Ahh, calm. Quiet. A blissful lack of movement, under cool, cloudy skies. Anchor down, boat clean from numerous rainstorms, cabin clean because I got a burst of energy, wine chilled. Allan happily immersed in a book, birds chirping on the hill nearby, fish splashing, the sun setting behind the clouds.

We dropped anchor just south of Port Moselle, Noumea and will stay the night until we can check in with Customs and Quarantine tomorrow morning. The anchorages here are all full of boats, and we had to look for awhile to find a spot. But it's calm inside the large fringing reef that surrounds this island, and the air is still, and, as I mentioned, pleasantly cool. We moved farther south on this passage, from 17 46S to 22 17S, and the water temperature has dropped a full 10 degrees to a chilly 74. And though the cabin thermometer reads 83 degrees, it's cold outside and a light rain is gently falling as I enjoy the last of the sunset and the first of a nice bottle of Chardonnay.

The boat feels huge, and accommodating. It's interesting -- underway, we use less than half the boat. We only sleep in the aft cabin. Going forward is treacherous at times and you bang your shoulders here and crash your hips there, the bow bounces and lurches furiously. If we need a tool, or some string -- going into the workroom is a major expedition. We spend most of our time in the cockpit. If it's raining or the sea is splashing over the boat, there's only a 3' x 3' place to sit, big enough for one, huddled against the dodger for protection. The galley is an awful place to be, and the main cabin is somewhere we go only for Radio Net check-ins and blurb-posting. So now that we're back in the anchorage, the entire boat is open to us again, and it feels like a condo! No bathtub, though ...

Allan checked in to the Penguin Net tonight, to tell them we made it safely and thank them for being there. It's fun to hear how the boats enroute to New Zealand are doing. That's a challenging passage, I hear, and so far everyone this week has been in up to 4 meter seas (13 feet) with winds sometimes reaching 30 knots, frequent squalls, and in the case of one boat, the need to heave-to, drop a sea anchor, and hold position for over 2 days. That's not something we've had to do, although we do have a sea anchor, a drogue, and a storm sail, and we're prepared should something like that to happen. So far -- one passage to go -- we haven't needed them.

Our friends Michael and Gloria on Paikea Mist are in Tonga, and in touch with Bob McDavitt, the Kiwi weather router we've been working with who specializes in this region. Bob says there may not be another good weather window until the middle of November, so Paikea Mist is getting ready to leap now. Rod and Elisabeth on Proximity are in Fiji, anxious and chomping at the bit to get going. We listen to the Net and hear the names of boats we've been following for months and months and catch up on their progress as they make their final passage of the cruising season to wait out hurricane season here in the Southern Hemisphere. It's a small world, and the Nets make it smaller. We appreciate the opportunity to knit ourselves together, to form a group of caring people, sharing an adventure. In some cases, as this one, we only chat with these folks for a few days. We may never meet them. But should something happen and a boat not check in to the Net for a day or two, someone has our name and last known coordinates, and can put that out there to the group. And then, someone knows someone who knows someone who knows you and has your Dad's phone number, and before you know it, help is on the way. Or something like that.

But I digress, and I can only blame Passage-tigue. In fact, as I write, (thank God for laptops) I'm deleting more than half of what I write because it's drivel, I'm rambling, I have no focus and I think it's boring. So I guess the main point of this blurb is to tell you that we've arrived safely, we have lots on our plate in the coming weeks, and we're tired. Really tired. Time to cook some of that fish we finally have a yen for, and turn in for a good 12-hour night.