by KC2RIY, on November 7th, 2010 (
Tonga)
We had another weather session ashore which, for me, ended up being more of a tech support session. I enjoy this sort of thing so it was a fun way to spend the morning.
The weather models we all downloaded in the morning only supported the wait and see strategy we’re all on. The models were predicting the high and the low previously mentioned staying put. In the afternoon I downloaded another prediction and things were now different. The low to our south east is no longer predicted to stay put and the high pressure system predicted to stall over the north west of New Zealand is now predicted to stretch out west to east. Our weekly summary from Bob McDavitt that comes out every Sunday supported the weather models exactly – without adding anything new. If this plays out it will have the effect of generating more easterly winds north of the high pressure area, ideal for getting us down to withing 250 miles of New Zealand. The downside would be that the elongated high pressure system will be associated with very light winds making the last 250 miles somewhat problematical.
My developing strategy is to sail from here as soon as the near southerlies are making their turn more to the east – maybe a little earlier. Then we sail more or less the rhumb line, perhaps a little to the west. As we head down we will of course be watching the forecasts, in particular for when and where this high pressure system moves. If, as one would expect, it shifts to the east, it will bring north to north easterly winds behind and to the west it which will take us down to Opua. There is a possibility we’ll end up becalmed for a while but I’d rather be stuck on the edge of the high pressure cell and catching the good weather when it moves as opposed to running the risk of catching the next low pressure system should we leave to late.
All this boils down to is that right now, at this point in time, I’m looking at leaving here Wednesday evening or Thursday morning. Each morning and evening this idea will be refined or completely revised. Some are now looking at leaving for Minerva Reef tomorrow which makes sense too. As we don’t like two day passages we’d rather keep going once we’ve set off so Minerva Reef is only our plan B should the weather models show something completely unpleasant ahead once we’re two days out.
Helen cooked up three meals for our passage. She has not done this before as we can normally get by being on a cat. Some people cook up all their meals in advance which makes sense if you spend your passages tipped over. This gives us something decent to eat if we end up in bumpy seas.
The only boat chore worth mentioning I did was to go up the mast for a general inspection and specifically to look for anything sharp on the spreaders that may have triggered our head sail tear. I saw nothing of concern.
At 4pm Ben and I went ashore to play a couple of hours of volleyball with some of the other cruisers and some locals. Ben went back ashore at 8pm to spend some time with some local friends he’d made. He came back around 2pm completely loaded on cava – the muddy, mildly narcotic drink the Polynesians in this neck of the Pacific are fond of.
Today I’ll go ashore for another weather session. Tomorrow we may go to the main island to top up our provisions and get a little more cash to pay off our bill here. It looks like we’ll need to scrape the underside one more time before we leave so that looks like a Tuesday job.