We departed Jaluit (Marshall Islands) just after noon on Sunday, 3 April. (In retrospect, I wonder did we leave on a Sunday for a weather window or just to avoid going to church? Most likely both.) We thought we would stop in Tarawa, Kiribati, but marginally favorable winds kept us going and we ended up making it all the way down to the small island of Onotoa before the wind died. We took a three-night breather there before continuing the journey, this time bound for Funafuti, Tuvalu.
Once again, we proved weather is king and with all of us tasting landfall in a familiar place with friends waiting for us, we made the decision to press on hoping to ride the top of a low pressure located way down by Fiji all the way to Apia, Samoa. We finally rolled in to Apia after dark on Wed, 20 April, only to find that the low-pressure way down by Fiji that gave us a favorable wind direction to make it to Samoa was forecast to turn into a full-blown cyclone that was headed our way in only a couple of days. (Spoiler alert: we survived.)
(Jaluit, Marshall Islands) –> Onotoa, Kiribati –> Apia, Samoa
Gresham Family Exodus 