New Caledonia: waiting.....waiting......waiting......

 

Wednesday 25^th October, Nouméa, Nouvelle Calédonie.

Bonjour a tous! We are once again back on French territory and enjoying all the civilised treats that come with that. We're anchored in the harbour off the capital Nouméa just waiting, waiting, waiting (along with lots of other Aussie boats) for the elusive weather window back home to Brissie. In the meantime we're keeping a close eye on the lovely Lola – a cat 5 cyclone that's hitting our neighbour Vanuatu at the moment. She's forecast to weaken before she gets to us so let's keep our fingers crossed. I guess it was to be expected – we did get that late season cyclone just after leaving Mooloolaba in May 2019 so it's nicely symmetrical that the Universe has thrown this early season (earliest on record actually) one at us too. All that's missing now is another earthquake.

Grand, soft, Irish day in Nouméa.

So we escaped Fiji and had, shock horror, a perfectly uneventful passage to New Cal and, shock horror, nothing broke! Touch wood. My nerves are shot though and I startle at every little groan and creak.

On this trip we tuned into the Gulf Harbour Radio HF net out of New Zealand for the first time. It was a very entertaining interlude each evening and nicely built the atmosphere ahead of the Ireland-New Zealand quarter final. And after the inevitable loss it helped the grieving process to hear Patricia's enthusiastic description of what a good game it had been. Karl also got a big thrill when they commented (assumably due to his most excellent radio etiquette) that he must be a pilot.

We arrived at New Cal early one morning but had to slow down and zig zag like crazy to get the tide timing right to come through the Havannah Channel. We were greatly encouraged that we had indeed picked the right time by seeing one other boat on their way out of the channel. Until we realised that it wasn't a boat but actually a huge channel marker. Ooops. We arrived into the lagoon at the southeast corner of the island and sailed along the south coast and into the beautiful Baie de Prony to anchor overnight. The landscape was so different we thought we'd made some terrible navigational error and ended up in British Columbia. There are pine trees! And apart from a mine site (that was hidden from view at our anchorage) there was no development, no people and hardly any boats. And complete silence apart from the birds ashore. Just gorgeous. We'd had to do some motoring so there was even hot water for a treat shower to round off a perfect trip.

Grey clouds? Rocky shores? Pine trees? Must be British Columbia.

The next day we sailed up to Nouméa to be greeted by Salty Ginger (Panama Canal Buddy) with the bad news that check in procedures involved going into a biosecurity dock. Balls. Matilda had seen us coming and made sure to check out and leave for Australia before we could catch up with them. They did leave us a parting gift of Teary Tilda the very cute little pinguinito. Still traumatised from the Fiji check in experience we attacked check in with a mix of trepidation yet determination to see if we could avoid the biosecurity dock (Gráinne doesn't do docking in tight corners). The very lovely staff in the biosecurity office assured us we could not avoid the dock and instructed us to contact their colleague down at the dock. We were standing analysing the dock and arguing about how to safely approach it when the delightful biosecurity officer, Tatiana, noticed us and offered instead to come out to the boat. Thank you!!! Then, after a few questions about what we had on board (and seeing the size of our dinghy), she said "Maybe I don't have to come to the boat." "Hmmm, maybe you don't!" I thought. She was happy for us to bring our naughty fresh food ashore for her to dispose of. Yay. One more dock avoided and French territories demonstrate once again how to take a civilised approach to check in.

Teary Tilda: Gráinne's newest crewmember who has just defected from Matilda.

While wandering between the various officials' offices during the Nouméa check in we saw the sights - a lovely cathedral that used to have an amazing view of the harbour until (I would guess) some time in the 70s when Air Calin were allowed to build a monstrosity in front of it.

Hands down the best statue I've ever seen at a church: Jeanne D'Arc/Joan of Arc dating from the beginning of the 20th century. Look at that uniform!

Our first couple of days in New Cal were grey and drizzly and cooooooold. So cooooold. But there was good coffee, decent beer and we found a microbrewery! Nouméa's a lovely town situated among several bays with lots of nice coastal strolling. Sailing is huge here. The place is covered in marinas. There's a big turn out for Wednesday afternoon sailing and on the weekend there's a massive exodus of boats out of town and off to the various bays and islands around the lagoon. Karl's been enjoying a last chance to practise his French but has noticed his victims starting to get that confused look of concentration even before he starts speaking – just when he's taken a breath and is about to launch into it. He's not discouraged.

So cold that Karl had to pull out his Shackleton impression.

Now brewing by Neocallitropsis at Brasserie Village

Lovely walking/running paths along the bays and high quality bikeways make for a really pleasant town.

It's been so sharky in Nouméa recently that swimming is actually outlawed anywhere except inside one little shark net.

The one little patch of water you can actually swim in.

On cruise ship days these go by constantly.

Nouméa has a branch of 3 Brasseurs, last encountered in Papeete. The staff now recognise us and know what beer we're going to order. It's also where I'm uploading this blog.

Nouméa has a surprisingly good aquarium which included these revolting little wriggly eels.

And cool jellyfish.

And or course there's been work to be done. We noticed a crack in an important piece of Rover (we're keeping a very very close eye on him these days) so managed to get that welded. And Karl's current big project is to figure out why our electronic autopilot (you see the theme here?) is being temperamental.

Today we're having a premature anniversary lunch at a nice restaurant in the hope of being too busy leaving to celebrate on our actual anniversary. And Moonshiner (North Atlantic capsize boat) have fled Vanuatu ahead of cyclone Lola and arrived here yesterday so we'll get to catch up with them. And then we'll get to leave and have a very uneventful trip back to Brissie and then we'll crack the bottle of Veuve we've bought in anticipation of a safe arrival. 

The End.

Karl vs. autopilot. So far I'd consider it a draw.

Thursday evening after work drinks at Brasserie Village with Moonshiner.

On a final note, you can track Gráinne Mhaol here (and always have been able to, but we didn't shout it out due to the minor piracy risk; between the Aussies and the French I think we're pretty safe now).