New Caledonia October 2 2007

Hi everybody.Well, it's only been 3 weeks, but we are ready with another fact filled,action packed, interesting and witty report on our travels.First things first. Regarding my diatribe last time, some of you haveapplauded my change in thinking--long overdue--however, for you youngliberal puppies, just remember this stuff 10 or 15 years from now when youare ranting about taxes and the rest. Anyway, here in New Caledonia it justgets worse. The Pacific franc used to be 100 to the dollar. It hasplummeted to 84 causing an almost 20% increase in an already ridiculouslyhigh cost of living. That being said, which ain't their fault, New Cal isreally nice with very friendly people and lots to do.We left Port Vila on Sunday, 9/16 at about 7:30 AM with great weather. Foronce, we were able to sail most of the way, which is very nice consideringthe increase in diesel prices!!! We got duty free before we left and it wasstill about $4/gallon--$1.15/liter for you damn foreigners. We saw a coupleof freighters on the way, but the big news happened about 40 or 50 milesout. "Fish on!!!" went the call as the reel whirred out. Joey went over toreel it in, and we saw the hand line on the other side of the boat was alsoengaged. Your fearless captain started pulling in the 300 lb. test handline while Joey worked the reel. Unfortunately we lost the one on the rod,but Joey came over to clean up the other fish which didn't seem to befighting too hard. But wait, there's more. As we got the fish up to theboat, we saw it was huge. Weren't sure what it was, but we knew we had togaff it. Once landed, we still had to look it up in the book. A shortbilled spearfish--sort of a marlin without the long nose. It measured about6 feet long and weighed about 25 or 30 kilos--55-65 pounds for you yanks.We actually broke my lifetime guaranteed Ginsu knife cutting through thebackbone. We weren't sure if it was any good to eat so we gave it away tolocals in New Cal. Next day we nailed a big mahi which we did filet andkeep.So the trip is about 200 miles and we arrived mid morning at We in Lifouwhich is one of the Loyalty islands, part of New Cal and about 50 miles eastof the main island, Grand Terre. We were going there because you weresupposed to be able to fly immigration officers in so you didn't have torace off to Noumea. The iea is to get a bunch of boats together to share the cost. Just not practical to cruise the Loyalties from Noumea as it's all upwind.Anyway, much to our surprise there was a fairly new marina there that wasn'tin any of the books. We called in on the radio, and a couple of NZ cruiserscoordinated getting us in there with the harbor master, Lulu. Turns out wewere the biggest boat they'd ever had in We, and they had to remove one ofthe floating docks to make room for us. Lulu checked us in for customs andquarantine, but the bad news was that immigration no longer flew in, and weeither had to get the boat to Noumea in three days or fly there ourselves.Okay, I'll bite the bullet and spend the $200, EXCEPT, it was a holiday weekand all the flights were booked. I even went out to the airport tryingstandby, but no luck. Luckily, we worked out with Lulu and immigration thatwe could fly in From Iles Des Pins--more later. So we took a few dayschecking out Lifou and resigned ourselves to missing Ouvea, a beautifulatoll about 50 miles north. On checking out, we got a bit of a bonus--maybeit was the fish we gave out--our rate was less than we thought, and Luluthrew in a free day. As an aside, until we figured out the value of thefranc, we were thinking that prices weren't too bad in New Cal. Stillcheaper by far than French Poly, so we're not complaining--too much.It's about 150 miles down to Iles Des Pins (IDP), so we did it in two days.First to Mare, just for the night in a nice little anchorage, then down toIDP where you actually get into the giant barrier reef system around thewhole island. A fairly long leg, so we left at 6 AM with the accompanimentof a pod of dolphin. Got there over the weekend. the anchorage wassupposed to be all sand, but it took us about 8 tries to get the anchor tohold. The track on the GPS looks like a bowl of spaghetti!!! We took apicture of the screen for posterity. We just sort of hung out until I wasable to book a flight to Noumea on Tuesday. The hotel there was veryfriendly and had great reasonably priced food, plus they gave yachties 15%off--we're really liking New Cal!!! They even gave me a free ride to theairport and back. Sweet! On Monday, an Aussie couple we've mentioned before, and whowere supposed to be staying in Fiji, unexpectedly pulled in and we managed tocelebrate our reunion. Tuesday, Captain Tim flew into Noumea--20 min.flight and, of course, got a Parisian style cab driver who didn't speak aword of English and couldn't understand "wharf" or gendarmerie du frontiere,but after a few fits and starts I got there. Of course, Lulu hadn't clearedthings as well as we were lead to believe, so I got the back room treatmentwith a senior officer. "Why was I checking in 10 days after arrival in We,etc., etc." Once I explained, they were pretty cool with it, and we werefinally "legal". Walked over to the waterfront to check on dock space andcall some other friends who we knew were there. In the marina office, I raninto one of the guys we had met in Vanuatu, and he had arrived in We a dayafter we left with several other boats. He couldn't check in there becausehe had guns, BUT he said the other guys had it all squared with immigrationto fly in there with all of them sharing the cost. Go figure. Must haveworked for them as we haven't seen them here in Noumea. Pisses us off thatwe had to head south and miss Ouvea. Also ran into a few others we had metin Vanuatu. Cool.So, back to IDP. Joe and Rose hung out while I was gone and, after a bit ofcleaning, took 3 hour naps. Next day, we got a car to tour the island. It'sfamous for its beauty, but it was also sort of a Pacific Devil's Island, andthere are all sorts of prison ruins and stuff like that. Our plan was toleave real early the next day as it's about 75 miles up to Noumea throughall sorts of reefs and islands and stuff, so we weren't sure if we'd havetime to make it in daylight. As it turned out we arrived about 3 as we hadfavorable winds. Early that AM, we actually drove through a feeding frenzyof tuna. Caught and kept a yellow fin--10 lbs and tossed a big tunny. Ithink we caught another mahi as well. Amazing to think of the WWII fleetnavigating these waters.So here we are in Noumea, arriving on 9/27. The marina squeezed us in onthe visitors dock. There are just tons of people we know in the marina oranchored just outside. Everyone's hanging out waiting to head off to NZ orto Australia for hurricane season. Noumea is sort of a smaller and nicerPapeete, and we've already scoped out the best grocery store and been to amuseum or two. It's cooler here at night and the weather seems to behelping out Rose. Oh, and we got our first senior citizen discount at theMuseum of New Caledonia, which is very cool with displays for all ofOceania. I think we learned more about Vanuatu here than we did when wewere there. Over the weekend, there was a big music festival out at theCultural Center, and we attended. $15 to get in and the music was free andthe eats were cheap. the only downside was no beer--how uncivilized.Tonight we're off to the casino.LaterTim, Rose & Joe