We had a relaxing morning until about 9:00 when we pulled the anchor and started our 17 mile journey to Ilot Amedee. Ilot Amedee is about 13 miles south of Noumea and has a reputation of being very picturesque. We motored whole way. The seas were choppy, rough and the wind was coming from the wrong direction, or as Rick says things sucked. There were lots of black clouds overhead even though the forecast said there was 0% chance of rain. Eventually it started raining although not heavily. Generally it was just cold and raw.
With about 7 miles to go we saw the famed lighthouse of Amedee.
We followed it in. Amedee is a very small island but it does have a restaurant and a dive club. There were mooring balls in the anchorage but they were for smaller boats so we anchored. Although the island blocked the worst of the waves we had winds of 15-17 knots and there was a lot of rocking and rolling. We ate lunch with hopes the conditions might calm down, but they didn’t, It was going to be a difficult, rocky, rolly night had we stayed, so we pulled the anchor and headed out. We were headed to check another island, Ilot Maitre, a bit closer to Noumea, with hopes conditions would be a bit better.
We decided to raise the main sail in an effort to counter the effects of the waves. I use the winch to hoist the sail while Rick keeps the boat pointed into the wind. I was having a lot of trouble getting the sail up. It turned out the halyard (the rope pulling the sail up) was stuck on the spreader (part of the rigging that holds the mast up). This was a problem because the sail was half way up.
What to do? I ended up putting on my harness (because the seas were still rough), climbing up on the dinghy, which is lashed to the deck, clipping my harness to the mast, and manually pulling the sail down. At this point at least the sail was down but the halyard was still stuck on the spreader. We motored the rest of the way and decided to come to Noumea since we needed to deal with the halyard while anchored in a calm location.
We got to Noumea and anchored after sailing around the mooring field to find a good spot.
That evening we watched another great sunset while enjoying champagne provided by the charter company. Even though we have one more day with the boat we toasted to a good sailing trip.
As of this writing we still haven’t dealt with the halyard. It will be a good job for tomorrow.
Rick made chicken for dinner. We had a very calm night, no rocking and rolling, like we would have had if we stayed at Ilot Amedee.
Here is a map of our route today.
