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Firefly - Firefly - updated short and long term plans



Firefly is currently moored at the Bay of Islands Marina in Opua and her crew have flown home for a brief spell in ‘Blighty’. Several jobs including the servicing of the sails, replacing the water maker membranes and testing the alternators are underway in Opua and in the UK Paul and Susie are stocking up with the few things that can’t be bought in NZ and at the same time as catching up with family and friends.

 

The short term plan is that we are leaving New Zealand at the beginning of May and will be bound for Tonga, sailing with the Island Cruising Association on the first 2 legs of their Pacific Circuit Rally. Heading north east it is about 750 miles to Minerva Reef where we will stop, anchor and rest before sailing the remaining 300 miles onto the Haapai Group of Tonga. After a week or so re acquainting ourselves with the tropics we will move onto the Vavau Group of Tonga that we have visited previously, in June last year.

 

From Vavau we sail directly to the Lau Group of Fiji and a special customs and immigration check in will be arranged for the ICA fleet. It’s really beneficial to be able to check into this eastern group of islands as they are very remote, untouched and apparently extremely beautiful. Being east of Fiji they are a considerable distance back upwind from the official port of entry into Fiji at Savusavu, so the special check in is very worthwhile to save a potentially difficult trip into the wind.  When we reach the west of Fiji at the beginning of July we are looking forward to joining the World ARC 15/16, the rally that we originally joined for our circumnavigation.

 

With this, the next edition of the World Cruising Club rally we will go onto Vanuatu, sadly featuring in the international news very recently following a direct hit by Cyclone Pam. We spent a month in Vanuatu last year and having spent time in the very traditional villages our thoughts are often with the friendly people who live there as its clear that the damage the cyclone has inflicted has been immense. Firefly will carry as much food and other supplies as possible that we will take to the southern outer islands in order to help them.

 

Mackay will be the port of entry into Australia and will be our next stop after an 1100 mile passage from Port Vila, the capital of Vanuatu. From there we head north to cruise in the Whitsunday Islands for 2 weeks and then sail north, inside the Great Barrier Reef to the NE tip of Australia where we will stop at Thursday Island at the entrance to the Torres Straight. A passage of 800 miles to the west follows and takes us onto our next stop at Darwin where we will arrive late August. There we have arranged to drop off the World ARC rally again and will do so at the point the fleet leaves Darwin on September 1st 2015.

 

Firefly will actually head west with the fleet but will check into Kupang about half way to Lombok, their destination. We are joining the Sail2Indonesia Rally, also organised by the ICA, part way through and with them are going to head up through Indonesia for about 10 weeks. We will be stopping at many places including Komodo, famous for its dragons and Kalimantan for its Orang-utans. Leaving that rally mid November we will then spend time in Singapore before sailing to Malaysia and Thailand via the Malacca Straight.

 

Christmas 2015 is scheduled to be spent back in the UK and following some extended cruising around Thailand we are then planning to leave the boat ‘laid up’ in May 2016 to spend a summer at home. After a good spell as a ‘land lubber’ we should be very keen to get back on the boat and undertake some of the longest passages of the whole circumnavigation. From September 2016 we will be going from SE Asia via South Africa and Brazil back to the Caribbean. As we prefer doing the longer distances with the support of the World Cruising, our plan will be to join the World ARC (edition 16/17) rally again in Cocos Keeling, an Australian Island well off to the north west and the best departure point across the Indian Ocean for Mauritius. From Mauritius and Reunion, the rally sails to South Africa and reaches Cape Town for Christmas and New Year. Leaving early January, it then goes onto Brazil, having called into St Helana, coinciding with the street carnivals in Recife in February and then arrives back in the Caribbean, finishing in St Lucia in April 2017. If we achieve this plan it will have taken 3 years and 3 months to get from St Lucia to St Lucia – 2 years more than the original!

 

Paul and Susie

 

 

 




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