Young Heather Heberley, coming as a bride from Auckland to a remote bay in the Marlborough Sounds, did not realize how much the words weather permitting were to rule her life. Sea tragedies, the sinking of the Mikhail Lermontov, her husband Joe's role in search and rescues - all these are detailed alongside the often funny, sometimes tragic aspects of the Heberleys' farming and fishing life.

 

Heather Heberley's unassuming but robust story shows how she grows into a mother, mechanic, plumber, teacher, farmer, nurse, woolclasser and licensed skipper.

 

More than a million people each year pass the South Island's isolated 'first house on the right' on Arapawa Island, just inside the Tory Channel. Heather's marriage into the well-known Heberley clan and her arrival, in 1963, at their bay have given her the fascinating and formative experiences that make up this compelling autobiography.

 

Last of the Whalers

Paperback, 212 pages

ISBN: 0-908561-90-3

Price: $29.99

Last of the whalers

Ordinary Women Extraordinary Lives

Paperback, 247 pages

ISBN: 1-877340-00-6

Price: $29.99

Ordinary women

Riding with Whales, Stories of Great Sounds Women

Paperback, 260 pages

ISBN: 0908561-75-X

Price: $29.99

Riding with whales