December 2015

Hello everyone,

Kia Ora!

That's New Zealand's greeting, pretty close to Tahiti's "Ia ora na"; that is to say that I have just reached the Land of the Long White Cloud, after a near perfect crossing: two days downwind from Brisbane, a two-day stopover in Lord Howe, an island that I didn't know so far, but whose photographs had made me dream; and the island was really up to is reputation, although the sky was not as blue as it should have been.

This two day stop allowed me to let a front that caused the wind to veer east ; when it had completed its rotation, I headed east again alone but for once together ... No, not by a human or animal stowaway, but ... by an amazing character, famous throughout the Pacific for years : it is to his Auckland office that navigators (and others) refer to for information on the state of the weather, especially on the presence or absence of an "El Nino" phenomenon, that whenever it occurs entails harsh consequences for the entire planet: cyclones, droughts, floods are often linked to this phenomenon. And it turns out that this year it is a powerful El Nino which is ongoing; it was an advantage for me because the Western Pacific is then relatively sheltered from the risk of hurricanes while in the center, and all the way to Tahiti, the risk is much higher.

So I had chosen to be accompanied in a virtual way by Bob McDavitt's advice : he's the "guru" of Pacific weather and each day I received his advice, and a synthetic weather forecast which completed the grib files, the weather graphics files which we never thought fifteen years ago could even one day be available.

And so it was that after ten days, I have seen the north of New Zealand appear in the fog and rain , and I have come to moor in the marina at Opua for formalities; the place being pretty close to the New Caledonia, a lot of French boats can be found here, but also flags and crews from all over the world.