Sunset at the Ile des Pins

I'm writing this update sitting in the cockpit watching the sunset. The last light from the sun is silhouetting the tall black shapes of a row of pine trees and behind me the sky is turning grey with a blush of rose. The water is calm after a bit of wind during the day (more from the north which is unusual) and every now and again a turtle bobs up to take a breath. Around the yacht we have 5 remoras swimming and feasting on our sink drainage (Jim has just done the washing up). We are not sure if these are the same ones that we saw at I'Lot Maitre and have followed us here, or a new bunch. Remoras are intriguing fish that are usually seen attached by a kind of sucker pad to sharks or other large fish -these ones are huge, we don't want to see the sharks they belong to! The day has been a hive of activity - just not for us, a cruise ship came in this morning, disgorged all its passengers and has now departed. We decided to leave exploring ashore for another day!

We spent a week in Noumea with very little inclination to do anything more strenuous than walk to the supermarche. Another arrival wanted to know what museums we had visited, to which our answer was a shameful 'none'. Even after a week, our attention spans and ability and/or desire to do much was very low and sleep very much a priority. However, we did eventually stir ourselves to get as far as the nearest island anchorage and picked up a mooring buoy at L'Ilot Maitre. Being close to Noumea this is a very touristy destination and also a popular spot for locals. Noumea has several large marinas and the number of boats is overwhelming after months of hardly seeing any. At L'Ilot Maitre we saw turtles, dugongs and lots and lots of kite-surfers on the other side of the island. We went for a short dive from the yacht and decided that along with the duvets, the thicker wet-suits need to come out of storage. We decided to bestir ourselves on Friday and move on. However, Friday turned out to be the windiest day so far, so we waited another day and left on Saturday beating into a still fresh SW. Towards dark we headed to the nearest anchorage and spent what was actually our first night at anchor in nearly 2 months. We continued on the next day in a mixed bag of weather arriving at Kuto bay in the Ile des Pins late afternoon.

Nouvelle Caledonie

Bonjour
Nous arrivons en Nouvelle Calededonie en dimanche apres vingt sept jours a la mer. Je suis tres fatigue mais il est tres bon ici. Well its been a while since 6th form French and this computer doesn't do accents so I will stop mangling the language (and betraying my age with outdated terms like 6th form). Showers, clean sheets, a boat that doesn't move, cold beer, real food -baguettes avec fromage for breakfast...The bank balance may take a hiding but otherwise life is all good.

So near and yet so far

We are now level with the north end of New Caledonia, Jim could even see land this morning. Unfortunately, Noumea is in the south and upwind of us so we will be at sea for a few more days yet. Port Vila in Vanuatu is about as close and would be easier to get to! So, we have about 25 knots of wind and are currently heading east waiting for the wind to shift more to the east, what fun. Lately, we have seen a lot of sea and not much else. A few days ago we had a lot of bird activity around us and one night a gannet tried to perch on our solar panels. Since it was making a mess, Jim tried to scare it off, every time I was just drifting off to sleep, I would hear Jim's scarecrow impression. Eventually, he resorted to poking it with a boat-hook. Around the Solomons we saw a few fishing boats and even a helicopter, which would have been a spotter for one of the tuna boats. We have had some lovely moonlit nights with the moon being at perigee (closest point to earth) but we are both really looking forward to landfall.