Ocean Echo 1: January 2014

Dear friends

It has been a while since my last blog entry. I am writing these lines at Opua - North Island of N. Zealand. Cyclone season is fairly active. We had cyclone "IAN" category 4-5 damaging Tonga's Ha'apai Group and brushing over Vava'u Islands a week ago. Presently we are dealing with cyclone "June" leftovers passing over N. Zealand. There are indications of an other cyclone developing at the end of January. Most of them seem to originate at Vanuatu - Solomon Islands region.
My passage from Tonga to Minerva Reef and N. Zealand turned out to be slow, but comfortable. Watching the weather on this passage is very important. High & low pressure systems move fast in 7-10 days pattern over N. Zealand in October and November, which is a spring time here.
I have made a stopover at North Minerva Reef. It is a nice shelter, better than Beveridge Reef. I have spent a few days there until next weather window for second part of N.Z. passage came up. Minerva R. belongs to Tonga, they call it a "parking lot", because there are many cruising boats stopping by every year on the way to N. Zealand. We have seen some Tiger sharks inside the reef. It made me worried, when I was diving and cleaning bottom of the boat.
We had a nasty 50 knots (100 km/h) squall passing over Tonga - Neiafu at night October 9-10 th. I happened to notice the indication of the squall 14 hours early and managed to issue warning for Vava'u Group on local VHF net. This little event have changed my passage activity for next 2 months. I was asked by net controllers from offshore SSB (Single Side Band) net "Southern Cross" to help out with weather forecasts for passages from Tonga, Fiji, Vanuatu and New Caledonia to N. Zealand. It made my mornings busy with receiving, studying and reporting grib files on S. Cross net during my own passage.
Most of my electronic instruments and steering pilot/computer have been broken for last few months. It forced me to look constantly for the wind, which would operate my Windvane and steer the boat. It would be very difficult to steer the boat by hand for 24 hours every day. My boat's track ended up being 600 nm (nautical miles - 1200 km) longer, than other boat's track. However it was a comfortable passage, which is very important as well.
N. Zealand and Australia are very strict on Bio security and Arrival rules for offshore vessels. I was more concern about entry issues, than passage weather. All the officers have been very efficient and polite on arrival to N.Z. - Opua. We do feel welcomed here. New Zealanders seem to be very friendly and helpful.
I have been busy first few weeks trying to establish some Internet communications and organize purchase of many boat replacement parts. Unfortunately Internet service is quite overloaded at local anchorages with too many customers and not enough bandwidth. Most of the bays at Northland are shallow, which makes us to anchor far away from WiFi repeaters and weak signal. Sheltered bays near communities are occupied with hundreds of mooring buoys.
I have not seen much of Northland's coast line yet. That is in the plan later on. The boat care and repairs come first.
North Island - Northland is very scenic, clean and well organized. Climate is subtropical, quite pleasant. N. Zealand has a very close relationship with Great Britain - England. It is highly recommended for tourism.

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Maintaining this blog could by complicated time to time, because Internet signal/connection for uploading pictures, will not be as good/fast as it is in large cities/communities. Please, excuse my poor writing skills and grammar. Google translate does good job converting text to other languages.

I hope, that you will find something interesting in this blog – enjoy.

Jara (JJ) Holcman s/v Ocean Echo 1

(old blog's address - http://oceanecho1.wordpress.com/)

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