Bonjour,

We are back at Port Moselle Marina in Noumea. When we arrived last night it felt a little like coming home strange really as only 2 weeks ago it was like arriving on another planet. The staff are all very helpful and their English is much better than our French so it really is very easy to get a berth provided they have a vacant one as this is a very busy marina, all the new arrivals have to berth here to clear in. It is a very convenient location; just 100metres from the marina are 7 day markets where during the week fresh fruit and veg can be purchased along with pastries and bread from one of the many local farmers. The produce has been of a good quality and we have found a wide variety and whilst the pastries are good we have been directed by the other yachties to the patisserie in town where the bread sticks, pastries and cakes are very good. On the weekend the markets double in size to include crafts & clothing, we enjoy wandering around here. The city centre (Noumea) is only a short walk (10mins) from the marina as is the supermarket which stocks everything including beer & wine. As for cost well most everything here is double the price that it is at home. Our first trip into town was a bit daunting as we were not sure what the attitude of the locals would be towards us however having now made several trips to town we find them to be on the whole polite helpful and courteous.

This morning we visited the internet caf� in town and uploaded some more pictures so be sure to check them out. We only get to see your comments when we have web access (which is when we are in town) so we really got a kick out of reading all your comments and hopefully we have answered all your questions, please keep on adding your comments as I said we do enjoy reading them.

We have just seen Pete & Donna off as they fly home today. Donna arrived last Saturday evening and after shopping and look around town we left the marina on Monday morning south bound for Isle de Pins however when we got out into the lagoon we were faced with a 25knt SE breeze and about a 1.5 metre sea so we decided to go north instead. At first we were a little disappointed as we had hoped that Pete would be able to see Ile de Pins but that soon passed as we unfurled the Genoa and sailed effortlessly along at 7.5 knts and anyway I am pretty sure Pete will be back again in the near future in his own boat or maybe if we go to Vanuatu later on and Pete returns for that trip we will be able to take him then.

During the next 5 days we traveled 80nm (round trip) and enjoyed a different anchorage every night, all of which were only a few nm apart and all of which provided excellent shelter and calm conditions and all but one night we were the only boat there, in fact we only saw 5 or 6 other boats the whole time we were out. On route to these anchorages we visited a few of the numerous Ilot`s and Ile`s (small and large islands to you foreigners') one of which is called Ile Mathieu (this of course was a big sucker and our favorite) All have fringing coral reefs some are only as big as a car and others as big as 20-30 football fields, some are just 1 metre out of the water whist others are very high. The diversity in the coral offered was excellent. Some of the shallower reefs (1-2 meters) have coral gardens which when you snorkel over make you think you have dived into an aquarium as you are surrounded by lots of small brightly coloured fish of many different species, whilst others which are much deeper (3-10 meters) reveal huge bombies (coral heads) and coral that is more tike a forest than a garden. These deeper reefs are home to much bigger fish and other critters such as the almost prehistoric looking painted crayfish that we captured (see latest picture gallery), in fact for 3 of our 5 nights we dined on fresh ocean fare without much effort on our part at all. The weather was wonderful and for the most we had little or no breeze and sunshine so we swam and snorkeled a lot.

The forecast for the next couple of days is a little unsettled so we will remain at Port Moselle and do some re-provisioning and hopefully get our new camera fixed before we depart on our own for the next lagoon adventure , can`t wait so until next time ,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,, Au revoir