Watch out for that branch!”
Christian hurried to the starboard side, boat hook in hand. He fended off the threatening greenery while I slowly steered us through a 20-foot-wide entrance fringed by limestone cliffs. Our 41 Sparkman & Stephens, Pitufa, is narrow, just 12 feet, 7 inches wide, but the rocks felt close enough to touch as I made a U-turn. Finally the basin opened up, and we anchored in 23 feet on a sandy bottom.
Next came taking the dinghy around the basin, looking for a place to attach chain and wire loops around rocks to secure our boat in a spiderweb of lines. Fortunately this was a dress rehearsal—no cyclone was forecast—but we at least knew where we would hide in a worst-case scenario as we enjoyed our summer cruising in Fiji.
When we arrived in the South Pacific in 2013, we’d planned to visit the island groups in one season and be in the safe harbors of New Zealand before cyclone season, as most cruising boats do. But after talking to fellow cruisers and locals in French Polynesia, we realized that the risk of a cyclone there is extremely low. We then spent nine years of gorgeous summers in French Polynesia, thinking that the island nations farther west would pose an unreasonably high risk during cyclone season. Then we got to Fiji, learned more about the options, and ended up staying for two years.
The Pacific Ocean takes up almost half the globe. It’s hard to grasp its size when you’re sitting on the sofa planning a cruise.
The Pacific Ocean takes up almost half the globe. It’s hard to grasp its size when you’re sitting on the sofa planning a cruise. We used Jimmy Cornell’s World Cruising Routes as our main reference from French Polynesia to the Cooks, Tonga and New Zealand, but it wasn’t until our first seriously long passage—23 days from Galapagos to French Polynesia—that we understood the vast dimensions of this ocean.
We met many French cruisers who had spent years, or even decades, sailing unscathed by cyclones among the many islands of the Societies, Marquesas, Australs and Tuamotus. Our own research showed that the whole area of French Polynesia has a very low risk—but that can change during strong El Niño events.
The 1982-83 season was one of the most active and longest South Pacific tropical cyclone seasons on record, with 14 tropical cyclones. Five hit French Polynesia, with Orama devastating the low-lying atolls of the Tuamotus, which had not seen a severe cyclone since 1906. The next strong El Niño season, in 1997-98, brought two severe tropical storms. Osea destroyed 95 percent of the infrastructure on Maupiti in the Society Islands. During El Niño of 2009-10, Oli badly damaged the Societies and Australs.
We decided to cruise throughout the five archipelagos during neutral seasons, or with La Niña dominating the weather patterns. In the Society Islands, we avoided November to May and the rainy season, instead cruising in the breezy, dry Gambier and Australs. The strongest winds we experienced were around 60 knots—bumpy but no problem, with good holding in a sheltered bay. We did not dare to linger in the Tuamotus because low-lying atolls would give no shelter during a cyclone. The surge can enter a lagoon unhindered. Friends in Maupiha’a told us how they climbed up coconut trees, cut off the leaves to reduce windage, and tied themselves to the stems, hoping not to be swept away. No thank you.
In 2015, we were still enjoying French Polynesia, but we were on high alert with an extra-strong El Niño building. We started early for the Marquesas—the only area that has never been affected by a cyclone, because while storms might form near there, they move away before picking up strength. Our passage was relatively easy from the Tuamotus in the southeasterly trade winds that dominate until October, but if you wait too long, the winds shift to the northeast, from November or December onward. Most other crews had the same idea, so the anchorages were full. The 2015-16 South Pacific cyclone season was one of the most disastrous on record, but no cyclones came close to French Polynesia.
During our nine years in French Polynesia, we sailed to the Cook Islands and Tonga, but we always returned to our base for summer. We did not check weather forecasts for only our immediate surroundings; we looked across this vast ocean to get a feeling for patterns. Watching cyclones leaving a trail of destruction over Fiji, we ruled out spending a summer, but we were surprised to meet quite a few old salts who had sat out numerous cyclone seasons there. Many crews leave their yachts in Vuda Marina on the west side of Viti Levu, the main island of Fiji.
Adam Wade, manager and CEO of the marina, told us that Winston was the worst cyclone they had endured. “In fact,” he said, “this was the strongest storm to ever make landfall in the Southern Hemisphere since records began. There are estimates that the windspeed at the marina was around 160 knots. The last recorded windspeed on a yacht was 130 knots, and then their wind instruments blew off, but it got even stronger after that.”
Wade hunkered down in his house up the road from the marina during that storm. There were about 50 yachts in cyclone pits, and about 100 more in the water and on the hard.
“Most boats fared very well,” he said. He figured that the boats in the cyclone pits had damage of about $7,000 apiece; two boats in the water failed to deploy fenders properly and had about $12,000 in damage each; while four boats on the hard fell over. The wooden ones were written off, but the steel ones had only minor scratches.
Boats that go into a cyclone pit have to stay there for the whole season, which is a great option for crews who want to fly out anyway. We met a female sailor who spends summers as a liveaboard in a pit. We didn’t want to stay close to the marina all the time; another option would have been to sign up with Denarau Marina, which takes boats up the mangroves and secures them there, but we found the western side of Viti Levu too touristy.
We instead sailed east to the remote Lau group of Fiji—with beautiful nature, authentic villages and hardly any tourism—but during July and August, it was uncomfortably cold and windy. We met Tony Philp, owner of the Tradewinds Marine Group that includes Vuda Marina, the Coprashed Marina and the Yacht Shop in Vanua Balavu, a northern island in the Lau group. The septuagenarian has spent most of his life in Fiji, is a three-time Olympic sailor, is a boatbuilder, and has circumnavigated the globe.
He laughed when we suggested staying in this area during the summer months: “Of course,” he said. “Summer’s the best time to cruise in Fiji. Calm seas, beautiful weather—you just need a cyclone hole you can run to if severe weather is forecast.”
He recommended the anchorage in Lami Bay within Suva harbor and pointed out a list of bays he deems safe enough to sit out a cyclone, so we stocked up on additional lines and chain and started scouting.
Some of these cyclone holes were too shallow for our 7-foot draft, while others seemed too wide to tie up to trees and mangroves, or the holding wasn’t good enough, or we found potentially dangerous rocks and reefs on the fringe. Finally, we found one that seemed perfect: a narrow entrance to a wide basin. It was basically a private marina made by Mother Nature.
Thus reassured, we explored the many islands of the Lau group, with the picturesque anchorages all to ourselves. We anchored out on exposed reefs and spent several hours a day snorkeling, sometimes just to escape the January and February heat. We studied forecasts twice daily and were prepared to run to safety, never more than 24 hours from our hidey-holes. A few times we got nervous, but in the end, the storms stayed away. The next summer posed a considerably higher risk—conditions had switched to El Niño—but again, we got lucky.
We’ll spend this summer in the Solomon Islands and Papua New Guinea, which rarely see cyclones—but due to climate change, the weather has become less predictable, so it’s good to be prepared for strong winds even outside the official cyclone belt.
Birgit Hackl and Christian Feldbauer have sailed year-round on Pitufa since 2011. Visit pitufa.at or check out their books, Sailing Towards the Horizon and Cruising Know-How.
