Bobgram

Bob McDavitt's ideas for sailing around the South Pacific.

Disclaimer: Weather is a mix of pattern and chaos; these ideas are
from the patterned world.

Minerva reefs

The Minerva reefs are found two days sailing southwest of Tongatapu,
or a quarter of the way to New Zealand. They are a popular staging
ground for yachts, a place to stay while waiting for the weather to be
agreeable for sailing on to New Zealand. As I write this there are a
dozen vessels waiting in the North Minerva reef. It has the added
attraction of being around 23:40degress south, so it is just south of
the Tropic of Capricorn (23 degrees 26 minute 22 seconds south), and
so it "outside the tropics".

On the Flotsam page of Gulf harbour Radio
www.ghradio.co.nz/flotsam.html is an article written by Rich and
Michelle on SV Pogeyan. This amazing article describes what they have
learned over many visits and weeks exploring both North and South
Minerva. Rich has given me permission to share some of the article
with you here, and I recommend that you go to the Gulf harbour radio
web site to read the rest.

Republic of Minerva Ruins

The Wikipedia article for Minerva Reefs provides a summary the
misguided attempt by Michael Oliver (born Moses Olitsky) to create his
own idea of a Libertarian paradise at Minerva North reef. For an
in-depth account of the whole strange affair, see "How to Rule Your
Own Country" by Harry Hobbs. In 1971, Oliver's shell company, called
Ocean Life Research Foundation, transported barges of sand from Fiji
with the goal of raising 2000 acres above the high tide line. After
building some concrete structures and covering 7 acres with sand, they
ran out of money AND attracted the attention of the neighbouring
Pacific Island nations - especially Tonga. Within a year, Tonga
destroyed all the work and built their own "permanent structure above
the tide line". At that point Tonga declared the reefs to be their
territory. Some of the sand appears to remain at the Southwest corner
of the reef and forms large sand bars that dry out at low tide.
There's also a building foundation and several huge chunks of concrete
that appear to be the result of the Tongan demolition work.


TROPICS
A seemingly never-ending parade of powerful typhoons continued to
batter the northern Philippines for a second consecutive month, with
Yinxing and Toraji being closely followed by Category-4 Usagi.
Strengthening Tropical Storm Man-yi to the east was predicted to
strike with hurricane force during the following weekend. The cyclones
have flooded villages and caused extensive damage to homes and
infrastructure and have killed at least 151 people.

SARA is about to cross the Yucatan peninsular.

BHEKI is in the South Indian Ocean

The MJO, which boosts tropical activity is also in the Indian Ocean
this week.



WEATHER ZONES


The wind accumulation shows a calm zone in the North Tasman Sea,
showing the main position of the subtropical ridge. Further north
there is a squash zone of enhanced trade winds in the Coral Sea and
around Vanuatu.

The South Pacific Convergence zone extends from Solomons to Samoa and
then southeast to Southern Cook Islands. It occasionally shifts south
across Fiji and Tonga.

A Low is expected to form near 25S 140W on the SPCZ and then deepen as
it goes south.

The MJO is now in the Indian Ocean, and that means the SPCZ is rather
weak for a while the week or two. However, SPCZ is expected to shift
south over Tonga this weekend and maybe form a tropical Low there
around 20 November, perhaps.

HIGHS and LOWS

There is a Low L1 forming on Monday between Fiji and NZ and this
should move off to the southeast to east of NZ. This system maintains
southerly winds between Fiji and NZ until Wednesday. Avoid.

HIGH H1 over southern NZ is expected to travel off to the east along
45S allowing L1 to drift south along its western side. Then L2 can
travel eastwards across NZ on Thursday

HIGH H2 is expected to travel slowly Northeast across the Tasman
reaching northern NZ this weekend.

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