Leaving for New Zealand - Noumea, New Caledonia
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Mon 13 Oct 2008 19:48
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22:16.615S 166:26.404E
We left our windy, kite surfers heaven anchorage at
Ilot Maitre on Saturday, 10/12 and sailed the quick three miles back to
Noumea. Here, Storyteller and we met back up with Lady Kay and Southern
Princess to make our final preparations for the New Zealand trip.
The Plan:
Because both our boat and Lady Kay sail and
motor a bit slower than Southern Princess and Storyteller and because the
Australians are waiting for crew arriving late tomorrow (Tuesday,
10/14), we will leave with Lady Kay a day ahead - which
means we will leave tomorrow morning. The two of us plan to sail the
60-odd miles southeast to the Isle of Pines, anchor there overnight and then
start out early the next day (Wednesday) for New Zealand. Southern
Princess and Storyteller will follow from Noumea on Wednesday
morning.
The total distance from Noumea to Opua,
New Zealand is about 950 miles, which would normally take us about six
days. However, because we will be exiting the tropics and the trusty
southeast trade winds, and moving south through an area of variable wind
direction and eventually into the land of westerly winds, we will have the
wind in our face for at least part of the trip. To avoid this, we have
waited for a certain weather pattern (a passing Australian high pressure
system followed by another high - with hopefully no nasty lows lurking about),
and will veer east or west when necessary to keep the wind off our nose,
even though the direct line to Opua
is south-southeast. As a result, it may take us a little longer
than six days to get to Opua.
Also, there is a tiny Australian island called
Norfolk that lies just about half-way between Noumea and
Opua. We will do our best to steer toward this island, where we
will anchor for a night or two before sailing on to New Zealand if all the
stars align. However, if the winds don't take us to Norfolk, or if the
weather pattern is such that we are better off to keep going to New
Zealand, we won't stop. We'll see. Two 3-day trips would be
much nicer than one 6-day trip, but in the end it doesn't matter as long as
all goes well along the way.
The latest weather forecast looks good and if
anything, the winds may be too light and a lot of motoring might be in
our near future. Not so fun, but if we had to chose, we'd
probably go for motoring over ugly, high winds and waves.
At least two other non-rally drop out boats will be
sailing to New Zealand at the same time, so we will be in good company.
After we arrive in Opua, we will make our way down the eastern coast of New
Zealand's North Island to Whangarei, where we have booked space in a marina for
the boat to be hauled and stored for the three months we'll be home. Some
have questioned the wisdom of traveling to upstate NY for the months of
November, December and January, but we've decided three months of gray, dreary,
wet and snowy weather will be good for our souls - character building.
Come January it's possible we might be feeling differently about the joys of
character building.
We'll update the blog daily over the course of
the trip.
Cheers from the south-going sailors headed further
down under -
Anne
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