A Month In New Caledonia

We had a good passage to New Caledonia. The winds co-operated and went east which gave us a good angle to sail. As we neared the coast of New Caledonia they went very light and we had to motor for a while but that was OK as we had lots of help from the current. We had a lovely sail into the Havanah passage and arrived in Baie De Prony late in the day. We had arranged to meet friends on Steel Sapphire at Ilot Cassy. They had a spare fuel pump for our generator as ours had broken again in Vanuatu!

After a relaxing night we continued our sail into Noumea to clear in. We had a good sail and the scenery was lovely. The soil is very red which contrasts with the scattered Pine trees and the blue of the water and the sky. On the way we had a pod of big dolphins with us for quite a while. We stood on the bow watching them play in our bow wave.

Noumea is very French as in it has lots of French cheese, pate and bread. There are a number of museums, so we spent out time visiting a few and having a good look around the city. We also walked around the bays to the aquarium which was well worth the walk. We left Noumea before our arteries hardened completely and headed out to a small bay just south of the city called Ilot Uere. We spent a few days in the protected bay catching up with some of the boat chores we had neglected while we had been moving so much in Vanuatu. It was a nice bay but it was very busy at the weekend with being close to Noumea.

After a few days we visited Ilot Amedee for the day. This is home to the tallest lighthouse in New Caledonia. We climbed the lighthouse and had a snorkel in the lovely clear water. Its not possible to spend the night there so we sailed back to the mainland. The bay we had chosen had unfortunately been taken over by a fish farm and the surrounding land was being extensively mined. We stayed the night and then continued south back to Baie De Prony the following day. We wanted to stop at an anchorage on Ile Ouen on the way but the anchorage was not protected enough so we moved around to the bay next door but this was too deep to anchor safely so we moved again and headed into the Baie De Prony. On the way, the winds increased and we were heading into 35 knots barely making headway. We made it to Baie De La Somme in torrential rain and strong winds. It's a pretty bay on the west side of Prony and we spent a few days there.

While in Baie de la Somme, we ran into some OCC members that we had met in NZ. Avril and Graham on Dreamaway, they are also Brits and we spent a pleasant evening drinking wine with them. There was a marked walk from the bay through Prony village to a waterfall which we did one day. It was awful to see all the erosion from the mining, there were huge big gullies which had washed away as no one had ever replanted after the mining to preserve the soil. Part way along the walk we came to a river which we needed to cross. While trying to find a good place to cross we met a local who had built a 'house' near the river and was living there in the middle of nowhere. He invited us for drinks which we accepted so we never got to finish our walk. Instead we just headed back to the boat.

We then had a good weather window to sail south to the Isle de Pine. We anchored at Kuto which is the main bay on the island. While there we met up with friends Richard and Alison on Vulcan Spirit and Avril and Graham on Dreamaway. We climbed the peak Ngo which has views over the whole of the area but it was hard work climbing and we both realised how unfit we are! Probably made worse by our taking an accidental detour through some heavy bush and having to climb up and down to get back on to the track which we had somehow missed!

We wanted to hire a moped and drive around the island but none were available. As an alternative Avril and Graham suggested going horse riding. Mike sensibly declined as did Richard so Avril, Graham, Alison and myself set off for our adventure. It started badly with the guy not turning up but eventually we set off. In hindsight we should have taken this as an omen and just gone back to the boat. The guy was awful and constantly shouted at us that we were doing things wrong but wouldn't tell us what to do instead. My horse bolted twice and the guy ended up falling from his horse in pursuit of mine and being dragged along the ground. The whole experience has probably put me off horse riding for life!

We left the Isle De Pine with Vulcan Spirit to anchor in the southern lagoon which is supposed to have good snorkeling. The first anchorage was too choppy for us to get the dinghy down so the following day we moved to Kouare. This was more protected and we managed to do some snorkeling even though it was quite windy. We also did a walk around the island which was covered in lots of nesting birds. New Cal has lots of sea snakes and we saw a few making their way up the sand and there were also a number of sharks in the shallows which vanished when Alison tried to snorkel with them.

Along with Vulcan Spirit, we decided to try another atoll further north but when we got there it was not tenable with the amount of wind so we headed to the east side of Ile Ouen and Vulcan Spirit went back to Noumea. After an overnight stop, we sailed back into Baie De Prony to meet up with friends Matt and Jean on Superted who were anchored in Bonne Anse. We all walked to the light house together and had a few get togethers including drinks with Sue and Stefan from Charlotte who we hadn't seen since Fiji.

We had time for a last visit to Ilot Cassy for Mike to clean the bottom of the boat and to have a walk around the island before heading back to Noumea to clear out. While there we met up with more friends that we hadn't seen for a while from Ladybug, Blue Rodeo and Evergreen

We left after a few days as the weather was good for our trip to NZ. So having stocked up on bread, croissants and cheese we sailed out of the reef into some fairly rough seas. The first day wasn't pleasant but the seas improved once we were clear of the reefs. We then had a really good trip to NZ which means we had no wind in excess of 25 knots and no seas bigger than 3m, much better than last year. We arrived in NZ on 9 November exactly the same day as last year.