchor winch go on his 25m ketch Evohe in the dim light of pre-dawn. We were there to pick up scientist Paul Sagar, who should have a Sir before his name, since he’s devoted almost every summer since 1976 to his research on the Buller’s albatross. We’d wait for daylight before going ashore to collect him, his assistant Hendrik and two dinghy loads of gear.
In that magic hour before the sun rose, Kafka and I sat and drank tea without speaking, hearing the tītī chorus on land, then watching the sky fill with black wings heading out for the day.
I’ve known Kafka for 30 years, since we sailed the South Pacific for a year (including New Zealand’s Subantarctic zone) for a Natural History New Zealand series of documentaries. He’s a bit like a tītī himself, having sailed the Evohe all the way to the Aleutian Islands and Nor’west Passage and home again, and all over the world.
He bought the Evohe in Dunkirk, France, in 1984, then haphazardly learnt to sail. The ketch was home and adventures for him and his partner, Sandra Carrod, and three children. They sailed through Indonesia, to Sri Lanka, the Marquesas, the Caribbean, the Middle East (at the time of the Gulf War) and throughout the South Pacific, often hosting international film crews onboard. But it’s the work Kafka has done in our Subantarctic islands since 1996 that I’m here to document.
Kafka is reluctant to be the focus of any narrative. He tells me, with his usual self-deprecating humour, “Even Shakespeare would struggle to glorify me.” There’s always a grin, always a good laugh.
Scientists Kath Walker and Graeme Elliott have been coming to this region – the five island groups New Zealand administers are collectively designated a Unesco World Heritage Zone – every summer for more than 35 years, studying wandering albatrosses between Adams Island, the southernmost in the Auckland Islands group, and the Antipodes Islands far to the east, a wretched 850km from Bluff (you can read more about them here ). They have voyaged on the Evohe repeatedly over that time. Elliott says of Kafka: “You feel more welcome on this boat than any other boat. Also, you always feel really safe. With some vessels, if the weather turns to shit, they run away. With this thing, if the weather turns to shit, you can endure it.”
Conditions here in the Furious 50s (referring to wind strength) can indeed be shit. With improvements in technology and weather forecasting, Kafka does his best to keep his passengers comfortable, but often it’s simply a case of getting there, albeit without taking unnecessary risks, he insists.
Since 1996, Kafka has dropped off and picked up teams throughout our Subantarctic islands – the Snares, various points on the Auckland Islands, Campbell Island, the Bounties and the Antipodes Islands (the trickiest group, as there is no sheltered harbour). He has ferried scientists studying penguins, albatrosses, petrels, sea lions, elephant seals, filming and studying southern right whales (Kafka’s favourite, as the whales breed in Port Ross in mid-winter), anything that moves, really. He has also been integral to the successful Million Dollar Mouse eradication project on the Antipodes (2016-17), and to pest eradication feasibility work on the main Auckland Island. He has ferried scientists coring corals for climate studies in the Northern Cook Islands, Fiji and Kiribati, as well as bird studies in the Aleutian Islands in the North Pacific.
On many of these expeditions, Kafka brought his aviation training to the fore, raising a delta-winged dinghy over coral reefs and into harbours to identify areas of scientific interest. One of the toughest projects was on Gough Island in the South Atlantic, when a pest eradication project was hampered by the Covid lockdown and Kafka had to sail back to New Zealand in one hit.
Stepping back
As Elliott points out, the Evohe is not only the researchers’ most-loved vessel: “Well, there is no other vessel now, really.”
And there’s the problem. Because, after nearly 30 years of the Evohe being absolutely integral to our scientific and conservation work in the Subantarctic, Kafka is trying to step back. He has just turned 70; he’d like to spend a few good summers with his family. On this trip, he laughingly refuses to be called Skipper. He has handed over that title to a young, hugely competent French mariner, Marwane Latreche, hoping he might stay for more than a summer.
Thanks to Latreche, Kafka has been able to take most of this last summer with family, but he’s along on this trip since there are a few interesting manoeuvres he needs to demonstrate.
Kafka’s hopeful he can find a permanent stand-in skipper for future years. If not, he may have to sell the Evohe, which would leave DoC and countless scientific teams wondering where to turn.
One, in particular, is how to safely drop and pick up the New Zealand sea lion research team at Dundas Island, a tiny speck of just 4ha off the coast of the main Auckland Island. It is fringed by an unforgiving reef and hugely exposed to wind and cross swells.
In earlier years, the research team attempted to use a Stabicraft aluminium boat, venturing out from Enderby Island, but managed to lose an outboard as the unpredictable swell dumped the vessel on to rocks. Kafka almost lost a dinghy the same way, trying to drop a team member on to the reef, suddenly finding the dinghy on the hard with no water beneath it.
He came up with an ingenious solution: a floating raft made from large plastic barrels and a metal frame, roped back and forth between the dinghy (anchored) and kelp-laden reef, loaded with crew and gear over successive ferry trips. You still need minimum swell conditions – we waited three days for the swell to ease – but once executed, the raft manoeuvre is safe, possibly comical (you get a very wet backside), and highly successful.
Dundas Island is the epicentre for pakake or whakahao (New Zealand sea lions); more breed here than anywhere in the world. Team leader is Jordana Whyte. She’s heavily medicated for sea sickness for the two days sailing south from Bluff (as are many on the team), but despite the ills of the Southern Ocean is dedicated to the work.
She shakes her head, wondering how their work can continue without Kafka. “Steve’s irreplaceable. Even if he’s not involved with the actual work on the ground, he gets it.”
Sadly, the population of NZ sea lions is declining dramatically – perhaps due to disease, fisheries interactions, scarce food sources, climate change or a combination of all of these. The team are also readying themselves for the inevitable arrival of the HPAI bird flu variant in the colony of sea lions and the many populations of seabirds.
Clearing pests
Many in the Department of Conservation arena slyly ensured Kafka was acknowledged for his work – he was awarded an ONZM for services to conservation in 2024 – but it’s the future transport to our Subantarctic islands that is now in question.
It’s a particular worry for Stephen Horn, DoC project manager for the massive pest eradication project poised to begin on the main Auckland Island – the last New Zealand Subantarctic island to be cleared of pests (pigs, mice and cats, in that order). Horn has spent several years working in the region and was project manager for the Antipodes Million Dollar Mouse project. “The Evohe has been the work horse for so many projects down here,” he says. “Steve [Kafka] is someone who’s … invested and interested in the work and cares about everyone on board. He goes to nth degree to make whatever you need happen.”
He points out that much of that work and many of the voyages – hundreds of kilometres from any help – could have been very different. “Everyone gets to relax on board, but [Kafka] maintains vigilance at all times. He’s down in the engine room, or checking weather and swell conditions. It looks as if it’s all just clockwork, but getting there safely is the result of decades of experience and practical knowledge. Steve’s not a risk taker. All that experience results in solid decision making.
“The Evohe’s a special boat, too, you know, a beautiful vessel, with a very special atmosphere.” Horn pauses, admitting the Southern Ocean hasn’t always been a good friend. “Can’t stomach the hand-soap smell, though.”
Mutual respect
The first time the two Steves met was on the delivery trip to the Antipodes Islands with building materials for a new hut in 2015. A landslide on the island had partially destroyed the old research station. Horn has no idea how they got all the building materials on board but says by the time the Evohe left the mainland, it was quite literally loaded to the gunwales and more.
“We took everything, including the kitchen sink, a big water tank on the davit, heavy timber all over the deck.”
But when they arrived at the islands, the weather was not conducive to landing people or building materials, and Kafka really did not want to cart it all 700km back.They had to stand off for 10 days, lolling in swells from the northwest, before there was a one-day window to land everything on the beach. Kafka: “The time you really find out about people is when they’re under duress. Over those 10 days, I never once saw Steve [Horn] flustered, never agitated. There was never a bad word from the team, and that was thanks to Steve.”
A good friendship developed over successive trips. The Evohe was critical to the whole Antipodes operation, and to the main Auckland Island feasibility work in recent years. Kafka has nothing but respect for Horn, and complete faith in him to carry out a successful pest eradication on the main island. “If anyone can do it, Steve [Horn] can. … He’s always thinking outside the square.”
Kafka loves the place, the wildlife, the wildness. The ideal, he says, is to still be involved, at least now and then, for as long as he can.
In particular, Kafka wants to see Project Maukahuka (DoC’s project name is from the Māori name for the Auckland Islands group) underway. He has seen the damage done by pigs to vegetation – critical habitat for rare and endangered species– as well as the devastation from pigs and cats to albatross colonies. But he scoffs at the suggestion he’ll be around to see the last feral cat taken out – the eradication project is forecast to take 8-10 years.
Watch Kafka on deck, however, raising or dropping sails, or any of the required gymnastics on the vessel, and he’s showing no sign of slowing down. Besides, he has good genes. His father, George, a World War II veteran and survivor of the Nazi Holocaust in Czechoslovakia, is still going strong at 100.
Kafka’s hopeful he can find a permanent stand-in skipper for future years. If not, he may have to sell the Evohe, which would leave DoC and countless scientific teams wondering where to turn.
Project Maukahuka will need more than the Evohe, of course. Shipping will be significant – transporting helicopters, materials and fuel. DoC needs $80 million to fund the project and has appealed to domestic and international donors for help. The New Zealand Nature Fund is taking donations.
After eradication is completed, the main Auckland Island could be as rich in biodiversity as the Snares (those gazillion tītī, and thousands of albatross) about 250km north, or pest-free Adams Island just south – precariously close to the main Auckland Island and therefore vulnerable, given the short swimming distance for pigs.
On the last day of the voyage, Jordana Whyte’s sea lion team venture on to another small island in Carnley Harbour, between the main island and Adams Island. It’s then that we receive a very special invitation to join Walker and Elliott on Adams Island. Permission is difficult, near impossible, and quarantine is essential (ensuring all boots and gear are free of foreign organisms). But the two scientists want to give something back to Kafka, to say thank you, in case this is his last trip.
There’s rain forecast, so we land and take the opportunity to walk up the steep side of the island before the weather deteriorates. Just over a half-hour walk up the tussock slope, we spy the displays of the extraordinary Gibson’s wandering albatross, which has one of the largest wingspans, at 3m.
While I take the opportunity to film and take photographs, Kafka stands alongside Walker and Elliott, just watching, listening. It’s quite the dance, wings stretched wide, beaks preening and pecking, each of three birds stepping gently around the other as part of the ritual. Every now and then another wandering albatross soars overhead in the ever-increasing westerly wind, the accompanying sound like that of a high-performance glider.
The word taonga is overused in conservation, but in this case, it’s so very apt –and perhaps equally applicable to seabirds, scientists and skipper.