In June 2016 we sailed from French Polynesia to Tonga on the well-trodden path westward with brief stops inside Beveridge Reef and in the buoy field of Niue.
In August we decided to head back from Tongatapu (21°S, 175°W, the southernmost archipelago of Tonga) to the Gambier Islands of French Polynesia (23°S, 135°W). Sailing southwards to latitude 30 or even 40 to find the westerlies and face cold weather and gales was not an appealing prospect.
Neither did we want to sail hundreds of additional miles up to Samoa where the trade winds are supposedly lighter and from where the Society Islands (French Polynesia) lie on a better angle. The trades may be lighter up north, but they are also more persistent than in the south where they are frequently interrupted by lows. During southern winter the belt of variable winds reaches up to the fringe of the tropics, so we set out on a more
