French Polynesia to New Zealand

3/1/21 NZ time

If there was anywhere in the word to be ‘stuck’ during the Covid crisis, French Polynesia was probably the best. Throughout our entire stay the locals have been lovely, welcoming and they have made us feel very much at home. The climate is fantastic year round, the diving and snorkelling amazing and the area so large there is always plenty new to see.

The only two downsides of FP from our point of view is even without Covid, its a pain to travel between the UK/South Africa and FP and communication can be an issue. Many of the atolls don’t even have cell coverage, so trying to run a business from here is challenging to say the least.

We have been in FP for nearly two years – far longer than we ever intended but finally it is time to move on. We have been lucky enough to obtain an exemption to enter New Zealand – there are various criteria that have to be met but we now have our visas so are on our way. In many ways the timing is not ideal. We are in the middle of cyclone season so the 2100 mile journey (minimum) to New Zealand has to be timed and routed extremely carefully to keep us safe and for that reason we are using a professional weather router.

In anticipation of leaving we have moved to the most western atoll Maupihaa and have spent a stunning couple of days over New Year relaxing and preparing for departure. Maupihaa is extremely remote – they get a supply ship on average once a year so we had to provision and refuel in Raiatea before heading out to Maupihaa.

Although it is cyclone season, it is also summer in New Zealand so if we can avoid the cyclones we are likely to encounter some better weather in the second half of the trip than we would normally encounter if we did the trip outside cyclone season, but that means we are likely to do a lot of motoring so fuel is likely to be critical. Luckily we carry a lot of it, but even so like the other boats we we were buying up diesel cans and filling them at the dock in Raiatea to give us extra ‘reserve capacity’.

Having been waiting for about a week we have been given the green light to leave. There are two other boats departing with us – we all travel at different speeds so each will have their own routing as we head west.

So its goodbye French Polynesia and hello to two to three weeks of ocean sailing. Our routing is initially just north of the great circle route between Maupihaa and Opua, New Zealand, but that is likely to get revised regularly as the weather patterns evolve. It is going to be an interesting trip, and rather sad passing by many places that we had expected to stop at on this passage, but due to Covid we are not allowed to stop anywhere until we arrive in Opua.

DTG 2100NM
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