New Zealand - Pacific Crossing Notes: A Sailor's Guide to the Coconut Milk Run - page 350

Waiting for a Weather Window
We spent nearly all of May in the Bay of Islands, finding no sign of what we would call a
weather window. Boats that did depart early ran very narrow gauntlets between high latit-
ude storms and tropical depressions that seemed determined to keep all intruders out of
their territory above 25° south. Some crews got lucky in their gamble; others, not so lucky.
We listened in to the radio nets and felt justified for hanging back while others reported
thirty, forty, even fifty knot sustained winds with seas to match. One friend reported: “Ar-
rived in Fiji a little blown away, but all in one piece.” The boat, however, was “in a few
more pieces,” including a broken pushpit, a parted genoa sheet, and torn lazy bag. Mean-
while, we were happy and well occupied in New Zealand's beautiful Bay of Islands. Why
rush off?
For a good passage north, we wanted the back side of a low pressure system moving east
across the Tasman Sea; the leading edge of the following high would provide favorable
winds up to the trade winds. In the long-term forecasts, the systems all looked promising
while they built over Australia. But as time passed and the systems inched closer, they
either morphed just enough to postpone our departure, or the South Pacific Convergence
Zone would spawn another late season tropical depression. Time and time again, we
thought we had our window and prepared for departure. The boat was ready, the crew was
ready, even the vegetables were ready! But what were optimistic weather windows to begin
with inevitably took a turn for the worse: the high a little too weak, a little too short; or an
unstable tropical depression would pop into the scene like a loose cannon. All in all, the
science of forecasting seemed more like a dark art of consulting oracles and reading en-
trails!
And so we waited, and waited, and waited. Lovely as New Zealand is, the island nation
was taking on a Hotel California feel: you can check out any time you want, but you can
never leave. Thirty-five-plus knots on the beam with six-meter seas, anyone? What about
four days of strong northerlies, followed by a week of motoring? There were, in fact, a few
takers for each of these “windows,” many of them crews with looming visa expiration
dates. We bit the bullet and applied for a visa extension instead. What's NZ$165 versus an
unnecessary thrashing (and possible gear damage) at sea? As a consolation, all those per-
fect New Zealand anchorages were now empty of other cruisers, so we were content to
wait.