Saturday
Fridge – podcasts – haircut – culture – dinner at Au P’tit café – tenant!

We are having problems with a stinky fridge… We have both, separately and together, emptied it, scoured it, cleaned it, purified it. And it still smells just horrible. This afternoon when we were on our way home, we walked past the empty (and very whiffy) fish market. I said, “Oh good; I can smell the fridge from here.” Pete, for some reason, did not think this was funny… We really don’t know what to do; there isn’t a drainage shelf, or a sump, just a little hole where, maybe, yucky smelly liquids disappear and go…where?? I suggested to Pete that he might like to get a straw and give a big suck down this hole; his response was not positive. “Yes, I REALLY love you too,” he said, wearily.

This morning, after I had blogged and emailed, I tried to download some ABC podcasts onto my ipod. This is usually very easy, automatic in fact. But not today. In fact, after I had downloaded many fascinating bits of Science Show, Book Report, Life Matters, my ipod, helpfully, said No Podcasts. Oh good. I tried this way and that, with no result. And then I looked at one of the other tables at Le Bout du Monde (yes we gave Le Quick le flick today) and I saw lovely tall Charlie, from one of the boats on the visitors’ arm of the marina. A neighbour, in fact! He is English/Canadian/Global Citizen, on his way (tomorrow) to Brisbane, with his wife and teenage children. In Brisbane they will scrub the boat and then sell it before heading back to Vancouver. I asked him if he was good at downloading podcasts onto ipod and he (for his sins) said “Yes, I do it all the time.” And then poor Charlie was bent over my wretched electronics for nearly an hour, trying to get the wretched things to synchronise. He succeeded in the end; I was very grateful. I asked if he would like me to transfer some of my podcasts (he was interested in the same sorts of things) onto his and he said, “Well I would love to but no; I have so much to do before we leave tomorrow, I won’t have time.” I felt very guilty; he had just wasted so many of his precious minutes, without a word of complaint.

After a marathon session at le Bout du Monde, we went around to our no longer elusive man at his little cabin on the waterfront. SaucyMiss wasn’t there; we did see her and her tight little white shorts whisking away into the distance on a boat ramp, but otherwise, we were just with Grandfather Hervé, who (sigh) was a fit and handsome young thing of maybe 50… Hervé was a nice man, helpful and competent, and he is going to FIX our gas problem.

We came back to the boat and ate some more Ryvitas (we know how to Live It Up!) and then it was time for…HAIRCUT!!! Pete’s and my hair has been growing like a weed. He has handy little battery operated clippers on board. They only have one speed, one size, and he wanted a proper, glamorous haircut. Well he didn’t get this; he got short ‘n’ – well – bald. It is, however, even all over – what more can he want?? He is no longer FluffyMan… He is GI Joe!

Our Excursion Du Jour was to Tjibao, the cultural centre, built, I read somewhere (Adagio Journal please stand up!) to…appease the Kanaks. We caught a local (Blue Line) bus. I paid for the tickets and told Pete it was 410francs for the two of us, ie between $2 and $3 each. “Well how cheap is that!” he exclaimed – the first time such words have been uttered by any of us in New Caledonia… Out through the prosperous, neat and tidy suburbs to a small promontory, where they have built a most beautiful centre, soaring up into the sky. We wandered around, saying Golly and Gosh and Well look at that! We were very pleased not to be on a guided tour – TOO MUCH information!

And – what did we see along our way? Yes, lovely middle-class houses, manicured gardens, 1,000 views of Noumea but also – laundromats everywhere! The thing is, how would we get to them? Steep and winding roads, hazardous with bikes and packs. And so far between us and collectively Pete and I have seen one – yes ONE – taxi. Noumea is so not an entrepreneurial tourist-oriented city…

We have heard lots of sad-but-true boating stories since we have been on this trip. I think Per and Carolina told us about a man they met who had, as crew, a promising young chap who was violently ill as soon as they set sail across the Atlantic. He stayed in his cabin, with a bucket for company, for an entire month, emerging, said Carolina, only to pee every so often. When I talked to Steve and Nick about this, they said the sequel was more astonishing – they got to port, the crewman emerged from his cabin (surely thinner and paler??) and went off to buy…his very own yacht. Surely they heard this wrongly??

Any idea we ever had that it would be fun to sail the seven seas as crew on a Luxury Yacht have been put paid by being moored next to Black Pearl. The crewman with the Australian accent has been scrubbing and scouring and polishing without cease since they got there. Everything is gleaming and chunder-free, and still he scrubs… “Much nicer,” says Pete, “to have my own boat and not clean it at all!”

There is a big, handsome dog living on a small yacht a few down from us. Yannick the Quarantine man had told me this boat was arriving, and that it would be a problem because there are no quarantine facilities for dogs in New Caledonia. The dog will have to say on board and not so much set one single paw on NC soil, he said. Poor dog must be very frustrated. He saw Thierry, our handsome sailmaker man, arriving yesterday morning, with an equally handsome black labrador bounding at his side and let out a barrage of outrage and protest – NOT FAIR!! Chiquita the NC dog ignored the whole unseemly hubbub. Thierry arrived exactly on time; in fact a bit early. He did his measurements, had his tasse de café and disappeared to whip up some rainhoods for the hatches (or so we hope.)

At seven we strolled up the hill for our second French restaurant dinner. Au P’tit Café was just wonderful. We were the first there – SO early the kitchen hadn’t even really started preparations. By the time we left, things were humming – every table full. Lots of people with quite young children – how well-behaved they must be, to sit with boring grown-ups in a boring restaurant long after bedtime! I had mahi mhi cooked in a very complex and delicious way and Pete had a bowlful of even more complex food - basically beef and maybe pate. The bowl was black and it was very dark at our table so we couldn’t really see our food. Whatever it was, Pete declared it to be totally delicious, with complex and interesting flavours. Our waiter was a cheery local boy. He had never heard of Tasmania, but came back a bit later, with a snippet of dredged-up knowledge, to ask about our “monstre tasmanien.” How big was it, and how dangerous?? He was a bit disappointed that we didn’t make our poor beleaguered devil sound a bit more ferocious.

On our way back we stopped at le Bout du Monde – they had a band! Wee hee! Dancing! Oh where was Nick and his glowsticks – he would have been a big hit! Pete went to get a beer and I had a lot of fun dancing with a group of français who were sitting next to the band; a few blokes and a very nice girl. The band was great, playing all the standard pubmusic, just as they did in Vietnam… Knock on Wood – ofcourse, what else - was their final number – at 10.00! I was a bit stunned. TEN? Final number?? But people have only just started arriving to dine! My dancing friends said, sadly, that the neighbours around le Bout du Monde complained about NOISE and no music is allowed after 10pm. This is a very strictly controlled country!

Good news at last when I opened my email – Teresa has found a tenant for my little house – a 4 month lease for a visiting uni professor. I am extremely relieved; I think my last payday has come and gone and I am haemorrhaging money, at least while we are in port… ($400 per week; I think this is great; Teresa is a bit disappointed, she expected to get more...)