Saturday 13th October

Noumea
New Caledonia

22 17.173 S
166 26.266 E

This was our last full day here, we decided that we would split the morning shopping, I went to the market for the fruit and vegetables whilst Gerry took off on the bike to buy more soft drink and bread. We made it back to the boat at about the same time, I had had more success than Gerry had – there is apparently a lack of soft drink in the supermarkets today! Our next chore was to collect the laundry – had to make it there before 11.30hrs as they close like all the shops here and wouldn’t be open again until Monday. Luckily the place is quite close by and we got there in plenty of time. Back at the boat I spent the next hour putting away clothes and shopping whilst Gerry hosed the boat down – again! We had little else to do for the day so we relaxed and gradually began the stowing away of gear that we have had spread around the boat during our stop over here. The afternoon saw Gerry having a nap whilst I prepared a roast leg of lamb for dinner (Tom Cruise didn’t call again!). I had found some fresh mint at the market so we indulged in Mojitas at sun down and then stuffed ourselves with roast lamb and mint sauce for dinner. Gerry then watched a war video whilst I caught up with the blog. We are heading off tomorrow morning so there may be a couple of days delay in up dating the blog again but as this is the last leg I will do my best to get it done.

Friday 12th October

Noumea
New Caledonia

22 17.173 S
166 26.266 E

“Lets go to McDonalds for breakfast” was Gerry’s suggestion of the day. We then sat for the next hour until the generator had done its thing and the freezer was at a reasonable temperature. Whilst waiting I gathered up all the dirty laundry and bagged it up ready to take ashore with us, this would be the last chance we would have to do any washing before leaving here. We took off with the laundry and headed across the main road towards McDonalds, dropping the laundry off just up the road from the golden arches. Surprisingly McDonalds was fairly empty and we were served immediately with fresh off the grill food, I have to say that their hotcakes aren’t the same as the states – they are a sort of half crepe/ half pancake and uneven in size and texture and that their coffee sucks here too! After eating we walked outside to find it had started to rain, we hurried back to the boat to make sure that the hatches we closed and to dry off. Gerry waited for a while until the rain let up and then took off on the bike to Customs and immigration to check us out as we intend to leave over the weekend. I did boring stuff like make the bed, wash the dishes and put away the junk that was sitting out on the side seat. It was close to lunch time when Gerry re appeared, we were now officially allowed to leave the country on Sunday. I wasn’t hungry so Gerry has lunch by himself and then straight after wards we walked across the road to the bus stop where we caught the local bus to the Aquarium which was 2 bays over from where we are docked. We had heard that it was worth a visit and decided to spend the afternoon there. As we paid our entry fee we noticed a group of what looked to be preschoolers waiting in the entry way; we made our way to the beginning of the tanks and were followed by this group of kids. They were rowdy and badly supervised but they seemed to enjoy themselves. The aquarium was a fairly new place and the tanks were lovely filled with all sorts of sea life that is native to the waters around New Caledonia. We were particularly impressed with the coral displays, they were just beautiful; they even had a “night vision room” which was pitch black apart from the glow being given off by the coral in the tanks – I have never seen anything quite like it before and was surprised by the array of fluorescent colours that exist in coral. The largest tank in the place had an absolutely enormous hump head wrasse that the aquarium has brought up from a baby; he was just incredible, as I watched him I thought how much like a soft sculpture he looked but apparently he holds his territory against the shark predators in the same tank. I couldn’t resist trying to get a picture of him. After going all the way around the place we headed back out into the sunshine and walked a short way to a nearby group of cafes where we indulged in a coffee and sat watching the world go by for a while. We walked a couple of bus stops and finally caught the bus back to the city, getting off in the center of town so that I could get a couple of photos of the Place des Cocotiers (where the Thursday night markets are held) and the Cathedral. It was stinking hot walking back to the dock and we were glad when we finally reached the boat. After showering and changing we went ashore for a pre dinner drink and then walked to a restaurant that we had passed on the way home in the afternoon. As always we were amongst the first to dine but the restaurant filled up very quickly – it was a very popular place for good reason, the food was excellent. Once we had finished dinner we at least had the chance to walk some of it off as we had to walk back to the dock for the night.

Thursday 11th October

Noumea
New Caledonia

22 17.173 S
166 26.266 E

Looking at the forecast it looks like we will be leaving here on Sunday, even so it doesn’t look like being the greatest weather for the trip – I hope that the forecast is a little wrong and that we have great crossing weather – fingers crossed.
Gerry spent the first part of the morning browsing the web sites of mining companies, looking for opportunities; I’m beginning to think he doesn’t want to spend any time decorating and doing up the house for renting out in the near future, never mind I don’t mind if it becomes my project. Once he had had enough of the internet browsing he took off on the bike looking for a computer store; we have a power pack for the computer that works when it feels like it and he wanted to buy a replacement if he could. I read for most of the morning – getting to the last few chapters of my book and then just before lunch Gerry returned with the news that a replacement power pack would take a month to acquire – not a happening thing. We ate lunch and then decided to go to the nearby Museum of New Caledonia where there are 2 floors; the first has a lot of artifacts from the Kanak culture and the second floor has artifacts from the rest of the pacific cultures. We spent a good while browsing and reading about the artifacts; some of the carvings were quite spectacular. Back out in the heat of the afternoon sun we detoured to the marina bar for a coffee and a fizzy water before returning to the boat where we both read for the next couple of hours - I finished my book and then began typing blog notes whilst Gerry examined the backs of his eyelids for light cracks. By the time I had finished trying to upload the recent photos to the blog site it was near to sun set, I grabbed the camera and went up the dock to see if I could get a decent shot of the sun going down over the yachts, there was a great deal of cloud around and the shots weren’t as good as I would have liked but I took them anyway.
As I was about to return to our boat another boat came into dock so I helped them tie up before making my way back to our boat. Gerry was up by this time and had commandeered the computer (he really is a computer hog). We poured a couple of glasses of wine and munched on some cheese and biscuits until it was time to go and buy dinner. We had decided to try another of the Roulettes tonight, again the meal was largely Chinese but we picked different style dishes tonight and enjoyed the meal a little more than the one we had a couple of nights ago. Gerry stayed up and watched a video on war in the pacific whilst I went to bed early and read a book.

Wednesday 10th October

Noumea
New Caledonia

22 17.173 S
166 26.266 E

Another day of waiting, the weather window is a bit slow in appearing so meanwhile we sit and wait. I wandered over to the market in the middle of the morning, had a good browse around the arts stalls – not too much that I wanted but there were a couple of nice carvings that I might have to go back for. The real purpose of the market outing was to purchase a few vegetables to make up some meals for our forth coming trip. I had gone through the cans of meat trying to decide how I could use them and came up with a couple of meal ideas which needed vegetables to complete them. I rounded up the few items that I needed and carted them back to the boat. Gerry spent the morning renewing contacts for work – he just can’t wait to get back into a job. Once I got back to the boat I set about making up the meals and packing them into containers. Having finished most of them Gerry suggested that we wall across the road to McDonalds for lunch; unfortunately there is nowhere else close to eat – any alternative would have been good but Maccas it was. We managed to hit it in rush hour – good only for the fact that the food was fresh and hot! We discussed where we thought we had seen a patisserie nearby and decided to take a walk to see if we could find it in order to buy something nice, sweet and sticky for dessert. One block over we found the place – it was the devils lair! Full of bakery goods both savoury and sweet and tempting enough to make you empty your wallet. We oohed and aahed for a bit and finally settled on just one small dessert each, figuring that the walk to the place would counteract the calories we were going to consume. Back at the boat we immediately stuffed our faces with the delectable offerings – it was worth every bite! I spent the rest of the afternoon finishing off the cooking for the trip, at least now we have a few less cans and a few prepared meals. Gerry cycled over to pay for the sail and bimini repairs at 16.00hrs, the sail maker then dropped the repaired items back to the boat on her way home. Around the same time as the sail was being delivered there was a huge wailing of fire engines and we noticed smoke pouring from a building across the road from the dock, near to the sail maker’s loft. It turned out that a rubber factory had caught light and thick black smoke poured into the sky for the next hour or two; the factory was right next door to a petrol station and there were plenty of concerns that the fire would spread and get out of control, luckily it was contained and caused no further damage. Gerry replaced the bimini and then needed help to put the jib back on, luckily there was no wind and we soon had the thing back where it belongs. I had just about had enough of cooking by the time it was dinner time so we went ashore to the marina restaurant and had a very nice dinner there. Inside the restaurant there is an extremely large shark’s jaw on display; the actual jaw is plaster cast but it has fossilized teeth correctly set into it from a Carcharodon megalodon – a type of shark that used to swim in the waters off of New Caledonia many years ago. The teeth have been recovered from the seabed during dredging operations and having seen it I was reminded of the movie Jaws – not so fictional after all! Camera at the ready I took a couple of shots to show you. Following dinner we headed back to the boat for the night. Another day of waiting over with.

Tuesday 9th October

Noumea
New Caledonia

22 17.173 S
166 26.266 E


We took our time waking up and getting moving this morning – something to do with having drunk a fair bit last night! Once we were up and dressed we took the bimini off as it has a small tear in it where the boom has rubbed, it was going to the sail maker to have some reinforcing material put across the area. Gerry dragged out the fold away bike (which has up until now just been extra baggage that we didn’t need) prepared it for the short trip to the sail maker whilst I folded up the bimini and tucked it into the back pack. Gerry took off on the bike and I followed him ashore shortly afterwards. My destination was the park across the way from the dock where there was a totem pole and sculpture that I had read about and wanted to see. I found the totem pole – known as Mwa Ka here, it was 12 meters tall and intricately carved to represent the 8 customary regions of New Caledonia.
The Mwa Ka is part of the sculpture that I wanted to see – it has been erected as a mast on a concrete pirogue (a double hulled outrigger canoe) which has a carved wooden helmsman with an enormous oar. The carvings on both the Mwa Ka and the helmsman were intricate and fantastic; I took a few photos but trying to get all of the sculpture onto one frame doesn’t allow good visuals of the carving detail. After viewing the sculpture I walked a little further to where I had seen a memorial sculpture, on reaching it I found out that it was a memorial to the American forces who were present in New Caledonia between 1942 and 1946, it was quite a spectacular memorial in the center of a city park and even more surprising was that there was no graffiti on it. Again I took a few photos and then I made my way back to the boat, arriving at roughly the same time Gerry did. We took a stroll to the nearby market which sells fish, fruit and vegetables, a small amount of meat and a few art and craft items; it was our first visit here and we only just made it in time before it closed down for the day (at 11.30hrs). We bought satay sticks for lunch and made our way back to the boat to eat them, vowing to go back to the market for stocking up later in the week. Our afternoon was spent taking a walk along the docks, looking at the reef which is growing out from the dock wall. We saw all sorts of fish and a fair bit of coral which seems to be growing and living; we have a theory that it survives on the effluent which is being continuously poured into the dock – at times the smell here is quite unbearable and if the wind is in the wrong direction you can see toilet paper floating past – pretty nasty and it isn’t coming from the boats in the dock, it’s coming from huge drain outlets along the side of the wharf. Anyway we walked out to the fuel dock on the outer dock wall and looked back at the boats before returning to our own boat for the rest of the afternoon. We wandered up to the marina bar for a pre dinner drink and then walked across the road to the car park where the Roulottes ply their wares. It appeared that all of them sold mainly Chinese take away type food; we picked a couple of dishes and took them back to the boat for dinner, they were OK but needed to be reheated as they weren’t very hot. Next time we will try a different van.

Monday 8th October

Noumea
New Caledonia

22 17.173 S
166 26.266 E

Many happy returns of the day Jack, we hope that your 11th year is a great one.

Today we were supposed to return the car; Gerry decided that we should keep it for one more day so that we could go out for dinner to celebrate our wedding anniversary as we did nothing yesterday.
He set off early in order to drop the sail round to the sail maker before going to the car hire place. Whilst he was gone I put a few things away and did the dishes that were piled up in the sink – it doesn’t take too many dishes to fill the sink as it is quite small. I’d just about finished when Gerry returned, having organized the car for another day. He had stopped and bought some croissants on his way back and we sat eating them for breakfast. We chatted for a while about the tinned meat we have on board still, we have been told by a couple of boats that the Australian quarantine authority will take canned meats off of us so we were trying to think up ways to use up the cans before we get home – so any suggestions what we could do with canned ham, chicken, beef, corned beef, stew will be gratefully considered. We have come up with a couple of menus for some of it but I fear we are going to be rather sick of canned meat by the time we get there! As we had the car we thought we would go back out to the hardware store – Gerry wanted a couple more things that we couldn’t live without. Right next door to the hardware place was a department store and we had a browse through there – nothing that we needed at the time, and then next to that was another supermarket. We managed to fill a shopping basket with more food items and then made our way back to the boat, neither of us really wanted to do anything special and we had exhausted the tourist traps so we spent the afternoon on the boat. Gerry scrubbed the decks whilst I cleaned out the clothing lockers – a complete waste of time really as they look just as bad as when I started. An afternoon nap followed and around 18.00hrs we were joined by Peter and Kerry for cocktail hour which turned into a wine and cheese session. We managed to drown a few bottles of red, all a bit of an experiment as we had no idea what we were drinking (one of the bottles is called l’ARSE – what could it possibly taste like you have to wonder!) Anyway we had a great evening chatting, laughing and exchanging stories, the time flew by and it was soon 22.30hrs and we were waving goodbye to our inebriate guests who are sailing off around the island tomorrow.
We had managed to avoid going out to dinner to celebrate yet again – oh well there is always next year!

Sunday 7th October

Noumea
New Caledonia

22 17.173 S
166 26.266 E


Cards, flowers, phone calls, champagne, breakfast in bed, beautifully wrapped gifts, surprise airline tickets for lunch in Paris, a hotel suite in the center of London – what more could we possibly want for our wedding anniversary? OOOPPS – reality check!
29 years on and we did managed to wish each other many more agonizing years together to come.
We began our day with taking the jib off of the boat – it’s going for restitching of the sacrificial sunbrella this week, there were the usual arguments and yelling that accompany taking down a sail but we got there in the end, bundled the sail into a sail bag and dragged it up the dock and put it into the car ready to drop off at the sail maker tomorrow morning. Being a Sunday everything was closed and the town was quiet. After showering and dressing we decided that we would make the most of having a car and go out for the day, drive around some more and see the scenery – after going to the grocery store which was open for a couple of hours, we didn’t need much there and it was a quick trip back to the boat to unload the goods. I had read about the Tjibaou cultural center and hunted out the information to see if it was open on Sundays –it was! Off we went in the direction of the place; it wasn’t too far away but definitely a car ride. The car park for the place was almost empty and there didn’t appear to be many people around. We paid and went in, walking along the designated pathways to the center. The place was, according to the literature, supposed to be “a vehicle for restoring and ensuring recognition for Kanak culture as a key aspect of the country’s identity”(1). We expected some sort of cultural history exhibition but were a little disappointed to find that the exhibition halls were full of art from all over the pacific – it wasn’t what we had expected at all. The building was most spectacular – it is an architectural dream come true I think, there are 10 buildings, divided into 3 villages which are impossible to describe – the photos will hopefully show why I can’t describe them in detail.

Then there is a small area where 3 “traditional Great houses” have been built – they contrast dramatically. The entire center is set in a huge park with fantastic views across the bay. From what we could tell there are usually tours and shows etc. but not today! There are 2 libraries within the complex which house an extensive history of the Kanaks, one of which was closed for the day. We wandered around the place, took in what we could of the exhibits and after a couple of hours we returned to home base (via MacDonald’s) –a little disappointed as we had expected a great deal more of the cultural center. The afternoon was spent doing very little. I varnished all the wooden artifacts that we have collected along the way as I don’t want to relinquish them to the quarantine authority in Australia when we arrive there. At cocktail hour met up with Peter and Kerry, were joined by Ralph and Jean -Claude, and sat drinking at the Marina bar until we were embarrassingly the last table in the place to go home. A lot of sailing stories and jokes were exchanged and we had a really good evening.

(1) quote from Tjibaou cultural center information pamphlet, handed out to visitors when admission fee is paid.

Saturday 6th October

Noumea
New Caledonia

22 17.173 S
166 26.266 E

Happy birthday to our favourite daughter; 25 years – where did it all go? We wish you every happiness for the coming year, not long now and we will be home with you. Hugs and kisses from us both.

As we had failed in our attempt to find a water filter yesterday we thought we would try again today, we had a good starting point - we at least knew where the hardware store was. We set off fairly early and made our way directly to the store, it was huge – very similar to Home Depot (groan). We wandered around, found the bathroom fittings and the chemicals for pools but couldn’t locate any filters. In desperation we stopped an employee and went through the agony of trying to explain what we were looking for, 3 employees and much consultation later (they understood us well enough but didn’t know if their store sold what we wanted) we were told that they didn’t have what we wanted but that a store nearby CDSM, or some name similar to that, might have them. I asked about the store that we were told about yesterday, Porcher, but couldn’t find – it was apparently the same place! We got directions thanked the employees and then made our way back to the car with the directions to the next “possibility”. With the new name – just the initials we managed to locate the store (it had Porcher in very small writing at the bottom of the sign too so we knew we had found the right place). It turned out to be a bathroom and plumbing supply store and we had high hopes of success. It took us half an hour to establish our needs and find out that although they had filters they were not suitable for the unit we have on the boat – they were far too big. The kind man there directed us to yet another bathroom / plumbing supply place a couple of blocks away, again we were out of luck - the fittings on their filters were just not right – at this point we were out of options, it was also Saturday morning and everywhere closes for the day at 11.30hrs so we gave up as it was just about closing time by now. So what do you do when everywhere is closed for the day? We headed to the Handicraft marketplace which was opposite the Maritime museum. By chance there just happened to be a huge plumbing and bathroom type show on in the grounds of the handicraft market so we had a quick look for filters there – no luck and then we tried to find our way to the handicraft part – it was closed! By now we had resigned ourselves to a failure of a day! Spotting the Maritime museum across the road we thought we would go and do the museum bit and we spent the next couple of hours browsing amongst the exhibits there, some quite fascinating things but to be honest it wasn’t the best museum we have ever been in. As we left the museum and headed back towards the dock we spied another yachtie – Peter (The SV Yvonne Elizabeth) walking along the road with his sister, Kerry, who had just arrived from Australia for a 2 week holiday, we stopped and gave them a ride back to the dock and arranged to meet up later for a drink. We spent the remainder of the afternoon reading our books until it was time to go to the bar for happy hour. We stopped to collect Peter and Kerry but they were tired (in fact Kerry was sleeping at the time) and took a rain check. Gerry and I had just one drink at the dock bar and then we set off into town to the restaurant we had missed out on the other day – Zanzibar. We were the first diners to arrive at 19.39hrs, and were in fact the only diners until almost 20.30hrs! It was worth going there the food was wonderful, we both enjoyed it. By the time we returned to the boat it was just about time for bed.

Friday 5th October

Noumea
New Caledonia

22 17.173 S
166 26.266 E

After a sleep in this morning we agreed to have a rest day, not doing very much, of course this meant going out in the car. We thought we would try and find a hardware store and see if we could get a filter for our drinking water spigot in the kitchen. We asked at the marina office for directions to a “big” hardware store, were rewarded with a map that you needed to have enlarged 20 time to be able to read but the road to take and the names of 2 hardware stores were indicated on it. Off we set, in roughly the same direction we had gone yesterday, after about 10 minutes we spied the sign for Mr. Bricolage – one of the stores off to the side of the highway that we were traveling on – how to get across to it was a different story. We took the next side road then made a number of wild turns into roads that looked like they were heading to the local tip but eventually, more by luck than anything else we stumbled across the entrance to the back of the shopping site where the elusive Mr. Bricolage was located. Gerry smugly patted himself on the back for getting us there (I have to say that it was also possible that we could have been lost forever in suburban Noumea). We went in and after asking in stuttering French for what we needed found that they didn’t stock them and that we would possibly be able to get them at some place in Duclos – a short distance away (or light years if you don’t know the roads!) Outside the store Gerry suggested that we have lunch before boldly heading where no man has gone before – he had spotted MacDonald’s just across the road and his stomach growled! Yes they are the same horrid cardboard burgers here as they are everywhere else that we have eaten them! Once we had eaten it was back into the fray, we found the other hardware store Sopema Gitem along the way by chance, they were unfortunately closed for the extended lunch hour that is popular here, we didn’t spot the place where we were told that we might find filters by the first store so at this point we gave up and made our way back to the boat where we spent the afternoon reading. We thought we would go cheap eats tonight and after just one pre dinner drink at the marina bar we headed across the road to where we had learnt there were Roulottes – the market they are near to is the one at the wharf not the one in town as we had originally thought. The Roulottes here aren’t set up the same way as the ones in Tahiti, there are no tables and chairs here, it is just a load of vans and the food is sold on a take away basis – this wasn’t what we expected and as we didn’t want to take food back to the boat we altered our plans immediately and went in search of a restaurant to sit down and eat in. Our first choice – Zanzibar in the heart of the city had the most wonderful smells drifting out from it as we approached, unfortunately they didn’t open until 19.30hrs – an hour to wait and we were starving already.
Instead we went for a drive along the coast road and ended up at a restaurant with the cheesy name of Mr. Bouef. – it wasn’t a promising name and we were the first to arrive (again) for dinner, they consulted their seating plan asking if we had a reservation (we didn’t) and eventually offered us a table; this caused us much amusement in a warped way as the entire restaurant was empty at this point – some 50 tables with not one person in sight! Still they didn’t know that we eat and run, we could have taken up a reserved table for the next 5 hours for all they knew. Despite misgivings about the name of the place the food was terrific; of course the price wasn’t too shy either. Again we were too full for dessert; I really MUST start with dessert next time! We were out of the place long before the majority of the diners had arrived; we returned home to the boat and read a while before going to bed.

Thursday 4th October

Noumea
New Caledonia

22 17.173 S
166 26.266 E

It was really nice to wake up in a marina berth – no chance of us having dragged anchor during the night, no chance of the anchor light having gone out due to shortage of power and plenty of fresh water available for any use. We scrounged around for something to eat for breakfast – eggs and bacon were off the list as they all vanished with the quarantine lady yesterday! I walked up the dock for a shower in the dock ablution block whilst Gerry fiddled about sorting out the internet connection (we bought a prepaid card yesterday that I forgot to mention). By the time I got back he had read his mail and sent off a few emails, I levered him out of the comfort of the nav.station stool and pushed him towards the shower, he couldn’t be bothered to walk up the dock so showered on board using the excuse that he wants to empty the water tanks here and refill them with fresh water (I can help with that project – Hollywood showers for the rest of our stay here!). I checked my email – disappointing to find the mail box empty – my friends and family where have you all gone? Anyway I did get the blog underway and then Gerry reappeared announcing that he was going off to pick up a hire car from over the road and was I coming with him. I decided to stay put and finish with the blog whilst he went for the car. It wasn’t long before he returned with the car and a bag of croissants – that solved the breakfast dilemma! The next thing was getting in the car and having a drive around the place to get our bearing and to drop off the laundry, someone had pointed out the laundry to us and we drove around a couple of blocks until we found it. We then headed out of the center of town, towards the next bay – where we had anchored for the night on arrival here, we continued along the coast for a while and found a lovely restaurant on the end of a pier; we stopped there for lunch – it was mega expensive but very nice – I guess we were paying for the ocean view – as if we needed it after almost a year of sailing! Any way after lunch we followed the coast road which eventually turned inland and we found ourselves heading towards mountains. The road was excellent after the ones we had driven on recently in other places. We came upon a natural spring on the side of one of the mountains, the water was diverted through about 8 spout points and there was a steady stream of locals filling their plastic water bottles with the free spring water, we of course didn’t have a bottle of any sort in the car at the time but I did jump out and take a couple of photos of the place and the view out towards the ocean from this point.
We traveled a bit further and found ourselves approaching mountain passes – not where we wanted to be heading this late in the afternoon so we turned the car around and retraced our drive back to the center of Noumea. We returned to the boat for about an hour and a half and then decided that we were hungry enough to go and seek out someplace to eat. I had read that there were night markets on each Thursday in the park in the center of town and persuaded Gerry that we needed to go there first as they might have food there. We drove the short distance as it was quite chilly, found a parking spot and made our way through the Place des Cocotiers – a sort of park which has a band stand at one end, light vegetation and walkways through the center section and a lush tropical garden at the other end; the market was set up in the center part with stalls selling all sorts of things, I found it a little disappointing as there was nothing that I thought worth spending money on. I have to say at this point that the things for sale were rather odd – one stall sold just deodorant (?!) anyway we walked from the tropical end which I fear is a great haven for spaced out druggies and homeless old men, through the market stalls to the bandstand end where there was a group of young dancers performing belly dancing. We watched for a while but were rather conscious of the presence of loads of ‘iffy” looking youths and the fact that we had loaded wallets under our hands in our pockets. We didn’t find any food stalls to speak of and decided to find somewhere else to eat, we asked a group of gendarmes for a recommendation, we had read that there were Roulottes (the vans that we ate at in Tahiti) supposed to be in the car park next to the market and though we would eat there if we could find them. The gendarmes obviously don’t eat out as they couldn’t point out the car park with the roulettes and they couldn’t think of anywhere in the center of town to recommend! We decided at that point that we would get in the car and drive around to see what we could find, I had the names of several places from the lonely planet guide but not the addresses (and where was the guide when you needed it?- on the boat!) As we drove around I spied a place that was one of the recommendations – a Moroccan place called La Kasbah. We made our way inside, were the first people to arrive for dinner (they all eat European late here) and ordered ourselves a meal. Gerry’s starter unfortunately came complete with a piece of rubber glove attached to the underside of the meat – enough to put you off you’d think. The main courses were huge and I’m happy to say were just delicious – no extras in these! There was far too much food for us to finish and we had no room for dessert – these were little delicacies displayed in a glass cabinet at the center of the restaurant and looked divine – I would have taken a "to go" box of them but Gerry wouldn’t let me. They didn’t charge us for Gerry’s starter (or the piece of rubber) and we had a hard time assuring them that the meal was good apart from this especially as we had left about half of it due to being full. Following dinner we made our way back to the boat and had an early night.

Wednesday 3rd October

Noumea
New Caledonia

22 17.173 S
166 26.266 E

Having made it through the early hours of the morning with only minimal sleep we arrived at the entrance to Orphelinat Bay harbour around 03.15hrs. Gerry went out on deck with the headset and I steered us into the harbour. We played dodge the boat at anchor, many of whom didn’t have a single light on. To make matters even harder there were a lot of mooring balls all over the place which weren’t marked very well until you were almost on top of them; the good thing is we managed to miss every one of them! Finally we found a spot to drop the anchor and by 03.30hrs we were set.
All that remained was to put a few things away, fill out the log and turn out the lights – our bed beckoned. We slept for a few hours then Gerry got up – the excitement of being here had over come him and he had to go and fiddle with something (the generator I think) I slept on until 08.00hrs. We had a coked breakfast to celebrate our arrival and patted ourselves on the back when we saw the amount of boats that we had dodged between on our way into the harbour – it looked far more frightening in daylight when you could actually see them all than it did at night when you could only make out the odd one or two. Gerry contacted one of the marinas and secured us a berth, he desperately wants to go alongside to give the boat a wash down – it’s filthy and looks a mess at present as we haven’t been able to get near a hose for a while. A short while later we upped anchor and motored around to the marina where we were met by a dock hand (imagine that!) and tied up in a berth. Customs and immigration formalities were going to be put off for at least an hour as they had all gone for early lunch or something. Gerry couldn’t wait to get busy and had the hoses out and began hosing down the salty decks at once whilst I typed the blog up to date. Once we had checked into the marina office we just had to sit and wait until customs etc. appeared at our boat. The first person to show up was the quarantine lady, Gerry went below with her and they began to stash things into plastic bags for disposal. We had expected them to take all the fresh fruit and vegetables along with some uncooked meat products however I was somewhat miffed to find that they took all the precooked meals I had prepared – 7 of them in total, I didn’t understand that as it was all cooked through and only needed to be reheated. They also took our eggs, honey and would have taken our cheese except for the fact that it was product of New Zealand and still in its wrapper. The other thing that got me was that we had 2 precooked pies that we were about to eat for lunch, the woman wouldn’t even let us keep them to eat in the next half hour! Thank goodness our freezer was pretty much empty but even so I am put out about the money and time I spent cooking up lasagna, curry, shepherds pie, beef stew etc. Still we know for next time (as if I’m ever going to do this again!) Whilst the quarantine lady was doing her thing the immigration police arrived and they were very quick and efficient with our paperwork and stamping our passports. Customs never showed up. Mid after noon we went ashore and walked to the town which is a short distance away, change our Kiwi dollars to CPF dollars and then went in search of a marine store. We found it and bought the elusive blower for the generator and at the same time booked our jib in for re stitching of the sacrificial edge which is coming undone – we have to take that in on Tuesday. As this store didn’t have a block that we required for the main they directed us to another marine store just a couple of blocks away, we walked there and were quite peeved to find that they also sold the blower but it was $30 cheaper in this store! We bought the block we needed and then made our way back to the marina; we were both still a little tired from the trip and thought we would have a nap before dinner. It didn’t happen, we found a couple of people that we had met in Panama were docked in the same dock as us and got chatting with them, ended up at the nearby bar had a few drinks and then dinner. We finally returned to the boat at around 21.30hrs, tired and ready for bed.