New Caledonia – Not the ideal stay we wanted but you gotta take it as it comes!

We left Port Vila on the morning of May 22nd.  We said goodbye to SV Another Adventure and headed south.  This particular passage was tricky in my humble opinion for 2 reasons:

1. We needed to enter Havana Pass at low slack water tide and preferably during daylight hours. We needed to time it perfectly.
2. We were headed in a SW direction and the wind and swell were predicted to be coming at us from the South which means we were heading almost up wind which means our boat speed would be slower, how much slower was the question, and possibly uncomfortable.

The combination of these two factors meant we needed to keep a keen eye on our progress and monitor our speed and arrival time to Havana pass.  In the end, it was a slow passage, as expected, and we arrived at the pass 2 hours early, but all was good….with the exception of our tummies not feeling well….

We had gone out to dinner with Frank and Ivonne in Vanuatu the night before we left Port Vila.  Trevor started to feel “bad” our first night.  The next day I started to feel crappy.  We started to take medicine for our “tummy issues” but for the entire passage we didn’t eat much…in fact we didn’t even cook ONCE!  When we made landfall, we felt on the mend but still tried and weak from not eating and possibly dehydrated.

Illegal landfall – The deal in Noumea, New Caledonia to clear into the country is to coordinate with Port Moselle as they contact customs and Bio-Security for you.  We arrived near the city close enough to be in VHF radio range on Friday about 3:30pm.  Unfortunately they did not have room on their visitors dock and told us to anchor out and contact them the next day to see if they had room.  We heard the “anchorage” near Port Moselle was full of moorings..which it is… and to be careful of old boats getting loose from said moorings.  So we decided to take the advice from Frank (SV Another Adventure) regarding a great little anchorage 6 miles away with great protection from SE, SW wind and swell called Ilot Ndo or Ile Uere.

It was perfect!  We anchored in 18 feet of water in sand and light coral with 5 other boats.  We had planned to call Port Moselle every day to see if there was room but there was no rush as we thought the official offices would be closed over the weekend…so we were just going to hang out on the boat as technically we are not to go “ashore” until we are cleared into the country.  However, there were a few boats from the Go East Rally from Australia who invited to us to join them and BBQ at the little hut ashore.  We gladly accepted to talk to other people besides each other…on a platform of LOVE!

 

Noumea – We had stopped taking medicine and started to feel terrible again so we spent the first week feeling crappy.  Movies and rest was about what we could do after clearing in officially (it’s free) when we arrived at Port Moselle marina.  We did manage to visit a museum and learned about the Kanuk culture here in New Caledonia and Trevor got a much-needed haircut and went to see Dead Pool 2…in FRENCH (Trevor said he asked if it was showing in english but things got lost in translation).  We also learned that New Caledonia will be putting up to a vote this November if they should seek independence from France (remember Vanuatu just got independence in 1980).  It’s a big controversy here and I imagine if the referendum for independence does go through…this place will be very different from what we are experiencing now.

We are sad we weren’t feeling up to adventuring out so much and to take advantage of all the good food and wine and social life Noumea has to offer.  But we needed to take care of ourselves and our energy spent on the necessary tasks.  There are so many cool things we have read and heard about here but our short schedule and not feeling 100% determined we would miss most of it….you just can’t see everything!

Boat work it is never done starting to feel better, we started to work on the boat.  As previously mentioned, our engine was overheating….we had a local mechanic stop by to just chat with us about what else we could do.  We turned in our jib sheet (head sail) to get the tear repaired.  AND…our head stopped working!  That was not a fun job.

Indonesian 3 month visas- The entire reason why we are here in Noumea, New Caledonia was to apply and obtain our 3 month social visas.  Thankfully we at least achieved this : )

Finally we completed our visa process and have started to look for a weather window to head to Cairns, Australia to meet up with the Rally.  We also need to get some spare parts and do a little work on the boat (yes…when we arrive at a dock, this generally means boat work and tasks…not fun in the sun unfortunately).  We will be underway for our 14th anniversary so I made Trevor promise me we could see Koalas and Wallabies for our anniversary when we arrive in Cairns.

p.s. Engine running at 160 degrees…still don’t know exactly what the problem was.  Our freezer stopped working and one of our heads (toilets) is still nonfunctional.  But we are headed out anyways…touche!