Port Otago

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Port Otago The Warren Lewis Fishing Jetty is OPEN
[Jetty FAQs: https://www.portotago.co.nz/about/in-our-community/faqs]

We’ve just installed a 10th AED in our community. This one is across the harbour at Wellers Rock Wharf, on the outside w...
15/10/2026

We’ve just installed a 10th AED in our community. This one is across the harbour at Wellers Rock Wharf, on the outside wall of the Monarch Wildlife Cruises & Tours ticket office. (See photo 1.)

It's great timing. With the cruise and wildlife tourism seasons about to kick off, the Portobello/Harington Point Roads become well trodden paths over the summer months.

Thank you Owen and Jess from the Monarch team for being such great models for the second photo. 💙

This link takes you to a map showing locations of AEDs across New Zealand:
https://aedlocations.co.nz/
It’s a pretty great website (there’s also an app), maintained by a nice man called Gareth whose day job is Resuscitation Co-ordinator at Auckland City Hospital. Legend!

It’s only eight days until we welcome our first cruise ship of the season, the Celebrity Edge, on Wednesday (21 October)...
12/10/2026

It’s only eight days until we welcome our first cruise ship of the season, the Celebrity Edge, on Wednesday (21 October).

Photo competition time. 🤗

We have a $100 voucher to the Carey's Bay Hotel for the best photo of the Celebrity Edge arriving, at berth in Port Chalmers, or departing. Email your entries to [email protected] (by 9am on Thursday morning) and we will post them all together so everyone can vote for their favourite - along the same lines as our Photo of the month competitions.

We’ll post a reminder the day before - including scheduled arrival and departure times - but you might want to start thinking about optimal viewing spots now...

[Pictured is the Pacific Explorer - a super photo to open the season with. Thank you
Brendon Williamson, B's Photography 💙 ]

08/10/2026

Our friends at the Port Chalmers Maritime Museum just posted this delightful short video of Sawyers Bay identity the late Coral Kaan. If you follow the link in the museum's post, you'll find more videos featuring Coral, as well as other video interviews - with Garry Bain and the late Harold Woods. Enjoy.

Cargo Handlers Michelle (photo 1, left), and Robyn (right) are SPCA Dunedin volunteers. The pair recently led an in-hous...
06/10/2026

Cargo Handlers Michelle (photo 1, left), and Robyn (right) are SPCA Dunedin volunteers. The pair recently led an in-house campaign at Port Otago called "Paws for a Cause”.

Michelle: "During one of my shifts as an animal care volunteer, a staff member mentioned they were running low on blankets. The centre relies on donations and, with the current cost of living, it isn’t always easy for people to donate. Robyn had recently signed up to be a volunteer with the dogs and mentioned that she used to run donation drives for her local shelter when she lived in South Africa. Many of our colleagues are animal lovers, so we decided to see if we could get Port Otago involved and have a donation drive. The company was fully onboard – not only supporting us, but generously offering to match the value of the donations we collected.”

Robyn designed a flyer (listing the items needed) and a dedicated donation area was set up in the staff café.

Robyn: “As word spread and the pile grew, we started getting donations from departments, not just those we normally work with. People went all out, donating everything – from bedding and cat scratchers to massive 20kg bags of dog food and a cat carrier full of treats and toys.”

They also received plenty of balls that will be used for dogs that haven’t had a chance to play fetch before.

The final tally was $2000 worth of donations. With the additional $2000 from the company, Michelle and Robyn headed to the Port Chalmers Four Square and packed three large trolleys full of pet food, toys and treats – cleaning out the Port Chalmers Four Square’s pet food section… Opps. 😬🫣

“What started as an idea to collect a few much-needed blankets turned into an opportunity to provide a huge amount of support to the shelter, while also helping more people understand the incredible work they do and the many ways they can get involved,” says Robyn.

What a super effort! You two deserve all those cuddles from handsome Chester. And, before anyone asks… yes, Chester IS looking for his forever home. 🤎

An extra big thank you to Caitlin (photo 3, left) and Nerise (right) for the wonderful work you do every day.

If you are interested in volunteering, donating or adopting, visit the the SPCA Dunedin website: https://www.spca.nz/centre/dunedin-centre

Well, well, well... September photo of the month winner - for the second month in a row - is Port Protection Officer Elt...
03/10/2026

Well, well, well... September photo of the month winner - for the second month in a row - is Port Protection Officer Elton. Super shot, Elton! Keep this winning streak up and you'll have enough vouchers to shout the whole PPO team a round of coffees! 😁

Entries are now open for October photo of the month - open to all. Closes 31 October. Send pics (high res is ideal) of our harbour or community to [email protected] Suitable photos are posted on the 1st (ish) of the month and voting determines the winner, who's announced a couple of days later.

September Photo of the Month time. 🤗 Thank you Anita, Brock, Dave, Elton Steve and Tracey. 💙 Voting: Pop a 👍 or ❤ besid...
01/10/2026

September Photo of the Month time. 🤗 Thank you Anita, Brock, Dave, Elton Steve and Tracey. 💙

Voting: Pop a 👍 or ❤ beside your favourite photo. One 👍 = 1 point. One ❤ = 2 points. We’ll shout the winner two teas/coffees from the Union Co Cafe. Voting closes at 2300 hours tomorrow (Saturday 3 October).

If you have a suitable image of our harbour and/or community that you want to enter, please email a high-res copy to [email protected]

Tucked away in Hawksbury Village near Karitane is a wee community gem – the heated and covered 23-metre Moana Gow pool. ...
29/09/2026

Tucked away in Hawksbury Village near Karitane is a wee community gem – the heated and covered 23-metre Moana Gow pool.

On any given day throughout the year, the pool can be hosting mothers and babies enjoying water confidence classes, right through to retirees taking exercise. It’s used regularly by Waikouaiti and Karitane Schools, East Otago Swim Club, Warrington Surf Life Saving and Karitane Surf Clubs and Plunket.

Waikouaiti School Principal Stuart Cooke: “The pool underpins local schools’ swimming programmes, providing essential water safety education in a region where beaches, rivers, and other water activities are a central part of life.”

Last year, the voluntary committee requested some financial support to help repair, resurface and paint the pool, which had become tired over the years. With about 100 children using the pool regularly, the request sat nicely alongside our sponsorship for swimming lessons for West Harbour and nearby local schools.

Local swim coach Jane S says the pool’s old surface was so damaged that it was hard on everyone's feet. That's no longer a problem. "New members comment on how great the facilities are and how lucky we are to have such an awesome local pool."

Footnote: Where does the pool’s name come from? Dr Moana Gow was a retired GP with a crib at Karitane. Retirement wasn’t for Dr Gow and she became the medical officer at Cherry Farm Hospital from 1965 to 1972. You can read more here: https://www.earlymedwomen.auckland.ac.nz/2021/06/03/moana-maru-gow-nee-anderson-biography/

25/09/2026

We recently commissioned this specialist piece of kit - a Houcon straddle rescue platform, imported from the Netherlands. It allows us to safely evacuate stranded operators from a straddle cab during an emergency, such as a medical event.

While we have plenty of first aiders on site who can climber a ladder for quick support, if we ever needed to get anyone down from the straddle - particularly within a straddle row - it was going to be a difficult process. Fortunately, we have never needed to carry out a straddle cab rescue, but it is a foreseeable scenario. The new platform is the international standard for such scenarios and is also suitable for lifting FENZ or St John personal up to the cab level.

Commissioning involved testing the platform’s alignment alongside the straddles and learning the finer points of operating the platform in a real-life “open” environment within a straddle row (as per the video clip). It works exactly as it should and the next step is teaching our teams how to use it.

Astute locals may have noticed that we've been using only the CT Wharf to work container vessels over the past 10 days.O...
22/09/2026

Astute locals may have noticed that we've been using only the CT Wharf to work container vessels over the past 10 days.

Our Maintenance team is working alongside contractors to put our 20-year-old ship-to-shore cranes through their 10-yearly major structural survey.

Maintenance Manager Matt Eves: “The survey includes each of the crane’s main structural stress points being 'non-destructive tested', where a mix of eddy current and magnetic particle testing look for cracks and defects to ensure the cranes' integrity. It requires specialist contractors to get to tricky areas that can’t be accessed by walkways.”

Each crane will take two weeks (with crews on site six days per week) to be fully worked over. Crane 3 on the Multipurpose Wharf is first up.

One of the largest tasks is replacing the 120 teflon wear pads that house and guide the boom's trailing support arms. The blocks are 45m up off the ground and 45m out from the wharf. Using their 160t mobile crane, the Titan Cranes team rigged the crane’s fly, so our team could reach and replace the blocks from the safely of a man cage. (Photos 1, 2 & 3.)

Meanwhile, the structural surveying and remedial work requires the expertise of a team from Wellington’s Highline Rope Access. They're working underneath Crane 3’s machinery house this week (photos 4 & 5), removing corrosion and recoating steelwork.

The schedule required some shuffling due to weather, but the work is progressing as expected and all the action will move across to CT Wharf early next week.

It’s exactly one month until we welcome our first cruise ship of the 2026/27 season. 🤗 The Celebrity Edge (photo courtes...
20/09/2026

It’s exactly one month until we welcome our first cruise ship of the 2026/27 season. 🤗

The Celebrity Edge (photo courtesy of Andrew T 💙 ) is scheduled to arrive on Wednesday 21 October. She’s one of our regulars and booked to visit nine times over the season.

We’re expecting 85 vessels over the summer months - 74 at Port Chalmers and 11 at the Dunedin Town Wharves - concluding with the Norwegian Spirit on 16 April 2027.

There are two maiden vessels and both are berthing at the town wharves: the Greg Mortimer (8 January) and SH Minerva (7 March). The Greg Mortimer is an Antarctic expedition ship built in 2019 and carries only 130 passengers. SH Minerva is a boutique expedition ship which can carry up to 350 passengers.

Our Cruise team is ready and we’re all looking forward to the buzz and busyness that comes with the cruise season. 💙

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15 Beach Street
Port Chalmers

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