Waiting for the weather in Neiafu

Tatt av vinden
Bjørn Larsen
Thu 4 Oct 2018 20:14
This morning some heavenly dam had broken. The torrential rain lasted for two hours, now it is just normal rain, like the autumn rain back home. But here in the southern hemisfare we have spring. We had planned to go running this morning, the plan was wisely changed for tomorrow...
The weather in this part of the South Pacific is less predictablfe and less stable than we experienced further east.
We have started to think (and worry) about the weather on the crossing from Tonga (Nuku’alofa) to New Zealand. I think that this is what everybody here worries about now. Everybody try to learn what strategy is the best to pick, because the lows and the highs travel east from Australia in an endless chain. If you time it right and have a little bit of luck, you start with tolerably easterlies in a high and then shifts to managable westerlies in a low when you get closer to NZ. That means that you should get some westings out from Tonga first, and then go south when the westerlies hit you. And you should go as fast as you can, because the weather window will not be open for ever... So is the theory, and we shall hire an experienced weather router (he is also a sailor) to pick the right strategy and the right time. If everything works out fine, we shall be in Wangarei in a month from now.

Just when I was writing about the rain, the local radio net on vhf 26 started to report the weather. They reported that from newly downloaded satellite photos, they could see that the heavy rain cloud should pass us in a short time. And as by a miracle, now the sun threatens to break through, and the heavy wind has long gone.

Spirits are rising, just have to get a hundred liters or someting like that, out of the dinghy, and then we can go to the market for some vegetables and fruit.

Tonga is nice, but we start to feel that we have been away from home for a long time...