We are in Luganville, Vanuatu getting ready for our passage to Australia. It’s been a weird one.
We’ve been told that this passage is an easy one but it’s proved tricky for us to plan. It’s not tricky like a passage to New Zealand is tricky. Quite the opposite. Where this year’s route to New Zealand has already been hit with a nasty low pressure system bringing strong winds and big seas, we have the opposite problem–not enough wind.
I have been tracking the wind for the past month. The last good weather window was a couple of weeks ago. Since then, the route planning software shows not enough wind for us. The models show us needing to motor for five to seven days of the nine-day passage! We don’t carry enough fuel for that. Normally when planning a passage we don’t leave if the models show more than one day of motoring.
Also, the models keep changing. The models are updated twice a day. Two days ago, the models showed two days of motoring if we left on Thursday. Yesterday, the models showed close to four and half days of motoring if we left that day.
As I write, I haven’t downloaded the weather yet today but last night’s forecast showed that Friday would be an okay day to leave. Today, we will work through our pre-passage checklist of jobs and provision so we’re ready to leave on Friday–hopefully.
In the meantime, as you can see in the image above, there are worse places to be stuck waiting.
Cormacks On Cambria 