Alex Stone

A Matariki weekend cruise to Whangaparapara on Great Barrier Island uncovers the bay's timber mill, whaling and mining history.

The 2026 Solo Trans Tasman Yacht Challenge is underway, with solo sailors crossing from Ōpua to Southport. Follow the fleet and its Tasman passage.

Anchored overnight at Leigh on Skyborne, Alex Stone explores the harbour's two creeks and its Ngāti Manuhiri, settler and marine reserve history.

Join Alex Stone as he chats with Brett and Sheena Parkin about their exciting new houseboat adventure.

Whakatahuri in outer Pelorus Sound was once New Zealand's most remote boatbuilding and boat-wrecking yard. We visit the Wells family's remarkable legacy — and the man still living among the wrecks.

Z has taken the Lagonda from the garage and driven recklessly into the teeming tropical night, wheels spinning in the everywhere mud, and directly into the teeth of the typhoon. Y is glaring at me. X I don't know exactly where she is.

Poem short-listed for the Monica Taylor Prize for Poetry 2025, Takahe literary journal.

Selected for Ōrongohau | 25 Best New Zealand Poems 2025, published by the International Institute of Modern Letters. Editor Cilla McQueen: "Poems which I consider durable, exceptionally well written, vivid, insightful'. www.bestnewzealandpoems.org.nz

If islands are the exclamation marks of the sea, the unique promontory / estuary / bay / battlements of Castlepoint are something else altogether. Our nautical curiosity about Castlepoint was piqued far away, in the Marlborough Sounds; where, as part of a circumnavigation of Te Ika a Maui, the North Island, and half of Te […]

My father is the prime minister. So what? Big deal. He’s still a jerk. Ever since the tattoo thing, we don’t talk... Winner, Takahe Short Story Competition 2010

I am jesus of the credit cards. This is what I do: I give away money – or at least I try to. I give away credit cards to those I deem worthy. I find these people on my daily strolls... Shortlisted, Manhire Prize Creative Science Writing, 2007

Under wide and starry skies – 50 sailing destinations in seas less travelled By Nicholas Coghlan – Adlard Coles Do you know of the fine anchorages in the Fernando de Noronha Archipelago, off the northeastern tip of Brazil? Or the varied delights and challenges of Kabashima Island and the Goto Rego Archipelago in Japan? Or […]

Ralph sighs. And when Ralph sighs it's a big thing. He breathes in a thousand gallons of air, wheezingly, never-endingly. Then he holds... Sitting Ralph, or Love in as Many Names - winner Rangitawa Short Story Competition 2013.

Placed third in NZ nationwide Kohukohu Library Poetry Award, 2023.

Excerpts from reviews of the novel 'Taken.'

This is an extraordinary painting. It’s by Felix Kelly, an artist who is a little out on a limb in our nation’s creative family tree. Thing is, Felix Kelly like so many aspiring artists of his time left (some say ‘fled’) the parochial shores of New

Here's the dolphin's eye-view of our boat. As you and the dolphins can see, we adorned it with an enlarged line, taken from a painting of mine. We hoped to make it a distinctive craft.

'For this Pacific of ours is full of entangled histories. As in the stick maps of oceanic navigators, even the space is filled with portent.' The ill-starred love affair of Kanak Chief Atai and Madame Marguerite X Fournier, Nouvelle Caledonie 1878

Imagine you’re holding up a piece of rope with a seat hanging from it. Now imagine sitting in that seat. Nah – it’s not gonna work. But don’t you wish it would?