Aftermath

There are a few people who we would like to thank for various reasons, if I have forgotten anyone please accept my apologies – the brain is rather numb!


Our buddy boaters: (you really should have come all the way with us guys!)
Kathy & Bob
Dale & Lorie

Our personal boat part shoppers: (we owe you dinner when you get here!)
Bob & Karen

First time sailors who risked life and limb to spend their vacation with us: (just one more rum punch?)
Rose & Mark

My “at sea” blog publisher: (thanks for doing such a good job)
Kay

The following virtual sailors who have traveled along with us by reading the blog, sending emails and posting comments: (thanks a million for doing so, we really appreciated the emails and comments)

Our daughter, parents, step parents, brothers, sister, (and in laws) nephews, nieces and ring ins – we love you all.

Tom – sail maker extraordinaire
Ray – our coastie mate – thanks for the med. bag which happily didn’t get used!
Rob De Hann – we have some thoughts to share with you about your trip.
Peter & Lyn- thanks for the fishing gear, it worked sometimes!
David Fox
Mary
Phil
Dog breath
Hamish
Joe
Barbara & Luther
Alice
Owen
Willy & Jack
Lee & Gary
Richard & Debbie

All the cruisers that we have had the pleasure to meet and share parts of our trip with – thank you for sharing the good times, the bad times, the fun and disasters along the way. We wish you all fair winds and following seas – be safe and keep in touch.

Monday 22nd October

Townsville
Queensland.

Day dawned as we continued to motor sail up the coast line. A few more container ships passed us on their way south and a few yachts were out enjoying the breeze, zipping backwards and forwards around the islands. Our focus was on Cape Bowling Green – a water level spit of land that we had to clear before turning in towards Townsville. We made it round the spit and began the very last leg of our trip – home was now in sight but it seemed to take us forever to get close. Gerry phone ahead to customs and quarantine; arranging for them to meet us on the dock at the marina at 16.00hrs. We arrived off of Magnetic Island – straight off of the Townsville coast, at about 15.00hrs and had to do figure of eights for the next 45 minutes as there is a tidal bar at the entrance to the marina and we needed to clear it at high tide – around 15.45. We weren’t the only ones waiting for a tide rise, there was another boat also waiting and we graciously let him lead the way into the marina (well if he went aground then we wouldn’t follow!) All went well and we tied up to the fuel dock and were immediately boarded by Quarantine, they cleaned us out of about 20 kilos of foodstuff, including the MREs that we still had and various other food stuff that I didn’t know they would take. They didn’t take any of our canned meats nor any of our wooden carvings (which I had made sure were sealed anyway). Customs arrived within minuets and spent quite a while with us going through the formalities, it was all relatively painless but we are restricted to the Townsville area and Magnetic Island until we have sorted out the import duty stuff – they have given us a month to sort that out and we will take every day of it – who wants to part with money? Once all the formalities were completed we motored around into a marina berth and tied up, stopped the engine and jumped onto home soil at last.
After spending 341 days traveling we had finally made it, it was a trip that will remain a talking point for a very long time to come.

Sunday 21st October

At Sea

19 46.069 S
148 18.118 E (at Midnight)

The night passed quietly, the weather was a little warmer and we weren’t being thrown around as much as we had been for the past few days. Neither of us slept particularly well overnight – the excitement of being almost there had really kicked in and we had to force ourselves to go to bed rather than watch the Queensland coast approach. Funnily enough only 2 more boats went past us during the night – both on Gerry’s watch. As the day light broke through we were seeing more and more small islands, most of which I had never heard of! The day was quite uneventful and pretty boring. The wind died away and we started up the mechanical wind and motor sailed for most of the day. It was close to lunch time before we started to recognize the islands that we were going by – we had hit the Whitsunday passage (which we know quite well having cut our sailing teeth around this area). I’m also happy to report that Airlie beach turned the sun on for us, we had glorious sunshine as soon as we were in sight of the place. For those of you who have ever seen the Queensland tourism adverts we thought that they should change the catch phrase from “Queensland, beautiful one day, perfect the next” to “ Queensland crappy one day, perfect the next” as this was what we were experiencing. The sea also changed colour off of the Whitsunday Islands; it became a clear pale aqua green – very pretty. It took us just about all day to clear the Whitsunday Islands, by late afternoon we were just off of Hayman Island – the last in the chain when a very large super yacht British defender roared out from behind the island and cut across in front of us. If we had been moving a fraction faster at the time we would have run over the dinghy that it was trailing behind it! This was one of many yachts that were out for a Sunday afternoon sail and we didn’t even pretend to be racing against any of them, after all we had just come from the other side of the world to here – we didn’t have anything to prove! The sun began to set just after we had cleared Hayman Island – it set over the land and was a beautiful sight for our last sunset at sea but there was no green flash – it is official guys – it does not happen despite all the stories we have been told. The night seemed never ending; we were now so close to home that we could taste it. We tried our best to sleep and even managed to for a while but we both seemed to have caught our second wind and just wanted to be up on deck until we arrived in Townsville.

Saturday 20th October

At Sea

21 12.903 S
150 12.491 E (at Midnight)

As the night continued it became increasingly colder – what’s going on here? This is supposed to be sunny Queensland guys; we resorted to wearing tee shirts, sweat suits, fleecy tops and our wet weather gear all at once to keep warm and dry, and for the first time we even got the beanies out to keep the wind out of our ears! Dawn brought little relief, it was cloudy and we had rain for about an hour soaking everything. With the wind still coming from behind at 12 -15 knots we were rolling (literally) along at 5 knots, the good news was that the swell was beginning to drop. At 10.30hrs we reached a point where we had to change tack in order to maintain our course,throwing the main across went very smoothly BUT as we were now heeled over on the opposite side a whole lot of books and drawers fell out down below and scattered across the cabin floor. Gerry lost it, he began throwing things around down below instead of leaving it for me to pick up as is the norm. I got him to calm down and then went below to pick up and tidy away the flying debris – it didn’t take long but it’s not easy chasing stuff around the floor when you are being thrown from side to side. I cooled off by having a shower before going back out on deck, where Gerry was now quite calm and civil again. We began to see the small islands that dot the Queensland coast as we headed further north. The swell was all over the place and the wind kept gusting at odd times; our speed was anything from 4.5 knots to 10 knots, we even saw it reach 12.5 on 2 occasions - it’s not good sailing like this as it is so inconsistent; however we are at least heading in the right direction. We had the jib out for a while in the afternoon but soon put it away again as it didn’t have a great deal of effect on our progress. The sun set behind islands, yet again we were cheated out of seeing a green flash! We were now well and truly in the shipping lane for the Queensland coast and at 22.00hrs we saw the first of a series of container ships coming at us from the north – it wasn’t going to be a night when we could take our eyes off of the horizon for long.

Friday 19th October

At Sea
22 26.649 S
152 20.730 E (at Midnight)

It was just as well we did reduce the sail area as the winds grew again for the rest of the night and we were having sustained wind of 27 knots and gusts up to 30 knots, needless to say we were moving along pretty rapidly. We finally saw a sign of life other than the 2 of us this morning - a cargo ship appeared out of the clouds on the horizon 6 miles in front of us; it crossed our path and vanished back into another cluster of clouds. Soon after spotting this ship a huge wave hit us side on and managed to get under the canvas and Gerry got soaked through, I escaped as I was down below getting us a drink at the time. The wind began to drop and once it was down to 20 knots we turned the engine on to try and steady the rolling; it didn’t work too well as Gerry tried to cook up some sausages for breakfast and the pan ended up on the floor when the boat gave a violent heave to one side (they were disgusting sausages anyway!). It did make Gerry appreciate what I normally go through to put a cooked meal in front of us when we are underway. We turned the engine off mid afternoon and unfurled the jib , we managed to sail for at least 2 hours before the wind dropped aft enough to cause the sails to flap annoyingly; at this point the jib went away again – its certainly getting a good work out! At around 22.30 hrs we reached the end of the Great Barrier Reef at around Rockhampton and began rounding the bottom of it to head back north and towards home. As we turned to head north the wind was now directly aft of us and maintaining our course was increasingly difficult. The auto pilot kept dropping out and the boat kept trying to round up into wind, it was a very frustrating night. Sleep was difficult but at least we had half a moon and plenty of stars even if they did keep disappearing behind the clouds.

Thursday 18th October

At Sea

22 31.333 S
155 02.320 E (at Midnight)

By the time the third watch was beginning the wind was blowing a steady 21 knots and we decided to furl the jib away and put the 2nd reef in the main. It’s not our favourite thing to do at night as it means Gerry has to go out on deck in the dark to secure the reef, with the sea swell steadily growing along with the wind it can be quite dangerous but we figured that it was a necessity. With just the main out and both reefing points in place we still roared along at 7 knots. Dawn arrived and we thought we would try a small amount of jib to see if it would add some stability to our sailing however the wind began to veer around behind us causing the sails to flap so we reduced the jib to pocket handkerchief size and sailed for the rest of the day like that. The wind and sea swell continued to increase during the day with the wind speed now a steady 26 knots and the swell up to 12 feet – some of those waves coming at us from behind were taller than the boat when we hit a trough and we were lucky not to get pooped! It didn’t help that we seemed to be getting swell from 3 different directions, which is alright when each direction hits on it’s own but when 2 or 3 different direction waves hit at the same time the boat gets tossed about like a cork – thank goodness we bob up quite well. We tried to grab some sleep during the day time to make up for the lack of sleep during the night but we are both quite tired and in need of a decent stretch of sleep to keep us from making stupid mistakes. As 16.00hrs approached we were just about on top of the sleep problem, the sky clouded over and it began to rain – oh joy! We were now wet as well as tired; luckily it didn’t last too long. The sun (what sun?) set behind a bank of clouds – still no green flash! As we began the night watches the wind dropped a little to 24 knots and we were making 7 -8 knots speed, good speed but it was very rolly and quite rough. Finally at 23.00hrs we furled the rest of the jib away to reduce our sail area for the night.

Wednesday 17th October

At Sea

22 24.543 S
157 50.833 E (at Midnight)

After dropping the main at midnight we motored for the rest of the night making an average of only 4 knots per hour. We cooked breakfast and then hoisted the main sail again as the wind was beginning to pick back up, ever cautious we left the first reef in place. A very short while later we let the jib out about half way - there still wasn’t enough wind to prevent flapping if we had it out all the way, with both sails partially deployed we motor sailed until lunch time when we thought that there was enough wind to turn the motor off and just sail. It worked for a short while and then we became frustrated with the constant struggle to prevent the flapping so we turned the engine back on at about 15.30 hrs and furled the jib back away. The on going saga continued – jib came out again at 17.30 hrs, we ate dinner and then turned the engine off, this time though there was enough wind for the sails to hold there shape. The wind continued to increase and by 19.00hrs we had a steady 14 knot breeze with a few gusts reaching 20 knots; we were managing to do a steady 7 knots speed which kept us happy. The sea for some reason was flat calm so it was fairly pleasant sailing. The moon came out and was a little bigger tonight – all the better for seeing you with and there were hundreds of stars twinkling in a relatively clear night sky. Surprisingly the night was a bit warmer than last night and we didn’t need our wet weather gear for the night watches.

Tuesday 16th October

At Sea

22 26.085 S
159 57.800 E (at Midnight)

Happy anniversary Dale and Lorie, enjoy Ruth’s, wish we were there!
Another day of unexceptional sailing followed. The day’s forecast was for 10 – 15 knots of wind and for once they were pretty close to the mark. Our speed dropped with the decreased wind and we were now doing less than 5 knots. The knock on effect was that the sails began to flap and bang as there wasn’t enough wind to keep them full. We poled the jib out in the hope that it would keep some of the flapping at bay – it worked for a while but the wind then began to veer around to directly from behind which is not our best point of sail. I tried to type up the blog at about 14.30 hrs but after being below in the nav. station for 20 minutes I felt quite ill and had to make a quick dash topside to part with my lunch over the side rails – the first time since beginning this trip! I gave up typing and went to sleep for the afternoon instead –a much better plan! By 17.00hrs the jib pole was redundant as the jib was flapping even with the pole in situ .We took the pole off and furled the jib away, leaving just the main to flap and bang at will and occasionally fill and push us along. We ate dinner hoping for a decent sunset – it vanished behind clouds, I am convinced that there is no green flash as it seems there are always clouds at sun set. The night watches began and at 21.00hrs the wind was down below 8 knots and our speed was dropping to 2.8knots; Gerry had enough and turned the mechanical wind on to increase our speed to 5 knots. A short while after there was a huge black cloud which extended for miles down our port side but according to the radar showed no rain in it; it did however affect the wind, bringing it round to the starboard side and at around 22.00hrs we had to tack to keep any wind in the sail. The change in direction didn’t affect the speed though we still needed to motor sail. If anything the wind became lighter and at times seemed to veer from one side to the other. The flapping continued until we finally gave up trying to sail and dropped the main, motoring became the only way to go!

Monday 15th October

At Sea

22 24.516 S
162 02.462 E (at Midnight)

The night sailing turned out to be the sort that we both hate – there was only the smallest sliver of a new moon which only stayed in the sky for a couple of hours, the stars were mostly hidden by the clouds and it was pitch black, making the horizon difficult to see. The up side was that there were no other boats anywhere for the entire night. The wind gusted up to 25 knots on and off all night, the swell was 6-8 foot and caused waves to slap against the hull, the pitching and rolling was not necessarily the worst we have experienced but we could have happily lived without it. As dawn approached (very early I might add at 04.30hrs) the winds began to die away and by 07.00hrs they were down to 10 knots and we shook the 2nd reef out of the main to keep us moving along. The forecast said that the wind would be light (5 knots) and variable for the day – it was certainly variable but at 10 -15 knots, which was fine as it meant we could do at least 6-7 knots all day. Our day was unexceptional, we saw no boats, no whales, no dolphins, in fact nothing at all. I didn’t even bother to put the fishing line in the water as we have enough food for the entire trip, with some left over I’m sure. We took turns in catching up with sleep, being on watch and reading. As the night closed in around us we were surprised at how cold it was, we both had tee shirts, track suits and fleecy jackets on to keep warm and even then we were complaining of cold! The stars were out in force tonight and the sliver of moon put in a brief appearance – it would be so nice to have a full moon sail so that we could see around us.

Sunday 14th October

At Sea
22 28.104 S
164 40.354 E (at Midnight)

At last the leaving day arrived. We were up fairly early as we had a couple of last minute things to do before we could leave. Gerry topped up the water tanks and stashed the hoses away and then we hauled the dinghy back on the deck and strapped it into place for the passage. Next, and most important thing was to have breakfast, we walked across the road and ate with the clown – well it would be the last chance for a week or so and we had to use up our last few coins! After eating we wandered back to the marina office which was now open and paid our bill and returned the bathroom key. Finally we were ready to leave. At 09.00hrs with a little help from our dock neighbours we slipped the dock lines and motored out of the marina. The day started well with bright sunny sky and wind at 15 knots on the beam. We motored for about an hour to get us out clear of the reef and then turned into wind to hoist the main with the first reef in play, the jib quickly followed but again we didn’t pull it all the way out as we were moving along quite well with only half of it out. The weather lasted until lunch time and then the clouds filled the sky and it began to spit with rain, the wind blew a bit harder and the sea swell turned lumpy – not so pleasant. Unfortunately for us this was to be the pattern for the rest of the day, it left me with a horrid headache which I just couldn’t shift and made both of us feel very lethargic. We didn’t bother fishing as we have enough prepared food to last us until we reach home, but even going below to heat some of that up proved to be a major undertaking. By 15.00hrs the wind was blowing 25 knots and we decided that putting the second reef in the main would probably be prudent for the night. The night watches were, as usual for a first night, pretty painful – neither of us managed much sleep as the motion was too violent, still we can always catch up as we go along.

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.