Well, I finally slept in until 6:30. Rick was up at 6:00. Maybe our bodies are beginning to adjust. We are in conserve mode regarding water on the boat, so we showered at the marina. Showers were OK if you don’t mind hitting the on button every 15 seconds to keep the water flowing. Beautified, we headed to the market to get fruits and vegetables, as well as some tuna for dinner. Interestingly the tuna was cheaper than the pineapple. I guess not surprisingly considering the tuna is local and I assume the pineapple is from elsewhere. Generally, the vegetables seemed expensive.
We returned to the boat with our vittles. The last thing we had to do before leaving was put our empty suitcases in the office (Stephan, the base manager, is concerned they could damage the boat if they slide around in the cabin. They are soft-sided, so I doubt we’d have a problem but it’s easy to comply with his wishes we did so. The office didn’t seem to be opening today so I called Stephan and he told us to leave them on another boat. Mission accomplished, we were off!
Our shakedown cruise is to Ile Uere, only about an hour and a half away.
Rick wanted a relatively short journey today to give him time to get use to the boat, in general, and specifically, the gps, since it’s a brand he has never used previously. We motored the entire way.
Here are some pictures of Noumea from the water and Noumea harbor.
Here are some pictures from our trip from Noumea to Ile Uere.
We pulled into a lovely horseshoe shaped bay with about 4 other boats.
We got and had the anchor down without a hitch and had lunch. We relaxed for the afternoon, aka wrote this blog and watched the kite surfers and jet skiers. Rick marinated the tuna which we had for dinner. Another early night after a hard day’s sail!
The weather seems perfect not too hot and not too cold. Today it is about 75F and with nice breeze!
I haven’t yet written about New Caledonia. When I mentioned we were going most people had never heard of it, so I here’s the scoop. New Caledonia is composed of several islands in the Pacific Ocean, about 750 miles east of Australia and about 1,500 miles north of New Zealand. The main island is called Grand Terre and then there are three other major islands, collectively called The Loyalty Islands. Noumea is the capital of New Caledonia. The country is a special collectivity of France and its people are French citizens. It has a population of about 300K, which are mostly of European descent or Kanak, the indigenous people. The Loyalty islands which are three islands, north of the main island, are home to mostly Kanak people. They’re governed by clan chiefs. New Caledonia’s main export is nickel. New Caledonia has about 25% of the world’s nickel resources. Another interesting fact about New Caledonia is that it has the richest biodiversity in the world per square kilometer. Should be an interesting place to explore!
