Category: New Caledonia 2009

We will leave Port Moselle in Noumea, Nw Caledonia for Brisbane in one hour (at 9 am local time).  The weather forecast is excellent. So good that other boats that planned to leave later, altered their plans because of the forecast. The Port Captain told me that Sabbatical III was the 28th boat to check-out so far that day, and wondered where everyone was going.

We filled up with duty-free diesel, baguettes, and “passage food.” We got out long underwear out of storage and checked out all boat systems. We will send updates enroute.

M.

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These are the last photos that we will post from New Caledonia. Things have moved along quickly and Saturday morning we begin the 812 nautical mile passage to Brisbane, Australia. We arrived back in Noumea yesterday (Wednesday) and quickly learned that a weather window to Australia was open this weekend. Last year we spent three weeks waiting for a window and this year we will not wait at all since Saturday is the earliest that we can leave. The weather forecast is too good to pass up.

The passage will take us about five days — we hope to arrive at slack tide in Brisbane around noon on Thursday, October 22. We will post updates along the way.

M.

We are still anchored off Ilot Mato, which we mistakenly called Ilot Mata in our last blog entry. We took this photo just an hour ago. We decided to brave the venomous sea snakes and land on the island once again. There is a steep hill that ascends right from the shore from which we expected a beautiful view of the southern lagoon of New Caledonia. To our surprise, we did not see any snakes on the beach this time, except for one large dead snake that looked like someone had bitten it’s head off. With shoes and socks to protect our feet and ankles from rocks and snakes, instead of flip-flops, we headed up the rocky hill to the summit and found wonderful views in all directions.

The water was so clear, that even from the top Laura spotted a big group of large fish swimming in the shallow water right next to our dinghy. As we descended part way down the hill, she declared the fish to be sharks, an idea that I immediately dismissed. The water was too shallow and the group of fish was too numerous to be sharks. Laura vision is keener that mine — they were sharks. At least a dozen blacktipped sharks cruising just behind the dinghy, which was parked in the only bit of beach on Ilot Mato. They were not too big – ranging from 3 – 5 feet – but big enough that walking into the water to launch the dinghy seemed unwise. Blacktipped sharks do not go after humans, but we still not wish to venture into a shark convention uninvited. The presence of the sharks may explain the absence of sea snakes, and the dead one on the beach. I would rather swim with a blacktipped shark than a creepy seasnake, so bon appetit sharks!

After a few minutes, we realized that the sharks were not leaving anytime soon. We threw some rocks into the water but that did not seem to scare the sharks away. Finally, we decided it would be best to push the dinghy into the water from the edge of the beach and then leap in. Laura did a perfect dive from the beach into the dinghy and seeing the dinghy float away, I dove as well, grabbing onto to a tube. When we started the outboard motor, the sharks moved back a few feet but did not leave the area. They are persistent.

After Intiaq left us three days ago, we had two days of storms followed by a day of high winds and sunshine. There were a number of wind shifts, typically from NE to SW and then back, which set off the anchor alarm (GPS-based proximity alarm) and kept us a little bit on the alert. Sabbatical III is anchored in a relatively narrow pass between two long coral reefs situated to the east of the small, uninhabited Ilot Mato. If we drag anchor here, we will be hard up on a reef very quickly. The photograph shows it well.

There was also another tsunami alert which we missed altogether. An earthquake in Vanuatu prompted the alert that led officials here in New Caledonia to sound horns and send text messages to cell phones. We have a New Caledonia cell phone but we did not get a text message, and we are too far from civilization to hear a horn. Schools were evacuated along the east coast of Grande Terre and on the nearby Loyalty Islands. We were blissfully unaware and there is little that we could have done had we heard the alert. It would have taken us too long to get our anchor up and move into open water given the shortness of the warning. Our friends on Intiaq heard the warning at Ilot Amadee and were able to head out into open water. (As it turned out, the tsunami wave was only 1 foot tall, and was not felt.) We first heard about the tsunami in an email from my sister Fran. So, if you hear of some danger coming our way, please let us know.

M.

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October 7th

We sailed down to Ile Mata (S 22 33.2, E 166 47.7) yesterday to meet up with our friends on Intiaq. They have guests on board – Karin’s brother Gert and sister-in-law Lulu from France – and they have been sailing around to various anchorages since we last saw them a few weeks ago. At first glance, the tiny little island of Mata, with beautiful turquoise and green water inside a nice protected anchorage surrounded by reefs, seemed absolutely perfect. It turns out to have one very unattractive quality however .. an overabundance of sea snakes both on land and in the water.

After a wonderful lunch onboard Intiaq yesterday afternoon, we dinghied over to shore to check out the little beach when we noticed one big fat snake wriggling its way up from the water across the beach. It was about 6 feet long and a good three inches in circumference Then five minutes later we saw two more snakes sunning themselves in the rocks by the beach, and then another smaller snake joining his big friend on the beach. After seeing yet another in the water, we decided it was time to hop quickly back into the dinghy and get back to the boat where there are, at least to our knowledge, no snakes at all. It would not be too bad if the snakes were not venomous, but they are. At least they are not aggressive. We have seen quite a few snakes here this year, but nothing like on little Ile Mata.

Before coming here we spent a night on Ile Amadee. Amadee is well known here for its magnificent 56 meter high lighthouse built in Paris in 1862, taken apart and shipped here to be reassembled on the island. Amadee is also a huge tourist destination because of the beautiful water and great snorkeling. We normally don’t like to go to places with lots of tourists, but decided to sail over to have a look. We were really lucky to have gone on a Monday, because it turns out that none of the tour boats run on Monday and we had the whole place to ourselves. The only other person there was a young man who acts as a watchman for the place. He opened the door to the magnificent lighthouse and let us climb up to the top. From there we had an incredible view of the island, the surrounding reefs, and the hills and mountains of Grande Terre.

The snorkeling at Ilot Amadee was unlike anything we have seen to date. The whole lagoon is teeming with fish, who are apparently very smart and have learned that this is the place to be if you want to be fed. There is a glass bottom boat that runs several times a day every day of the week (except Mondays luckily) and they feed the fish from it. So when we were snorkeling all the fish came over to see if we had any hand-outs. There was just an amazing number of beautiful fish of all shapes and sizes and fantastic colors. It felt a little artificial, and we don’t really like the idea of fish being trained to receive food from humans, but I have to admit it was a pretty overwhelming visual experience. I couldn’t help but keep humming the tune “Under the Sea” from the Little Mermaid the whole time I was in the water. It looked like a scene that could only be choreographed by Disney.

Last week-end was spent back in the dock at Noumea, cleaning the boat, re-provisioning the boat (yes, more food for us!) and visiting with other cruisers on the dock. We met the most interesting Japanese single-handed sailor. He has a tiny boat that goes very slowly and he is just wandering around the world while his wife and daughter continue living in Japan. His last trip was 50 days at sea! That is 2.5 times longer than our longest sail to date. I really can not imagine it. His English was very minimal, but we managed to have a 2 hour conversation with him over beers on our boat. I am not sure we totally understood each other, but we did enjoy it very much.

Just to fill in the gaps in our blog (for our own record) we also stopped in a few places after leaving Ilot Puen. Puen is the island where we met Donny, the island caretaker who gave us sea-shells and venison. We had stayed in Puen all week-end enjoying the calm anchorage and the beautiful hiking. On Monday, the 28th of September we returned to Tenia for a few nights . Tenia is not a good place to be on a week-end as it draws many power-boats from the nearby mainland. By Monday it is empty again. The weather was fine, but there was a big swell in the anchorage which made it a little rocky on the boat and somewhat difficult to snorkel.

One day we went out but found it was too rough to get in the water near the reef drop-off (where the bigger, more interesting fish hang out) so we swam in the shallower parts of the reef. It was not bad, but there were a few large snakes there so we did not stay long. The next day conditions were better for snorkeling so we returned to the deeper water drop-off and found the same wonderful spot to snorkel that we had been in a few days earlier with huge grouper and other fish all around. We always drop the dinghy anchor in shallow water in a clear, sandy spot and then hop off it to snorkel. I always let Mark get off first to be sure the coast is clear. This time he hopped off and announced that there was a large shark lying on the sand just under the boat. I kind of thought he was kidding but found it was true. It was a large zebra shark (not dangerous) and he seemed to be sleeping as he did not move when we got into the water and he was still there when we returned from our swim 45 minutes later.

On September 20th we left Tenia and sailed to Ile Ronhua, a tiny little uninhabited island on the way back to Noumea. It was on the way to Ronhua that we heard the warning about the tsunami. There was just a single announcement on the VHF radio, and in very poor English. It was enough, however, to get our attention. Fortunately nothing and no one in New Caledonia was affected by the tsunami.

Ile Ronhua is really tiny – it takes about 8 minutes to walk around it, but it has a fairly extensive reef around it which makes it a decent anchorage for prevailing southeast winds. Just across from Ronhua is the western side of the much larger island of Hugon. We dinghied over there (about ½ mile) and right away found a beautiful (although slightly cracked) Nautilus shell. We ended up finding a few more there as well, but somehow managed to totally zone out and leave the best one on the beach. Maybe it will be there next year if we return?

We had just one more stop on the way back to Noumea — the very lovely and protected anchorage of Maa.

Today is the first day in weeks that we have not had sunshine and clear skies. It is grey, cool and stormy, but the anchorage is very comfortable. Intiaq left and once again it is just Sabbatical III alone at anchor. We look forward to catching up with friends next week when boats start congregating in Noumea for their trips to Australia and New Zealand. Over the next few weeks most cruisers will leave New Caledonia for one of those two destinations and we will be among them.

L.

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Here are a few pictures which we hope capture some of the beauty of New Caledonia. We spent two weeks island hopping – well, actually – sand spit hopping, as some of the islands we stopped at weren’t more than a large sand spit. Beautiful clear water, white sand beaches, sunshine and blue skies. Our friends Karin and Jean-Francois, of the catamaran Intiaq, were with us for some of the time and we hope to meet up with them again soon. We are in Noumea, the capitol city, but will be heading out tomorrow for some more island hopping.

L. and M.

27 September

We are about to spend our third night anchored on the north side of Ile Puen.  Before talking about this place, let me get up to date with our other stops.

On Tuesday, September 22 we left Ilot Kouen for Ilot Tenia, about 25 miles further up the west coast of New Caledonia. Ilot Tenia differs from other small islands in the lagoon in that it is right up against the fringing reef that encircles New Caledonia. Like Ilot Kouen, it is uninhabited but busy on weekends when French-Calendonians take to their boats.

On arrival, there was only one other sailboat at anchor — “Robyn’s Nest” with our friends John and Chris plus Chris’ visiting friend Karen from Calgary. They had us over for drinks and chicken curry that evening and told us where to snorkel the next day. John likes Ilot Tenia because he can surf in the adjacent Passe de Saint Vincent in the morning, and kiteboard in the lee of Ilot Tenia in the afternoon when the wind rises.

On Wednesday, we headed out in our dinghy through a small gap in the reef to snorkel (in full wet suits) near where the ocean meets the fringing reef. It was quite spectacular, with many large fish including big groupers, a school of humpheads, a Spanish mackerel, and a black-tipped shark. We sat on the beach of the island for a few minutes to enjoy the sunset but were attached by a swarm of mosquitoes, the effects of which we still feel.

We planned on staying a few days at Tenia, but weird weather Thursday induced us to leave. Every day since we left Noumea, we have had nothing but blue skies, low humidity and sunshine, until Thursday morning. It was sunny and cool (68 degrees F) early in the morning, but there was a line of gray clouds, and what looked like fog or rain, in the distance. Within the hour, a cold front pushed through turning the boat around 180 degrees in a wind shift, a freshening breeze, choppy seas, but just a trace of rain. Ilot Tenia is a very unprotected anchorage, so after waiting a bit hoping that the dark clouds and “fog” would dissipate, we decided to head to Ile Puen, where there is a protected place to anchor. As we prepared the boat for the short sail to Ile Puen, we noticed that the decks were covered in red dirt. As it turns out, the “fog” was a huge dust storm that came off of the Australian outback, passed over Sydney (delaying flights), and made its way 1000 miles to New Caledonia. It was all over the news here and seems to be unprecedented.

Ile Puen is a privately owned island, and we needed to ask permission to come ashore. On landing the dinghy, we were greeted by a large extended family of French-Caledoniens (“Caldoche”) with a ramshackle weekend home. There were a dozen children, ranging in age from 1 to 18 years, running around a having a good time. We were also introduced to the “proprietor” of the island, Donnie, who lives a 100 meters away. They were all so friendly and excited to meet “les Americains.” The Caldoche, who settled in New Caledonia in the 1800’s, are quite fond of Americans. As we settled into tea and cake with them, they said how the Caldoche appreciate what the Americans did in saving them from Japanese occupation during the war, and also saving France from the Germans. Not something we expected to hear, even though we have seen the small park honoring the US just next to the Port Moselle marina in Noumea.

Donnie gave us a large rump of freshly shot deer and, after seeing the imperfect shells Laura was collecting on the beach, he have her a perfect nautilus shell — quite a rarity.

Yesterday and today we hiked around the island in brilliant sunshine. As we ate breakfast in the cockpit, dolphins frolicked nearby.

Tomorrow, we expect to sail back to Ilot Tenia and snorkel some more. Now that Robyn’s Nest has headed back to Noumea, Sabbatical III seems to be the only cruising boat around.

M.

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September 19, 2009

   We have not been keeping up with our blog as well as we hoped. So let me get things caught up briefly.

 We spend three pleasant nights in Baie Ire on Ile Ouen after our passage from Vanuatu. There was no sense in heading to Noumea quickly since it was the weekend and it seemed possible that we would be confined to the boat waiting for immigration, customs, and quarantine. Sometimes officials do not work on weekends.

 On Monday morning (14 Sep) we sailed the 25 miles to Noumea in great conditions and took the last slip available at the visitors dock at Port Moselle, the public marina of Noumea. Clearing in was quick and efficient (but all our pamplemousse and other fresh products were taken, except for ginger).

 Noumea is a modern, bustling French city of 100,000 with cars and buses whizzing along on wide boulevards, patisseries, chocolatiers, boulangeries, and branches of the largest French supermarkets. There is an amazing assortment of cheese, bread, and other treats which we sampled and added to the boat’s stores.

 We stayed at Port Moselle for four days, provisioning the boat and doing boat maintenance, plus reading internet email and catching up with academic work. We made use of the free Wifi at McDonald’s just two blocks from the marina.

 Friday morning (18 Sep) we sailed off to Ilot Kouen, about 13 miles up the west coast of Grande Terre. The “ilot” is only 100 meters long and 20 meters wide at high tide, perhaps twice that at low. The anchorage is well protected from waves by an extensive coral reef. Unfortunately, the wind has been very strong — 25 knots and more — between noon and midnight both days we have been here. We only got off the boat this morning for a swim. In the afternoons, we hide out from the wind in the cockpit and eat a leisurely lunch and read our books. It is Saturday, and six local (French-Caledonian)sailboats have anchored nearby to kite surf and spend the weekend. I imagine they will mostly be gone tomorrow — heading back to Noumea in a strong wind right on the nose.

 We intend to explore others small ilots along the west coast of Grande Terre over the next few weeks. The water is crystal clear and the coral is healthy and there are lots of fish, plus dolphins and turtles. We only hope that the wind calms a bit.

 M.

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September 12, 2009

 We arrived safely in New Caledonia yesterday, September 11th, after a 40 hour sail from Vanuatu. As with practically all of our long distance sailing, we paid careful attention to weather forecasts in advance, in order to have as easy a trip as possible… and as often occurs, the weather forecasts just were not right. It is very difficult to forecast weather around here , and all of the islands seem to have their own little weather systems that just can’t be predicted. Our sail from Vanuatu to New Caledonia was approximately 300 miles and pretty much in a direction due south. The weather forecast was for two full days of strong, but steady winds from the east and swells of 2 meters, diminishing as we went. A little swing of wind direction from the northeast was even predicted for the second day. This is about the best weather forecast you could ask for to sail south.

 We left Vanuatu at 4:00 p.m on Friday, heading out of Port Vila harbor with our friends Intiaq just behind us. It was absolutely gorgeous out and our first night was moon-lit with moderate seas and good winds from the east. By Saturday morning the skies had completely clouded up and the seas got rougher. By noon the winds started coming more out of the south than the east, which made our progress south more difficult. A large squall blew up and for a couple of hours we had torrential rain and rough seas and winds blowing at more than 30 knots. Not a pretty picture at all. Our friends on Intiaq were about 8 miles ahead of us by this time.

 The winds and swells continued to be much higher than predicted for the rest of the day. By about 9:00 p.m. we sailed past Lifou , one of the Loyalty Islands (part of New Caledonia). We would have liked to stop at Lifou, but since it was already dark, and all of the anchorages were on the opposite side of the island from where we were, we continued on through the 2nd night. Fortunately the seas calmed down a lot from then on, and it became more pleasant. The moon came out of the clouds and lit up the ocean like a spotlight. We had to motorsail most of the night in order to make headway, but it was not choppy or too difficult. By early morning the wind had come up from the north and we had an easy sail the rest of the way,

 By 9 am we were at Passe de Havannah, the channel that leads into the large lagoon of Grand Terre, the main island of New Caledonia. (The lagoon is enormous, with numerous large and small islands scattered throughout it. It is 350 miles at its longest and 35 miles across!) At Passe de Havannah you can have current,wind and waves going against you if you time it wrong- and it can be almost unpassable, with a huge steep chop. We had worked hard, however, to keep up our speed on the passage in order to time our arrival so that we would have the current flowing with us – and with the wind now at our back, our pass through the canal could not have been smoother. We arrived at the same time as Intiaq, who with their 47 foot catamaran, sail faster than us, but who had slowed down to time their arrival for maximum ease of entry. Together we headed to Baie du Prony to drop anchor and rest up for a few days before proceeding to Noumea to check in.

 There are several different spots in Baie du Prony where you can anchor, and it turns out that none of them were suitable for us. The first one we stopped at had good protection from the wind, but the bottom was so full of broken coral that you could not dig your anchor in. When we first tried anchoring there we found that we were not holding well – the anchor just slipping along the bottom of the bay rather than digging in firmly. When we pulled up the anchor we found a HUGE piece of coral just stuck into the anchor and we could not get it off. It had gotten impaled by the anchor. Our friends helped us by hopping into their dinghy and then coming over to us with a rope and some strong hands to help pry the thing off. We retried anchoring twice more – but it was futile. We attempted another anchorage spot in the bay and found that it had good holding (sand, not coral), but it put us too close to shore to be safe.

 We all decided to move a few miles away to another anchorage where there was supposed to be lots of space, no coral, and nice, thick, clay-like bottom to dig your anchor into. Thank goodness we moved, for the anchorage we are currently in is very good. We are at Baie Ire, on the northwest corner of Ile Ouen, just off of Canal (channel) Wooden. The wind picked up and switched around to the south-southwest, and it is blowing like the dickens out there. If we had stayed in the other anchorages, with poor holding, we would most likely have dragged to shore during the night.

 We went to bed very early last night and woke up with the wind howling and the boat bouncing around a lot. One more anchorage change to the other side of the bay at 6:30 a.m., and we are finally feeling comfortable. It is nice to be here – the wind is blowing hard, but the sun is shining, and we are looking forward to eating lunch onboard Intiaq in a few hours. Phew!

 L.

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We have delayed our departure for New Caledonia by one day. We will depart this afternoon at about 4pm local time (9 Sep). The winds and seas were a bit too big yesterday. They should be calming a somewhat today and moving a bit north of due east. The Swiss/French catamaran Intiaq will be sailing with us on this passage.

 M.

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