Plans man!
Kia Ora! Now that Zephyr is safely in New Zealand it’s time to look at whats next as far as plans go for the voyage!
The south pacific is a MASSIVE part of the world. French Polynesia alone covers an area the size of western Europe with over 200 islands. Many cruisers try to do it all as best they can in one season before moving on but there are so many compromises with that plan. In general with cruising, my personal experience with cruising is that the faster you go, the more “unfun” stuff you have to do. Repairing the boat, dealing with bureaucracy, etc etc etc. This comes at the expense of fun stuff. Subsequently the fun ratio becomes less favorable.
We can all agree that we want to optimize the fun ratio as much as possible right?
So this season, we only saw two countries in the South Pacific: French Polynesia where we spent 3 months and Tonga where we spent 2 months. Both of those experiences were EPIC. In fact, the best part of that trip might have been the nearly 3 weeks we spent on a single island Maupihaa that only had 20 inhabitants.
So. The good news is that there is a whhhhole lot south pacific left to explore! Next season once the cyclone season in the south pacific passes, Zephyr will be heading up to the South Pacific to do round 2! This means setting sail probably around April or May. We’ll likely be sailing to Nuie, Fiji and New Caledonia. Finally the tentative plan is to head to Australia next season and explore the gold coast and maybe head south a bit to Tasmania and Melbourne.
Finally the Americas Cup is going to be held in Auckland NZ in March of 2021. Will definitely be taking a close look at sailing back to NZ to join the festivities then!
So, between now and setting sail for the South Pacific what’s going on?
Zephyr is in need of a good bit of TLC after essentially continuously sailing for 18 months. Whats that going to entail this season?
Lightning her up a few hundred maybe 1k pounds
Repairing some fiberglass wear and tear
Taking a close look at safety
Doing some work on our OCTender
We’ll be hauling out in January to get a bunch of stuff done! When opportunities present themselves, my plan is to do some tramping and adventuring in NZ between all the work.
Like all sailing plans though, these are written in the sand at low tide. I fully expect them to change in no time at all. Cheers all 🍻