Cyclone Tomas causes drastic change of plans

"A single-hander on his 40 foot steel yacht was expected in Gisborne by the 14th of March and was overdue. For five days, we heard the mayday relay repeated every few hours over the VHF by Maritime Radio. Orion, NZ Air Force's search and rescue plane was over head flying a search grid and spoke to us several times while we were out. Nothing like a sobering reminder of how quickly life can change. No sign of the sailor or yacht were found either before or after the cyclone."
(Yvonne Carver, Windsong)

2 weeks ago Bill & Yvonne set sail from NZ heading to Tahiti. For the first 3 days they had favourable winds and great conditions, and were even ahead of schedule. On Monday 15th they received a weather report that March Cyclone Tomas, the storm that hit Fiji, was turning into an absolute beast and wreaking havoc with the weather all over the region. Despite their best efforts to change course and sail around it, there was no escaping this storm and on Wednesday they struck storm conditions. The next 15 hours (12 in the dark) were spent fighting 35-40 knot winds and waves that felt like freight trains breaking over the boat, which was followed by an even tougher struggle against winds on the nose to get back into Tauranga. Not a decision that was made lightly, given they had mentally and emotionally packed up and were ready to leave NZ and continue on to the States. At 2am on Friday night they arrived safely in Tauranga.

Needless to say, this put a huge dent in their schedule. With this being an El Nino year they began to question whether or not it was even a good time to be heading out across the Pacific; several storms had already hit French Polynesia and even Whangarei. They contacted me to tell me everything that had happened and that there was no way they would make it to Tahiti anywhere near our original timeframe, indeed if at all, and that if I had an option to change my flights I should take it. I was extremely relieved to hear that they had arrived safely, and with that worry put to rest I now had to face the fact that the Pacific sailing trip was not going to happen. This presented a new challenge: WHAT TO DO WITH MY TAHITI & HAWAII FLIGHTS??

Of course, I had not purchased travel insurance yet. Stupid. Additionally, because a cyclone warning had already been issued, I could not purchase insurance then claim a refund on my tickets. BUGGER.

This now left me with a difficult decision to make in an incredibly short period of time. I had no desire to go to Tahiti by myself, an expensive destination, and anyway my return flight would put me back in Auckland. Not ideal. Options:
1. Get a flight directly to Hawaii, bring the Hawaii - Bangkok forward by a month, continue as usual
2. FLY TO JAPAN AND SURPRISE LAURA & STACY!!!

Luckily, I was able to get 60% of the cost of my flights back to put towards a flight to Japan. 5 days and $900 later the deal was done - Japan here I come!

Of course, this calls for a new route map: