Pic shows one of Disney's blurbs for the animated film "Moana" released last year. The actors behind the Disneyesque pan Polynesian mythical melodrama come from Hawai'i, Samoa and N.Z. The big moko covered guy, Maui, has been credited with fishing the North Island of N.Z. (Te Ika o Maui) from his waka, the South Island, but maybe that's just a load of Maui bullshit!

We are anchored back in Noumea and planning what was supposed to be the crossing of Saraoni's last moana (ocean). Our plan was to retire Saraoni to its lovely spot beside the penguin rocks in Tutukaka while we searched for a bigger, more comfortable and faster boat.

We bought Saraoni nearly 20 years ago and wrested it from its Aussie home to share a heap of adventures with us. Saraoni was a solidly built coastal cruiser, with lots of room for what is a relatively small boat. There were over 40 South Coasts built in the 1980s and 1990s and it still remains a well recognised boat model on the NSW and Queensland coast. Saraoni was fitted out by a retired BP worker from Nowra who was almost as cack handed as us. Despite, or perhaps because of, our own admittedly inept efforts, Saraoni's interior has been falling apart almost as fast as we have been trying to keep it intact.

It's time to move on, but we now have a little weather problem, not something unusual in our 31 years of sailing! The Pacific has moved from neutral to a mild La Niña (opposite of El Niño). This has shifted the axis of the stream of high pressure zones southwards, unusually early. That's fine if you are sailing from Tonga, or even eastern Fiji, to NZ, but sailing hell from Noumea, because the winds spiralling out of those highs direct south east winds from the Bay of Islands and even further south right up to New Cal. It's not impossible to make the passage, but you have to contend with sailing into 20 to 25 knots and tacking for nigh on 800 miles.

The last good passage down to NZ across the moana that separates us was in the third week of October. As the SW Pacific warms up with the start of summer, small lows, troughs and storms are popping up everywhere like land mines surfacing in an old war zone.

We are not the only ones here. Noumea, of course, has hundreds. possibly thousands, of boats on moorings, or in the (relative) security of the city's 3 or 4 marinas. There is also a small fleet of German boats that are waiting to return south together with a sprinkling of other yachts that didn't want to bash south last week and prefer to spend the cyclone season in NZ rather than Oz, because it is relatively easy getting back to the islands again next year.



Some of the hundreds of boats that chance the cyclone season in Noumea. These boats are on moorings in Baie d'Orphelinat



Port Laguerre, an indent 10 miles north of Noumea seen from the slopes of Mont Mou. Just visible is a small mangrove creek, which is a cyclone refuge for Noumea based boats, but it fills up quick!




Baie Maa near Port Laguerre is a perfect refuge when the trade winds are blowing strongly.

We have a choice to confront the cyclone season, officially lasting from 1st December through to the end of April, and just wait for a window to track south so we can leave Saraoni in the penguin pad, or do a long diversion via Oz.

From here to the Queensland coast it's a relatively easy 800 miles downwind, but allowance has to be made for the possibility of summer troughs and storms drifting off the coast on arrival.

From South Queensland we could make our way to Tasmania where we had planned to go hiking anyway early next year, then make our way back across the Tasman to NZ at the end of summer. It's a long shot, as the final trans Tasman crossing may seem one moana too many! If we come to a grinding halt, Saraoni might just be on the market in the land of its birth!