Pitufa.at

The South Pacific Convergence Zone is having some fun with us at the moment. Its tail end is pointing towards French Polynesia and it seems the weather people are finding it impossible to predict how it will behave. The American GFS model and the European model predict completely contradicting wind wind directions and what we get in the end is usually not predicted by either of them. South of the convergence zone the wind blows from the SE, north of it it blows from the NW and in an atoll as big as Fakarava it’s a long way to the protected side of the lagoon.
Last week we slowly sailed southwards in fickle winds to find a protected corner for the upcoming strong S and SE wind. It never showed up and instead we were pitching miserably in NW wind. We motored up for a few hours to find a sheltered spot, then there was no wind, heavy rain and two days later we sailed close-hauled back up N again… It looks like the SPCZ will keep bothering us for a while with grey weather and nasty wind surprises.