New Caledonia

We set sail to New Caledonia having decided that to progress any further north in Vanuatu would have created a hard slog back against the predominant south easterly trade winds. OK, the fact that we had only seen 3 days of sunshine in over 2 weeks in Vanuatu may have influenced us ever so slightly!! We are after all meant to be enjoying warm tropical sunshine!  So despite some weather gurus advising boats wanting to head south to wait until the end of the week we and another couple decided to undertake the relatively short passage of 3 days to New Caledonia. This proved to have been a great decision, as we had gentle winds from the east / south east for all but the last 20nm when they turned more southerly. Fortunately the winds were light and the seas remained relatively moderate. We were able to sleep and prepare meals without any problems. We passed through the Loyalty Islands in daylight and arrived at Havana Pass, the passage through into the lagoon that surrounds New Caledonia at 6am,  just at slack water. Perfect timing! This was a first for us as we usually have to slow down for fear of arriving to early.

We sailed through the inner passages to Noumea and realized that we were back in the 21^st century as we arrived at Port Moselle and the marina. Lots of expensive boats and Peugeots, Renaults and Citroens everywhere! We must be in France!  The checking in formalities were very simple and cost us nothing! In all the other Pacific Islands there had been costs for all sorts of things from a health cost paid at a local hospital in Fiji to Port Charges in Tonga. They usually amounted to the same total of about $250 Australian although no official was usually to be seen and they certainly didn’t come out to the boat. The internet here is fantastic, Rogers words!

Noumea is a large city dominated by a protected a bay with houses and expensive apartments lining the foreshore and overlooking marinas. Shopping is of a similar price to Australia but with expensive French clothing and accessory stores! Rogers worried about my shopping alone!  The supermarkets have everything a cruising sailor may desire and the choice of cheese, breads and French wine is large. Eating out offers an enormous selection of restaurants so that on my birthday our choice was very French and our very poor school language skills were called upon! It was lovely because of the differences.

From here we will go out to visit The Isle of Pines for a week or so and then retrace our steps back to Noumea, we may hire a car to explore some of the internal areas of the country but we will see how time passes. I’m sure that before we know what has happened we will be planning our passage back to Australia in about 6 weeks time!!!