South Pacific opening up in 2022?

[fxykty]

We are finally cutting loose and beginning our full time cruising life in June - only 3 months to go! We are in New Zealand and are planning a 10 year or so clockwise circumnavigation of the Pacific, starting with the eastern Pacific and SE Asia.

Our first destination is Australia and we plan to spend the remainder of this cruising season in Queensland. In October we have a decision between two options, complicated by Covid travel restrictions.

Option 1 is our original and preferred option. After cruising in Australia 4 months we would return to New Zealand for the cyclone season and cruise the South Island over summer, then next cruising season (2022) head up to Vanuatu, with the plan to cruise there and the Solomon Islands for the season before heading into Indonesia for the 22/23 cyclone season, starting with Moluccas.

Option 2 would be to remain in Australia, cruising Tasmania during the summer, then working our way back up the east coast and around the top as far as The Kimberly. From there, by September, we would sail into Indonesia from the south rather than NE as per option 1, but still heading towards Moluccas by November 2022.

Option 1 only makes sense if we think that the South Pacific, specifically Vanuatu and the Solomons, remain closed to international yacht travel through 2022. Any thoughts on this?

Option 2 requires a longer than 12 month stay in Australia. I am a non-resident Australian citizen, so arriving and leaving again is not the issue, but I’m not sure how easy it will be to get an extension to the control permit as my resident-elsewhere status starts to get murky the longer we are out of New Zealand (and we sold our house, so no permanent place of abode, sigh). Any ideas?