16Sep2009, Coffs Harbour Marina
The name Pacific means "peaceful" and while this is not always accurate, the Pacific lived up to its name over the last few days of our trip home. The balmy conditions and low swell that pertained when we last wrote continued, and we had a terrific last few days at sea - aft of the beam, 10 to 15 knots and swells less than 1.5 metres. We left Noumea allowing for the possibility of having to motor for the last day or so, but the breeze just hung on and shepherded us in at 10:30 Tuesday - 6 days and 23 hours after leaving Port Moselle.
We had radioed ahead and arranged a marina berth so when we called Customs they met us on the dock and set about the "de-lousing" process. Australian Customs have a reputation amongst some cruisers as being harsh, officious and capricious but we have found them, both here and in Bundaberg, to be courteous, co-operative and friendly. They took the foodstuffs that we knew they would, but were very understanding with our souvenirs and other mementos from Vanuatu. Although our hull was pretty clean, they brought out the underwater camera to show us how it works - this is used to make sure no noxious shellfish are imported unbeknown to yachties.
As usual, our good friend Pete Walduck was here to meet us and he took us to the Mall to pick up some food and a newspaper (why did we bother? Same politicians gouging each others eyes out, sleeping with the wrong people and debasing the democratic process...)
We collapsed into bed about 7:30 and slept 12 hours, then spent the day tidying the boat and doing some small maintenance tasks. It's great to be back, but we really miss the charming, straightforward and disarmingly friendly Ni-Vans, for whom life is so happy, so uncomplicated and so joyful.
Anyway, we'll be off to Sydney when Aeolus allows and will put up some more photos and chat as time permits.
Cheers from us!
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13Sep2009, Coral Sea
It's Saturday night at sea, ten o'clock. Shauna is asleep, off-watch, down below, and John is up in the cockpit with a laptop tapping away at a sailblog entry. We left Noumea on Tuesday morning, along with David and Melinda on "Sassoon". They are also returning to Australia, but are making for Gladstone to do some work on the boat before coming south. We did a pretty reasonable job of timing with this passage - we are riding over the top of a high pressure system and haven't had any troubles other than having to sail close-hauled for about 24 hours. And the flying fish!!! Anyone who has been following the blog will remember that about this neck of the woods on our way over to the islands in May we were boarded by an inordinate number of flying fish, one of whom inserted himself about a metre down our scupper drain and we couldn't remove him until we reached New Caledonia some days later, by which time he was fully ripened. Well the flying fish have had us in their sights again - a large boarding party had to be removed from the side decks last night. John, the night before that, had one of the wet, smelly, oily little critters fly into the back of his neck as he sat quietly dozing while on watch. Some wake-up call. The message is that the flying fish of the Coral Sea are not to be trusted. Oh, and the other problem is that we have vast quantities of that beautiful Vanuatu beef in the freezer which will certainly be confiscated by Customs on return to Australia - so we are gamely trying to eat our way through it all over the next few days - rump for breakfast, rissoles for lunch, beef curry for dinner..... Tonight there will be a moon, in the last quarter at present, but it isn't rising until 2300. Meanwhile there is nothing to dim the stars - out here with no background light sources, one sees a REAL Milky Way - a seemingly solid mass of trillions of stars, and down at the southern edge of all that the Southern Cross lies lazily on its side, with the two Pointers appearing to show the way home should the GPS fail (the sextant is rusty from neglect). Every now and then a little cluster of shooting stars burn up in a spectacular show. We spoke on the HF radio earlier this evening to Sassoon, Waterwynch and Muscat - all four of us are under way tonight and are separated by hundreds of miles of water, but all reported good sailing conditions, and all reported being convinced that this is the life! The next blog entry may well be from not too far from Oz. Cheers from us.
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02Sep2009, New Caledonia Lagoon
We were surprised to find the marina in Port Moselle not full at all on our return from Vanuatu. Overall there are less yachts cruising this year, and almost no large superyachts. We presume the world economic situation accounts for the relative dearth of itinerant yachts. The upshot of this is that there is no pressure on us to vacate our berth, and we have busied ourselves with both boat jobs and fun since arriving. We spent a couple of days out at Ilot Maitre - a few miles from Noumea, but totally isolated and a very quiet anchorage. Maitre is a small island with a relatively large fringing reef, and a small resort tucked in on the lee side of the island. There are some courtesy moorings put down by the authorities to protect the reef. The anchorage is quite shallow - we were in 3.8 metres at low tide, with our 2.8 metre draught. The reef is extensive and well-preserved, with lots of interesting fish, crays, nudibranchs and stars. Our primary reason for going to Miatre was to catch up with David and Melinda on "Sassoon", and we also met up with Paul and Sue on "Riona", an Adams 13.
Then back to Port Moselle to spend some time with other friends. We renewed our acquaintance with Phil, Stephanie and Nalouan, our French friends here, and spent a fascinating morning at the New Caledonia Aquarium, which showcases the life of the lagoon and reef in a very tasteful and well-executed series of displays.
Tomorrow we are off to the Tjibaou Cultural Centre with Rod and Darlene from Saw Lee Ah to look at the special exhibition on the Wallis and Futuna Islands (our friend Aloi Pilioko the artist is a Wallisien by birth).
So all is well with us and "Destiny", but we have been looking at the weather charts and see no way of setting off for East Coast Australia yet, at least for the next few days. Ah well, there are worse places to be waiting for weather!
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Looking forward to your return :)
xxx
Looks like you'll miss the party.
see you when ???????????
Bob.
29Aug2009, Port Moselle
The Easterlies that were forecast came in more or less as advertised - a half day late and a little variable at first, but within 8 hours they were consistent and accompanied by only 1.5 metres of swell. The end result was a nice beam reach to Havannah Canal. We wanted to arrive about 06:30 to catch the ingoing tide - this was important as the outgoing flow there can be very strong, and against the Easterly air flow would be pretty uncomfortable as well. And so it eventuated - by reefing the main and partly furling the genoa we slowed "Destiny" down a touch and so we arrived just on slack low tide and rode the incoming flow right through to Canal Woodin and into the North-West lagoon.
We were shadowed in by a small French warship that kept exactly one nautical mile astern of us, as measured on the radar, all the way in through the Canal - we wondered if they were going to hail and stop us, as they then came closer and closer once we were through. There have been some civil disturbances in Noumea lately and we knew that army, navy and police reinforcements from mainland France have been called in and thought they might have wanted to identify us. We waited for radio contact but they just pulled out, as if into the passing lane on a freeway and glided past us before opening up their throttle, pulling away at rapidly rising speed, and leaving us in their wake. Turns out they just didn't want to startle or disturb us by speeding past! The crew were all on deck and waved, yelled and took photos of us as they passed.
Coming through Canal Woodin we were treated to a display of breaching, flipping and spinning by a large whale who just seemed to be enjoying the eary morning sun and having a bit of a stretch - they come in to Baie du Prony to calve at this time of the year.
The breeze had dropped off during the early morning so we motor-sailed into Noumea Harbour, tying up at Port Moselle about 14:00. Quarantine and Immigration formalities completed, we set about catching up with Migaloo, Saw Lee Ah, Sassoon and other friends whom we had not seen in a while.
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25Aug2009, Port Vila
It's Tuesday today and we've been back in Vila since Saturday. We've topped up the diesel, the water tanks and the cellar. In fact, as we're heading out-of-country to New Caledonia, we have been able to add a little Islay Malt and Tanqueray gin to the ship's stores at reasonable cost, duty free.
The weather models are all showing consistent Easterlies for several days, so this is an opportunity to get south to Noumea painlessly, one that can't be turned down. We would have liked to stay here a few days more to catch up with a few friends, but Aeolus has spoken. It was nice, however, to walk down the main street today ("Reverend Doctor Father Walter H Lini Highway") and to come across our friend the artist Aloi Pilioko. He is the same uncomplicated, gentle and sunny individual we remembered, and is well although a little frailer than last year.
We met a local Natangora carver yesterday, quite by chance; this is the ancient art of carving intricate patterns in the hard, ivory-like nut of the Natangora tree. It's a little like scrimshaw, and very attractive - we purchased one of his works and will treasure it.
Doug from "Windcastle" is here and is threading his way through the bureaucracy to arrange the repatriation of Sylvia's body - he is coping well but is obviously under a huge strain.
We checked out with Customs and Immigration, bought our duty free diesel and nectar, and said goodbye to Lemara, manager at the Yachting World office. We like Lemara a lot - at home she would be a very successful businesswoman, but the way things are here she is an exceptional employee in a very good business owned by an expat Aussie. We're going to miss this lovely country and its happy, open and innocent people.
We spoke tonight on the HF radio with Rod Caple on Saw Lee Ah - he left this afternoon on the same track we will be taking tomorrow and told us that conditions are good and comfortable - reassuring!! So we are off to Noumea in the morning - hopefully leaving before 06:00 - and we'll next be in touch from there.
Best wishes to all at home!
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21Aug2009, The Seawall, Port Vila
They say a gentleman never sails to windward - it's not the most comfortable point of sail anyway. But sometimes it must be done - we came down from Luganville this week, most of it with the wind forward of the beam. But the swells were less than 1.5 metres all the way and it was fine and sunny, so we managed to enjoy most of it and caught up on some reading. Without intending to we ended up stopping at most of the anchorages we visited on the way up.
At Port Stanley we managed to snorkel on the coral gardens, where there are some very pretty fish and some remarkable giant clams. Further south we caught up with Dave Churcher in Banam Bay. Dave sails a Jeanneau; he is an Aussie dentist and does clinics around various islands and villages - he works with Project Marc, an American charity.
Saling from Malekula to Epi we had to tack back and forth all day but we were able to skate along the south coast of Ambrym and got some great views of its volcanoes and also the one on Lopevi Island which is quite close to Ambrym. Just like Mt Yasur volcano on Tanna Island, the glow lights up the night sky for many miles.
At Lamen Bay we heard about the sad passing of Sylvia Fink - a lovely, vivacious and generous Mexican woman who sailed on "Windcastle" with her partner Doug. We knew her and were very upset at the news. She succumbed to an acute illness in a matter of hours, and of course in Lamen Bay help was just not available. Doug has made a small and very touching memorial to her at Lamen.
Last night we came in through Peremeu Pass to Havannah Harbour. This is tricky at any time, but at night with total cloud cover and no moon it can be harrowing. But we had our past track on the chart-plotter and with the radar we felt confident and had no problems. The pass is only a few boat lengths wide, and "Te Vaka" went aground there a week ago - so it's a test of navigation!
We are now back on the sea-wall in Port Vila and will be having haircuts, shopping and provisioning for a few days. The wine's running a little low so unfortunately we will be replenishing the cellar at Vila's inflated prices. Tonight we are belatedly celebrating our 25th wedding anniversary with a night out ashore - we were beating to weather and a tad wet and salty on Monday which was the blessed day.
It's looking like we will be making for Noumea mid next week as there is a good Easterly forecast for three days - this should get us down to New Caledonia in comfort and that will make for a good angle of attack to get to East Coast Australia when we finally leave there - maybe even as far South as Coffs Harbour. But of course that's up to Aeolus!
Check out the photo gallery.
Cheers from us
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