Photo shows Saraoni moored just off the Isle Casy jetty in the Baie du Prony.

Few yachties who make it to New Caledonia miss out on at least a few days in the huge bay at the southern end of Grand Terre. Its numerous well protected anchorages and mooring fields allow a refuge when it gets too blustery out in the little islands of the Southern Lagoon. Many yachts tuck in here after a passage from Vila or Lautoka before heading on to Noumea for clearance through Canal Woodin. It's also used when heading to the Isle of Pines, 35 nm away into the trade wind. Swing in to Bonne Anse and wait for the wind to allow you fair passage!



Baie du Prony from Cap Ndua



The view down towards Havannah Pass from Cap Ndua. It's the main entrance point for yachties from Vanuatu and Fiji into the lagoon!



Canal Woodin, between Ouen Island and Grande Terre, is on the West side of Prony.

We've spent a lot of time in Prony in the past, tucked up in Bonne Anse, below the humpback whale observatory near the Cap Ndua Lighthouse, anchored off pretty little Isle Casy or right up in the Carenage. The Carenage is this part of New Cal's only natural cyclone hole, but a fine place to visit in its own right. The GR1 starts here, ambles over scarred, bleak plains and mountains, through the Plaine des Lacs and Parc Riviere Bleue before it ends 6 days later at the back of the Dumbea Valley west of Noumea.

Prony is at first sight an unprepossessing place. The land is totally devoid of human habitation; grim mountains all around look down on a bizarre deforested and scarred landscape. Sitting like a great blot on the landscape, the Goro nickel and cobalt mine, New Cal's biggest, occupies the Rade du Nord Est, but keep one eye closed and you can forget its existence.



The Lac de Yate, behind the headwaters of Prony, is dammed to supply the Yate hydrostation, which supplies Noumea with power. Note the arid, bizarre landscape, so different to anywhere else in the SW Pacific. It's more like the Australian outback!

Prony was the site of one of France's first offshore convict dumping grounds. The old prison, like the other grim prison on Ile du Diable, the island that Steve McQueen made famous in the film "Papillon" off the coast of French Guiana, is now a tourist attraction, at least for the locals.

Tall, stately Caledonian pines, Araucarias, relatives of Queensland's mighty bunyas, dot the foreshores. The scarred landscape is slowly recovering under maquis miniere, a diverse scrub zone, with grevilleas in abundance and honeyeater birds trilling amongst them. Casy's emerging forest has cycads and fig trees with amazing convoluted strangling roots. In the whale season, humpbacks come right into the bay like they do off Vava'u in Tonga.

This part of the Pacific is getting quieter. Many non French yachts have already bashed their way down to N.Z. or wafted over to Queensland. There are still several of us left. We have to pick up a new anchor winch being sent up from Auckland, then look for a weather window to get down south. We'll probably jump off from the isle of Pines,but it might just as well be good old Prony!



Casy island's only resident. Is it Moose, Monsieur le Chien or Brownie?

The legend goes that as the only hotel was being abandoned on Casy twelve years ago now, one of the workers had a puppy called Moose. The puppy kept escaping and swimming back to the island. Its owner got so exasperated he left it there. The now much older dog is still there and has apparently survived on a menu of crabs, fish, beche de mer and anything and everything that boaties bring it. It loves visitors and often takes them round the island's circular walking track. We brought Moose / Brownie some food and topped up his freshwater supply, but he wasn't interested in coming for a walk with us! It was too doggone hot!

Update: On our second visit to Casy, not long before Christmas, the old hotel was being demolished by a team of workers and the wharf out of bounds. Moose was in bad shape and very thirsty. It looked as if he was being shooed away from the hotel ruins and wharf. Not sure what effect that was having on him, but it's a tough life all by yourself on a small island when you are an old dog.