We ended up spending a week in Nouméa marina. Nouméa is not exactly a pretty city but has some wonderful hidden gems in the form of delicious pâtisseries (with wonderful but horribly fattening croissants and pastries) and very French cafés. The marina is very close to the city centre yet not too noisy and a very sociable placed to be based. We ended up berthed right next to 2 boats from the ICA rally so spent some happy days and evening together with them. Mike and I hired a car for 2 days and headed off to explore some more of the interior of Grande Terre. One day we took friends, Jan & Valdis to the Parc de la Rivière Bleue. The road signs were appalling & it took us several attempts to finally find the right road. It was a longish drive but definitely worth it. We were lucky enough to see 3 Cagou - New Caledonia's native flightless bird, of which there are only around 700 left in the whole of New Caledonia.
Mike & I had very funny experience in a local french restaurant a few nights ago. The menu had English translations for every meal and as I am not big on sausages and therefore don't buy them very often, Mike decided to go for the "Chitterling sausages". There was a choice of the normal serving or a double serving. Being a man with a large appetite, he naturally ordered the double. The waiter commented in French that that was a good choice. I, sensibly, ordered the Mahi Mahi, a delicious Pacific fish :)
When the meals arrived, Mike's face fell and he muttered something about looking like he had been served up a part of the male anatomy that isn't normally eaten. I sniggered and happily tucked into my yummy Mahi Mahi fillet.
A few moments later I was aware of a horrible smell and actually lifted the table cloth to check under the table to see if a small dog had maybe left a nasty present, then checked the underside of my shoes. Finding nothing, the conversation then went a bit like this:

Me: "Is that horrible smell coming from your sausage?"
Mike: "Yes, I think it's offal"
Me: "Well, it smells pretty bloody "offal" to me!"

We immediately both dissolved into hysterics, to the point we both had tears streaming down our faces, causing the waiter to come over and ask us if everything was OK, which set us off again. I then spent the rest of the meal watching Mike remove nasty pieces of rubbery goodness knows what from his mouth, while trying desperately to ignore the ghastly smell coming from his plate. HOW he managed to eat one and a half of those disgusting things, I will never know! When the waiter arrived to take away our plates, he looked at the regurgitated mess on Mike's and said in his sexy French accent, "You deedn't like it?" Mike made some facial & hand gestures to indicate it wasn't really his thing, to which the waiter then said, "Yeuch, eet's not mine eezer, I sink zey are 'orrible! I sought you were a connoisseur and knew what you were ordering" - which of course, set us off laughing again! Turns out 'Chitterling sausages' are a delicacy - but obviously only for those who know what they are ordering! As we were leaving, the waiter came up to us and said "I sink although zee food was not good, you steel had a very good evening!" It was certainly a very memorable evening!
In the early hours of Wednesday morning, our great friends & crew, Raewyn & Simon, arrived from NZ. It's lovely having them back on board, as they are really good company. We did a quick food shop together and then set off to a sheltered anchorage just outside Nouméa. Sadly, the fabulous sunny weather with lightish winds that Mike & I have been lucky enough to have for the past 4 weeks has now been replaced with cloudy skies and seriously strong winds day & night (25-30 knots). Unfortunately, the forecast is showing that the winds are not abating until tomorrow and are then increasing again towards the middle of the week. This has meant we have been unable to take Simon & Raewyn back down to Baie de Prony and the Isle of Pines as planned. We are still having fun but poor S & R are not going to be getting the sunshine hours they were hoping for :(
We have been very lucky to find a crew member to take my place on the passage home. His name is Rod and he is from Nelson. He is on stand-by to fly to Nouméa with just a couple of days notice, so we are all looking forward to meeting him.
In the meantime, we are hoping the wind drops enough tomorrow to try to head down to Ile Owen and take it from there. We need to be back in the Nouméa area around the 18th October as the rally leader, John, is looking for a good weather window from then on to start the passage back to NZ. Of course it could be a week or two after that before the weather looks right.

Eeek! Not long to go now!