New Caledonia
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Tuesday, October 16, 2012 – Noumea, Grande Terre, New Caledonia
As disappointing as it was, it looks like we made the right decision to leave Vanuatu when we did. We hae heard from a number of boats that are still trying to get back to Port Vila from Santo and most of them are going to have to head directly to Australia which means missing out on New Caledonia.
The past 3 weeks in New Caledonia have been nothing short of amazing and it is certainly one of the best cruising areas that we have visited. The territory of New Caledonia consists of hundreds of islands with Grande Terre being the largest by far. The southern end of Grand Terre is surrounded by a coral reef (the second longest reef in the world) which creates the world’s largest lagoon called the Southern Lagoon. With an area of over 9,000 square miles, the lagoon offers the opportunity to visit hundreds of small islands while sailing in relatively protected waters.
We spent our first week in the capital city of Noumea enjoying great restaurants, markets, museums, running, and swimming off of beautiful white sand beaches. We also took care of some maintenance and repair items including a permanent fix for the water pump pulley. It was going to take several weeks to have a new pulley sent in from the US, so I was looking into having a plate welded onto the damaged pulley when our friend Gary on Inspiration Lady mentioned that he might have a spare pulley. Well not only did he have a pulley, but he also had a spare water pump which solved Bill’s problem on Solstice.
From Noumea , a group of us (Inspiration Lady, A Cappella, The Dealer, Solstice and Hokule’a) headed out to Isle de Pines with an overnight stop in Baie du Prony to break up the 80 mile trip. We spent our entire time at Isle de Pines in one anchorage called Baie du Kuto because it was just too pretty to leave. It’s your classic South Pacific anchorage with beautiful water and white sand beach, but with pine trees instead of palm trees. We circumnavigated the island on scooters one day, did lots of hiking, and celebrated Canadian Thanksgiving onboard Inspiration Lady. A week flew by and we headed back towards Grand Terre to explore more of Baie du Prony.
In sharp contrast to Isle de Pines, Baie du Prony has very few beaches and is more mountainous and heavily wooded. In areas where there are no trees or growth, the earth is a rich red color. There are dozens of anchorages in Baie du Prony and you can find protection from any wind direction. There is even a cyclone anchorage at a spot called Baie du Carenage. We visited a number of different anchorages, did lots of hiking, some snorkeling and went swimming in fresh water pools beneath cascades.
We have barely scratched the surface of the cruising possibilities in New Caledonia and one could literally spend an entire season here and not see everything. But for us, cyclone season is approaching and today we are back in Noumea re-provisioning and studying the weather for our trip to Australia. We are headed to a place called Bundaberg which is about halfway up the east coast of Australia and at roughly 800 nautical miles, this will be our longest passage in quite a while. We are heading to Bundaberg to catch up with friends that we have not seen in a while and then we will explore our way down the coast arriving in Sydney in early December. Once again, it looks like a quick turnaround for us as it appears that we have a decent weather window if we leave tomorrow. Got to get back to work….
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Saturday, September 22, 2012 – Noumea, New Caledonia
The trip from Vanuatu to New Caledonia ended up being a bit more challenging than we had anticipated. It started out just as we had expected with strong winds and big confused seas on the beam. While we made really great time, it was not a very comfortable way to start a passage. After 24 hours or so the wind swung around behind us, lightened up and eventually died. We knew this was going to happen and our game plan was to motor for the last roughly 80 miles, so that we could get to Havanna Pass (the entrance into Southern New Caledonia) before the wind filled in from the southeast (right on our nose).
We had been motoring for several hours when I heard a strange noise coming out of the engine room. I opened up the door to the engine room and all I could see were sparks flying everywhere. It was like Mt. Yassur was erupting in the engine room. I quickly closed the door and yelled up to Jackie to turn the engine off. When I re-opened the engine room door, I saw a mangled water pump pulley and several bolts down in the engine pan. Somehow two of the four bolts that secured the pulley to the water pump had vibrated loose, while the other two completely ripped through the face of the pulley. This was not good.
We radioed Bill on Solstice to let him know what had happened and that we were going to start sailing (actually floating or bobbing would be more appropriate) while I tried to jury rig a repair. We told him to keep going, but he graciously offered to sail with us until we figured it out. Ironically, Bill had been nursing a leaky water pump since we got to Port Vila.
Of course I did not have a spare water pump pulley. I mean why would you ever anticipate needing a spare pulley, a spare water pump makes sense, but not the pulley. Silly me. Fortunately I was able to straighten out the pulley by beating on it with a hammer and some carefully cut pieces of wood. I then made a template of the face of the water pump and miraculously there was just enough metal left on the front of the pulley for me to drill four new bolt holes. In total it took about 4 hours ( of floating/bobbing along at less than 1 knot) to get the engine running and once again we were on our way to New Caledonia.
The next challenge that was thrown at us was in the form of 4 knot opposing current as we motored between the Loyalty Islands. When I notice that our overall boat speed had dropped to about 2 knots, I panicked thinking that the transmission must be slipping. Before I could get down to the engine room to check, we got calls on the radio from both Inspiration Lady and A Cappella (two other boats that were making the passage with Hokule’a and Solstice) asking if we were fighting a big current.
The combination of the engine issue and the strong current put us a bit behind schedule and as luck would have it the southeasterly winds arrived a bit earlier than forecast. So we spent the next 18 hours bashing our way against the wind and seas, finally arriving at Havanna Pass just before midnight. The trick with Havanna Pass is that you need to enter it at low tide, or shortly thereafter, to avoid a current against wind situation that can create extremely treacherous conditions in the pass. So we hove to outside the pass and waited until morning for low tide and some daylight to enter the pass. After transiting the pass, the challenges were over and we enjoyed a beautiful trip through the southern lagoon and into Noumea. As we sit here this evening in a beautiful Mediterranean setting, with French wine, cheeses, pastries and amazing desserts, we have nearly forgotten what it took to get here…..