Month: December 2014

December 9, 2014

I love something Leo Decaprio says in Titanic, “I love waking up in the morning not knowing what’s gonna happen, or who I’m gonna meet, or where I’m gonna wind up. Just the other night I was sleeping under a bridge, and now here I am on the grandest ship in the world having champagne with you fine people.”

That’s a bit how we feel right now: one minute we’re sitting in Suva waiting for our weather window to New Zealand; then we’re in New Caledonia mangling the French language and eating croissants while waiting for a weather window to Australia.

How did we go from planning to spend a season in the south island of New Zealand to going to Australia? It started with the lack of a decent weather window to get south to New Zealand. It wasn’t that the weather would be dangerous; it’s that it would be really uncomfortable.

So we continued to wait in Suva. We really like it there, but we’d been there a long time and were ready for something else. Unfortunately it was just too windy to do any cruising in the area; so we continued to sit and wait. And wait. And every day was another day into cyclone season.

It looked like we had a window coming, but yet again it would have been uncomfortable southeasterly winds and pretty big swells. Not a great window for New Zealand, but it would be a good window for New Caledonia.

We’d originally planned to go to New Cal but dropped that plan when time got short. Now, we decided to put it back on the agenda. We’d still be in the cyclone belt, but we’d be quite a bit further south, making for a shorter passage to New Zealand and less chance of experiencing a cyclone. Somewhere along the line we got the idea that if the weather didn’t become better for a trip to New Zealand, we could head for Australia. We even downloaded charts and a guidebook just in case.

By the time we got to New Caledonia, we’d grown used to the idea of going to Australia, even attached to it. The winds still weren’t looking right for New Zealand, and when we heard an El Nino condition would be making its south island colder, wetter, and windier this season, that clinched it.

And so now we’re waiting for a weather window for Australia. We’re here with two other cruising boats, and we’re all headed for Bundaberg, Australia, hoping very much to get there before Christmas. We love it here and are eating very well, but it’s cyclone season and time to get moving. Plus it’s getting pretty hot. Now, it’s time to get back to doing more Fiji posts. –Cyndi

December 9, 2014

Click to enlarge and scroll.

November 6, 2014

It’s not all baguettes, lobster and cheese here. There’s some stress too. We’re in the tropics during cyclone season. Not good. Not only that, we’re planning to go a little too far north when we do go to Australia (next week, we hope).

Here’s a graph of cyclones within 100 km of Bundaberg. It’s not quite as bad as the top picture makes it look.

But 100 years is a long time. Here’s 36 years.

Still too many! How about 16 years? Not so bad.

These are from Australia’s Bureau of Meteorology website.

We’re also looking out for cyclones here in New Caledonia. There’s a great probability graphic on the French BOM website. Here’s the  probability of a cyclone hitting New Caledonia (red arrow) about three weeks from now…

The smart thing to do would be to leave now and head further south than Bundaberg. Never let me be accused of smartness. Oh well. It could be worse. We could be driving on a Los Angeles freeway! -Rich

6 December 2014

December 3, 2014

This morning, I wrote to our friends on Bright Angel to give them and update on our situation. To post another update here seemed redundant, so here’s the letter…

Hi Bob and Linda,

It’s us – twoatthedock! and loving it already!!! We spent our first New Caledonia night in Prony bay (which is about seven miles in from the pass (Havannah Pass)) (are nested parentheses permitted?), with our Q flag flying. Yesterday, we made the 30 mile trip to Noumea. It was a long ride but at least it was down wind – it was blowing 20 knots all day. We hovered outside the marina in the bay for about 45 minutes while the marina (Port Moselle) found us a berth.

Everyone has been so nice to us. The French would never earn a bad reputation from New Caledonia. They’re as nice as Fijians. The marina is a class act. The town is beautiful – what little we’ve seen of it and already, and we had a world class dinner. It took less than an hour here before Cyndi and I were both saying “I wonder what it would take to immigrate to New Cal?”

Space is tight in the marina and our marina future is uncertain. We have a berth until Sunday when they’ll try to find us another one. We’re not really sure how long we want to stay. When I went up to the marina office to check in, Carol said, “Oh my, what are you doing here so late? Cyclone season started yesterday!” Her shock caused me concern. I guess we’ll take the next weather window out of Dodge, but we’re kind of hoping it takes a while to open (window… open… get it?). We’d really like to spend a couple of weeks here. We’ll just see how the weather and our nerves hold up.

And then… Yes… Australia! That’s right. Are our plans are cast in vapor, or what? Right now, we’re thinking we’ll go to Bundaberg, Australia. It’s 790 miles away and not very far south of where we are now. It should be an easy run (wow, have I just jinxed that passage!?)

Australia, then what?” you ask. Maybe we’ll spend a year there and then go from Aus back to New Zealand. Maybe we’ll spend six months there and then go back up to the tropics. With plans set firmly in vapor as ours seem to be, why bother to plan ahead?

In the mean time, stay tuned for updates (and probably lots of food porn pictures!).

Love,

Rich (and sleeping Cyndi)

P.S. Why wait? Let the food porn begin. these are pictures of last night’s dinner…