Sunday

So you think our life is all Leisure and Pleasure, R & R? Not so! Today we did some serious jobs.
First of all we took the fridge apart, reducing it, as much as possible, to its component atoms. Pete scrubbed shelves and ledges in the sink while I wielded brushes, sponges and scourers in the main body of the stinky appliance. To finish it all off, I found a lethal spray bottle of White King and blasted it top to bottom, all of its hidden crevices, every bit. When we got back from our afternoon tasks, I opened the door and said, triumphantly: “What can we smell? BLEACH!” I will report back on this very important topic… Somehow I have a very sneaky and sad feeling that…the smell, like Arnie, Will Be Back. But I won’t say such defeatist words aloud…

Flushed with domestic success, we got on our bikes with our medium sized backpacks and rode around to our closest Casino Supermarché. On the way we noticed the fruit and veggie market was still open – just – so we darted in there to stock up on heavy things like potatoes. Oh so clever and thrifty…oh but it wasn’t… We bought six limey-lemony things, four nectarines, one very small pumpkin, a hand of bananas and…it cost us nearly $30!! As we rode back to 2XS we calculated our money and realised that, yes we had spent a shocking amount on…not very much food. I don’t think our stallholders overcharged us, but everything is so very VERY expensive.

We emptied our supplies onto the boat and went back on our Hunter Gatherer expedition. Did we want bacon? Why yes, surely – those very small packets, wouldn’t we like three of them? No we wouldn’t – they were about $10 each! In the end I thought it was time to stop gasping and calculating; I would just buy the ingredients I wanted to make fried rice for tonight and tomorrow, and hang the cost. After all I now have a tenant and an income, at least for the next four months – wee hee, all will be well!

Pete went ahead of me with his basket through – the wrong queue for visacard… He caused a minor traffic jam while his patient but slow-moving check-out chick found someone to take his visa card in another part of the shop. I didn’t follow him and went to the only other queue… It is a big supermarket…lots of customers with big laden trolleys… Island Time. The queue hardly moved at all. I asked a nice French girl behind me if it was always like this and she said, “They only have two check-outs open, and it is the weekend.” Well yes… there were lots of staff, jauntily decked out in racy black and white striped t-shirts and straw boaters, but they were mostly dreamily standing gazing into the middle distance. I didn’t really mind; Pete was outside with both bikes unlocked and at the ready, looking quite relaxed, and I just went ino Island Time glacier speed.

Nearly all of our neighbours have gone! Black Pearl is still there, with its crew constantly polishing, scrubbing, scouring. It positively gleams and sparkles! But other than that, there is only a yacht called Panache, with people from Australia, Egills and Margaret.

Another sailing story – and this time it really is too sad almost to be told… One of the people we have met – I won’t name him, wouldn’t want him to feel invaded, will call him Ben, – was off on his round-the-world sailing adventure with his beloved partner of many years. They were in their early 40s, and very happy and confident with their sailing. Somewhere in the Caribbean she got a nasty an unexpected infection and within six days, she was dead. I am crying while writing this; can you imagine this poor man, having to ring her family, friends, and say, “I am bringing my darling girl home in a coffin.” He has continued with his sailing journey, with a very nice crew-person but – oh alas and alack…

I am not sure what our plans are. Pete has been plotting itineraries in our little (Ann-Marie) notebook and I know we are expecting to be in Vanuatu, island-hopping on the way, by the end of July. He has a lot of paperwork to do for the end of the financial year and wants to sit in a quiet little bay, bobbing on the waves. I, on the other hand, would prefer to stay at Port Moselle marina… I could leave him alone and go on little bike jaunts, hang out at Le Quick and Le Bout du Monde, maybe find someone to cut my hair, generally keep myself occupied. But… this costs $$$S, I mean francs. If we go to a bay, I have suggested, gently, that he will be happier if it is a bay where I can get off the boat and ride around…otherwise I will very possibly get…cabin fever!!

And what did we do, on our Saturday Night in Noumea, the Paris of the South?? Well… I cooked up a very small storm of fresh veggies, rice, prawns (oh how many francs did they cost!!) and…leftover salami. And as I gathered my ingredients I heard alluring music from Le Bout du Monde. “They are singing NOT IN ENGLISH!” I cried, and ran for the café. Pete followed about half an hour later, to find me entranced by a fairly stiff middle-aged Spanish (well maybe Mexican…) singer. He was lovely, but not what you might call a relaxed performer. I arrived in the middle of an impassioned song about revolution and Che Guevara. Followed by…well who would have thought?? The Love Boat, in English, ditto It’s a Beautiful World. Oh and he also sang Bessame Mucho, aiming his song at a blondish chick, around my age and displaying what my mother would call “une sale tête” ie a cross expression. I was highly entertained. Pete arrived at the end of Guantanamera. Things looked up at his arrival! A large black man, sitting with a party of similar friends, all from the Mary D, a big charter boat which does weddings, parties, everything, moored across from us, asked me to dance – La Bamba! The singer’s previously crabby wife also got up, wreathed in smiles, and turned out to be a perfectly nice woman. And then a big surprise – one of the very cool thin young français sitting along the way got up and offered to sing along… and he was just great! He sang – in FRENCH, how astonishing! – an amazing riff of rap. His thin (and fairly stoned) young chick danced alongside me, my big black man, and my respectable singer’s wife, and then she gave me a big, rapturous hug and a kiss. Too much fun! And then – Pete got up and joined us, King Of the Dance! This made us all very happy. He gave it his all and then we had to come back to 2XS so I could cook up my ingredients and produce an actual meal. (It would have been nicer if I hadn’t mistaken teriyaki sauce for soy but…never mind!!)

I started writing this yesterday...now it really is Sunday.

Black Pearl left this morning, from next to us. I told Pete that the crew stood on deck and blew kisses to us – he was still in bed, but awake enough to be able to snort derisively. He knew they weren’t likely to have anything at all to do with the likes of us. There aren’t many boats left in the marina. Plan B is back – we think this is such a good name for a boat. And this morning The Owl arrived, from Brisbane, with two cheery old codgers aboard. (Well, our age…)

Pete had his shower, ate his cereal, with no great evidence of joy – he can’t get his beloved Sultana Bran here – and then he got to work on his bookwork. He looked at me a bit anxiously – was I going to be bored? Well no…how little does he know me! I wandered along to the market, which was all GO this morning. Lots of stalls, music everywhere. A very old local lady in a green smock sang, to a lot of synthesized backing, in the middle of the fish market. And two oldcodgers sang their hearts out in the middle of the carpark. I was very moved to hear them laboriously singing, in English, There Goes My Everything – one of the dreariest songs ever written… They brightened up and sang Paloma so I gave them some money, to encourage a bit of joie de vivre.

My sunglasses have died. First they started sitting wonkily on my face – that was yesterday – and making me very unhappy and uncomfortable. And this morning they gave up the ghost and one of the arms fell right off, snap. Aha – there are always sunglasses at markets, even this one, which is all about fruit, veggies, fish. But today there were lots of stalls selling jewellery and sarongs, and yes, in amongst them, I found a tray of sunglasses. They were cheap and therefore not worth buying, but when I asked, the vendeuse got out a tray of seriously polarised glasses, NOT cheap. I bought the first ones I tried on, without looking in the mirror – they are GREAT. Light and nifty, and not twisting awkwardly on my cheek – great! I must look like the mafia in them because they have reflective glass and black frames. Wee and hee!

After all of this excitement – I also bought a bag of lemons for less than $2 and two pains au chocolat for a lunch treat, also cheap (and possibly not yummy at all but never mind…) – I retreated to a shady table at le Bout du Monde, where my favourite waitress brought me a cup of coffee and then said, with no surprise in her voice at all, that no the WiFi was not working. I packed up and rode off to Le Quick, and am sitting now at a table adjoining the carpark, listening to some rap in the company of some large and bleary looking boys.

When I have finished this, I wil unload my computer, check on Pete’s wellbeing, and then go for a long bike ride, with a fresh bottle of Orangina Rastaman ( more yummy than it sounds!) in my pack.

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...)

Friday
Laundry – fish – bikes – views - gas – Zic Live

We have had some beautiful warm sunny weather but now…it is chilly again, back to jeans.

After our stint in Le Quick yesterday we packed up all of our dirty laundry in two chunky backpacks and rode, wobbling a bit, along to the end of the fuel pier to find our laundress. She was a pretty girl, slender and dreamy and not in the least interested in doing our washing. Well yes we could leave it there if we REALLY wanted to; she MIGHT get it done by Monday afternoon. But…if we would prefer to get back on our bikes with our big load and go into town and find a facility with larger machines – well what a good idea that would be! She has three small-ish washing machines and one dryer, which all go flat out. I asked why she didn’t have an outside line – it was beautifully sunny with a gently flapping breeze and she blinked in astonishment. “Mais non!” she said, pointing to her machine. We did leave it all there with her, but I don't think she cared in the least whether she got our money.

While we were trying to negotiate all of this, a large, friendly black man came up and stared into the (putrid) water with us. Pete and I were transfixed by the large number of tropical fish obviously thriving in the ooze. I asked him how come there were so many, and he said it is because the area behind the breakwater is protected – no large predators come in and the little fish feel safe. Also, he said, cheerily, they get lots of feed from people on the boats. Using their toilets. I widened my eyes and said, “But this is forbidden, surely. We aren’t allowed to use our toilets; we have to go to the marina ablutions block.” He thought this was a very strange idea - why deprive eh fish of all this yumminess?? - and told me lots of people come and fish in the harbour – yes I have seen this too, and I have wondered how on earth they can eat fish out of such obviously filthy water. My new friend said, very seriously, “But if they are alive they must be healthy, obviously. And they must be OK to eat!”

Once free of our packs we decided to ride to the top of the hill. Well, to puff and pant and push our bikes to the top of the hill… Noumea, so our guide book tells us, is “The city of 1,000 views,” and at the top of this hill we got to see one of them. Very beautiful it was too, with the sun sparkling on the little city, the harbor, the boats. There were a few people having lunch along the hill – courting couples, mostly. And at the very top, three large and silent young men, dressed in their Boyz in Da Hood outfits, eating enormous baguettes, listening to reggae, and just chillin’ out, man. We never feel in the least intimidated by the groups of of young chaps hanging out around the city. They look at our bikes with interest, and usually say “bonjour,” and there is no sense of menace. In fact I have only been approached by a beggar once, and that was on the way to Yaté. I think more people ask me for money in Hobart than they do here!

We have no idea what the crime rate is. It seems to be a very strictly controlled city, with large numbers of police, silently watchful. No drinking in the parks or the streets, not much activity after dark.

Pete had been asking about authentic French restaurants. We had already found one, the very wonderful La Chaumière, and he had heard of one up and over the hill – le P’tit Café. He is very good at finding his way around, following directions etc (good thing at least one of us has this talent…) So I wasn’t surprised when we rode over the top of the hill and here, nestled quietly in a little street opposite the Noumea Conservatorium, was - le P’tit Café. It did look nice, under the shade of an enormous leafy tree. We stopped for a beer and to look at the menu, and to make a reservation for tonight. Weehee! More yummy French food!

Chris Wood has asked some technical questions about the boat. I will let Pete email him the answers but will have a crack at some of them:

Has the autopilot been working well – Actually yes, when it works it is fabulous and miraculous and wonderful. And then it goes what we can only describe as PSYCHO. It just suddenly stops working, won’t stay on track and startles whoever is on watch out of their calm and happy trance. The Hobart man who installed the autopilot said this must be due to “magnetic anomalies” when Pete rang him a while ago, but all I can say is, there must be a lot of magnetic anomalies out there on the ocean.

He also asked if Pete had managed to get a water maker yet. Well no – it is almost impossible to by a water maker. They are VERY elusive. You can’t buy one anywhere in Australia, they have to be imported from the USA. (I asked someone in a big boat-y shop in Brookvale why this was and he said it is something to do with the way the water making process is patented.) There is, however, a man here on the harbor who advertises water makers and Pete is tracking him down. But, as with most things in New Caledonia, nobody really wants to sell anything or do business, because this man is never there, in his little cabin. He does have an assistant, a feisty, saucy young miss with flashing dark eyes. I love going there with Pete to watch her. She tosses her mane of hair at him, hoicks up her pert bosom in its push-up bra, and, now she has got to know Pete better, she shouts at him in a great display of Latin temperament. For example, yesterday he popped his head in the cabin door and asked, mildly, “Is your man here yet?” “Aha!” she shouted, taking the clip out of her hair and shaking lustrous curls over her shoulders. “How dare you call him MY MAN when he is old enough to be MY GRANDFATHER!” So I suppose we will go back there today, trying to find – ahem – THE man not HER man… So, Chris, no watermaker yet…but Pete is On The Case.

We have come across an unexpected stumbling block with regards to gas. Usually when you go to a marina, you can ask around and find, nearby, a place to buy gas, re-fill bottles etc. Not so here. Gas is even more elusive than letterboxes. We rode our bikes all over the place, following arcane clues and hints, until we came to a big gas supply place. But no…We don’t have the right connections; Australian gas fittings are, apparently, different. So now we are trying to find out how to overcome this problem. The water maker man (old enough to be SaucyGirl’s grandfather) apparently has the information but…as I have said, he is very elusive. (And yes gas is very important – no cooking, no hot water without gas…aagghh…)

Late in the afternoon we rode around to the supermarket, where I bought a few different patés as a Special Treat. The deli section there is amazing – full of French cheeses and delicacies. I was served by the most lovely girl in a scarlet and orange muumuu – enormous, slow moving, with a thick rim of facial hair and a radiant smile. She couldn’t have been more charming and helpful. And then another treat – I could guard the bikes outside a gasfitting shop. This doesn’t sound like fun but in fact, ofcourse, it was fascinating. As my father says, when you are in a foreign city everything is thrilling – oh look a dog! A French-speaking dog! On our way back through the Place des Cocotiers we saw there were preparations for an open air concert – Zic Live, free, from 1800-2000 (I asked and got this very specific reply.)

We went back to the boat and ate some treats and then were at the bandstand in the Place de Cocotiers in time for the second two bands. We enjoyed it all enormously. A very sedate crowd, sitting silently and politely, clapping neatly – no alcohol… It was a bit like Salamanca Courtyard on Friday night but with no drinks and no dancing. The first band was skinny whiteboys who had written their own songs entirely influenced by The Clash and other punk bands of long-distant times before they were born. They sang everything in English and their band was called (why not??) – Yellow Press Toy. A very enthusiastic TV Host Chick, all blonde dreadlocks and (yet another) perky push-up bra gushed away in between acts. The next band was called Syndicate, and they were BIG, about twelve musicians with lots of electronics. They played reggae, their own songs, all in English, and all about misery and injustice. I love reggae but was a bit disheartened that their songs were so dismal in theme – Bob Marley, Toots Hibbert et al are much more cheery! In spite of the doom and gloom of the lyrics, I just loved this bracket. I got all enthused and thought that they should apply to come to Tasmania for 10 Days on the Island – I think they would be very well received – they are very talented, mixed-race, have female musicians (sisters, one playing sax, the other trumpet – Pete said, “It’s not often you see a girl trumpet player; still rarer to see a girl trumpet player with only one hand!” And yes she did have an inexplicably missing forearm)) He said I should go and talk to RockChick. She couldn’t have been less interested and sent me in search of the lead singer, a tall young bloke, who was, shall we say, less than impressed to be accosted by the likes of us. I suppose I didn’t look all that cool and spunky, in my purple and yellow muumuu… (NO I am kidding!!) Anyway, he said, “Just a minute, I have to put my things down,” and then he vanished. I gave him 45 seconds then Pete and I left, in A HUFF. It is very strange; we are so not used to being disregarded; everyone always treats us so nicely, so respectfully. It was a bit foolish of our tall young singerboy; for all he knew, I might have been an impresario ready to make an international name for Syndicate!

We have a huge glamour yacht moored next to us, Black Pearl. Inhabited by Cool Young Things, and crewed by lesser beings who scour and wash and polish. Pete heard one of the crew saying, sadly, in a strong Australian accent, as he scrubbed, “Bloody hell, I’m having such trouble cleaning my chunder off this side!” Oh dear the poor man must have been seasick; too awful to have to Work For The Man while being ill…

Thursday
Snorkeling in Baie d’Ugo - Piscine Naturelle – no crayfish for us – back to Noumea – bike ride – Immigration – dinner at La Chaumière – farewell to Steve and Nick - Le Quick

On our last day in beautiful Baie d’Oro (or was it Baie Ugo? The map wasn’t entirely clear on this point…) we crammed a lot of activity into our morning. Pete and I went for a snorkel – Yes, Pete Got Wet!! And he enjoyed it very much. We saw a reasonable amount of coral, and quite a few small and colourful fish. The current was very strong and wanted to sweep us away from 2XS. Well it wanted to sweep Pete away. What it did to me was make me swim entirely in the wrong direction, this way, that way, forwards and backwards but never towards 2XS. We gave up and called Nick to the Rescue. He putt-putted out and towed us home in the tender. Not elegant but…we were very happy for the ride. Nick and Steve were next in for a snork, and then it was time to go and explore the Meriden and its environs. I was the first one in and I was very impressed with the resort. It is just beautiful, with tasteful bures, all replete with an outdoor spa, manicured lawns, fragrant gardens, a beautiful beach. When the men arrived (Three Men in A Boat, very precarious…) we went, optimistically, into the spacious, shady restaurant hoping for a coffee, or a beer. Expensive, but reasonable, as we saw on the menu. The waiter looked at us a bit sadly, and asked us (ahem…) if we were hotel guests. When we brightly said, no, just day-trippers, he whisked the menus away and said, “In that case, you are looking at the wrong one…” and –gasp – on THIS menu a beer was approaching $15, a coffee around #12… We were just not that thirsty!

We had read about la Piscine Naturelle, a short walk from the Meridien, so followed a track through to the other side of the island. A beautiful track, through a thick, lush bit of forest, along a bit of a river, and then – oh how wonderful it was… Indeed as beautiful as promised. We could wade in the shallows with tropical fish nibbling at our toes, and we watched, enviously, as people snorkeled in absolute safety in a large “natural swimming pool” in the sheltered little lagoon. (That night I dreamed, very specifically, that I had won $12million and that I was taking my entire family – it got a bit complicated, my entire family got bigger the more I thought about it – to the Meridien for a fortnight. The logistics were horrendous and I woke up sad but a bit relieved…So hard to organise!!)

We walked back along a different, broader track. And discovered – oh joy – a little beach restaurant, not part of the Meridien, but run by locals, crayfish, chips and salad on the beachfront. I was particularly hungry and ran to ask if we could please PLEASE sit at one of the little tables and eat now now now! But – we didn’t have a booking – if only we had Lonely Planet we would have known this, so a nice South African woman, sitting with a full plate of crayfish before her, told us. You have to ring at 7am on the day to book, no other possibility. So we dragged ourselves away from the people feasting on langouste and went back to a (perfectly nice) meal of leftovers on 2XS as we set off on our way back to Noumea.

Wednesday afternoon Steve and Nick went off to buy presents for their families. They had tried before we left for the Ile des Pins, with no success. Steve had picked up the item he had chosen for Margaret, only to be told, firmly, “we are closing now.” It was siesta time! Pete and I got out the bikes and went off looking for the Immigration office – Pete had to hand in documents with respect to Steve and Nick’s departure. We were so glad to have the bikes; it was a lovely long ride around the waterfront but it would have been a long, hot trudge. We found the Immigration office, hiding a bit coyly behind a fence, and we went – oh no – to the back door instead of the front one. They were both equally discreet. A woman in a purple muumuu glared at us through the door – she had been about to step out for a smoke. And she was not supposed to let us in! Eventually she did open the door, to tell us it was STRICTLY forbidden, we must NEVER do this again. We meekly promised to go to the other door next time and were ushered (“just this once!”) into the front office, where a very mild large back man looked at the documents and said all was well. Phew!

Just as well because our next, not-so-shy, building was the local penitentiary… A large building, with a long, sad queue of women in bright muumuus lining up to visit their loved ones. We weren’t on our way there, fortunately. Pete had espied a sign in the distance saying Marine Corail – this is the local shipchandlers. We had already been to the one in town but you never know what you will find in another one… We also found a sailmaking loft, with some very nice men who offered to come and measure the hatches to make rain hoods – I will let you know how that goes… They said they charge “$35 per hour, and… une tasse de café…

Wednesday night was our last night with Steve and Nick. We wanted to take them to a proper French restaurant, so Pete and I did some research. La Chaumière, we heard, was The Place to go. Pete and I rode our bikes up there, and they were, ofcourse closed for siesta time. I went back up at 5, bravely riding my bike solo through Noumea traffic (not too scary – it is apparently quite OK to veer back up onto the footpath at any time.) They weren’t open but the place next door, which seemed to be connected, had an invitingly open door. “L’Age D’Or,” it was called… The women in there were lovely and very helpful and kind. It was only when we went back there at 6.30 that we found out they are in fact a sort of hospice for the aged and infirm… I hissed, “Please do NOT tell my party of men about this…they think I am taking them to a fancy French restaurant…” They laughed heartily and helped me syphon Pete, Steve and Nick off next door, which was finally opening…

And it was indeed The Place to go. It was run by a posse of large, serious women in an updated style of floral muumuu and the food was – extraordinary! A very French menu – Nick, to his delight, had snails, for the first time. It was also extraordinary in that it wasn’t very expensive – in fact much cheaper than the Café Au Bout du Monde, where the food is not yummy at all. We all had three wonderful courses and some red wine, then made our way back to Port Moselle marina. On the way we stopped to watch the Gendarmerie, the Police and the Armée, rehearsing for their 14th of July parade. All a bit surreal – a few trucks, one tank, a pod or two of young men in kepis marching, plus seven horses being ridden along the boulevard. Such a strange thing, this display of mini-might, way out here…

This morning I got up at 5 to farewell Steve and Nick. Beautiful Virginie the travel agent had booked the airport shuttle to pick them up at 5.30 at the capitainerie. Steve was wanting to leave the boat at 5.15 but Nick and I said, “Relax! We have plenty of time!” We were wrong… I wandered down ahead of them at 5.25, hoping to use the bathroom facilities before they got there, and saw…the airport shuttle, with an impatient young lady on the phone; she was about to go! I ran and said, “No, wait, they are coming!” She was very snippy and said, “Madame, I was to pick them up at 5.15! I have other people to pick up!” Thank God she didn’t drive off; poor Steve and Nick would have had a very stressful time, waiting in the dark at the capitainerie, trying to ring another taxi to get to the airport, which is about an hour away. We didn’t have time for tears; the Shuttle Chick had their cases in the back and their bodies in the front before we had time to blink.

So now it is just Pete and me. We will miss our “boys,” as Pete called them. They have been great company, and a great asset on the boat. I have hardly lifted a finger, with regards to sailing. And they have both rushed to help domestically – cooking, cleaning, washing up whenever they got the opportunity. (I really didn’t think it was fair for them to do all of the sailing AND these domestic chores; I had to be of some use, surely??) I don’t think there has been a cross word between the four of us; this is great, isn’t it, considering we have been very much cooped up in each other’s company. We have seen each other at our worst, dismally ill, (well all except for Capitaine Pete…) tired, cold, hungry, and – worst of all, on the last day – run out of beer!!!. Steve has coped stoically with being kept awake by many repetitions of King Bee (Well I’m a king bee, baby, buzzing around your hive, BUZZ BUZZ); Nick has coped with being with people old enough to be his parents (well Pete and I are; Steve is only 55.) And Pete and I have enjoyed every minute of their lively, interesting company.

We have the most enormous mound of washing to do. All of the bedding and towels, ofcourse, plus lots of clothes. I have tried to wash as I go, but eventually the dirt just builds up and it really is necessary to find a proper washing machine. And…there is no such thing as a laundromat, in New Caledonia. We have to lug our washing to a laundress about a kilometer away. She apparently (Steve, who is very hygienic, had used her services,) has ONE washing machine and ONE dryer and the washing queues up, Island Time, for four or five days. I will let you know how this all pans out.

We went to the Café au Bout du Monde and importantly set up our computers opposite one another. Clickety click and…nothing. Try again – surely the password there is always LUNCH? But…no connection; the system was apparently closed for servicing. I talked to a young French girl, who was also frustrated at not being able to clicketyclick into LUNCH. She has just moved here; is going to live here permanently and work in a restaurant. Big adventure! Anyway, she suggested we go to Le Quick..ie MacDonalds. So here we are, at an outside table; not as salubrious as the Bout du Monde – we are in a sort of busy carpark. And Le Quick is far from quick…I waited in a queue for endless minutes – Island Time. You have to buy something, to be allowed to use WiFi in these places and to get access to the password (the one here is doublechoco…) Pete requested a Sublime Shake which was totally horrid. I had an Angus Burger and an expresso which were both perfectly nice; quite delicious, in fact…

Ile des Pins - many adventures - back to Noumea

On Friday we had to go back up into town, to the poor long-suffering travel agent, beautiful Virginie with the impossible surname – something like Mohamoedouella - to change Nick’s ticket for about the third time, before we set sail for the south of the island. I took my postcards, hopefully clutched in their little paper bag, and went back to the shop where I had bought them. “Do you know where I could buy stamps for these?” I asked the woman who had sold them to me. She seemed like a nice, sensible sort of person, and we had had a conversation about how hard it was to find cards for my grandchildren etc etc. “Why, here, ofcourse,” she said! Why on earth didn’t she tell me this in the first place? Virginie told me where to find a postbox – at the tourist bureau in the Place de Cocotiers, the main square. So Pete and I went back through the Place, and couldn’t see a postbox at all. We went inside and asked the information officers – “Oh yes, the letterbox is around the corner, on the wall.” And so it was…as small and inconspicuous as possible, and painted in camouflage colours – lime yellow and blue, to blend elusively into the building.

We got as far as the Baie Uie, about 15 nautical miles from Noumea, and anchored in a very sheltered place along with three or four other catamarans, all lined up. Nick and Steve found a good big mooring buoy and very efficiently roped up to it. Hmmmm…. I could see Nick looking at the set-up a bit suspiciously. “Back up a bit, Pete, and see if this rope holds.” And...it didn’t, it broke instantly! Good thing we didn’t trust to its strength and go off to cook dinner and have an early night rocking gently on the ocean wave tethered to nothing at all! We carried this buoy and rope all the way back to the rubbish bin at Port Moselle, and a more manky, mangy rope you have never seen! Some of the other sailors looked at it dubiously, and said really, its only purpose was to decorate the buoy.

On Saturday we woke in the morning to find we were in the midst of a Gang of Four, identical catamarans, all from the same rental organisation in Noumea. They upped anchor and left in convoy. We waved nicely but they all turned up their noses and swept past. “Hmm,” said Nick, thoughtfully, watching the closest one. “They have both of their hatches open…” These hatches are almost at sea-level and are designed as escape hatches if a cat turns over. And the least splishety splash and…the boat will fill with water and sink, quite rapidly. We contemplated this pleasant possibility, then he (Responsible SailorBoy) went to radio them. But…they didn’t answer. One hopes that the sea remained calm until they noticed they had two big holes in their boat…

Pete cooked up an enormous breakfast of bacon, eggs and baked beans. We still had some of our quarantine eggs… Yannick had, sorrowfully, told us that he had to take our 14 eggs away from us. Well, actually, not the WHOLE eggs, just the eggshells! So we emptied eggs rapidly into a bowl and gave him a bag of shells. Today Pete scooped out a mixture of yolk and egg into rings and fried them up on the BBQ very successfully – waste not want not, especially in New Caledonia where all food (in fact all everything) is VERY expensive.

After that exhausting task (cooking, eating, washing up,) Pete and I retired to the couches to read our books while Nick and Pete, Explorers Extraordinaires, got into the tender and went off exploring up a little river. They came back a few hours later laden with coconuts – Nick had climbed trees for them, and has very grazed thighs to prove it. They saw some fish, a skate, a sea-snake, and were very pleased with their adventure.

I have been reading about the flora and fauna of New Caledonia. We haven’t seen any animals at all, except for the odd dog or cat. (And today, coming back into Noumea, a whole tribe of very agile goats, one of them halfway up a totally vertical cliff, looking very pleased with itself.) No road-kill, not even many birds. My travel guide says NC Has “very diverse flora and fauna” and I just looked to see what land mammals there might be, hiding in the (eroded) forests. Well…7 species of bats!!

Saturday we arrived at the Baie de Kunamera on the Ile des Pins in the dark. We could just make out the outline of pines and palms in the bay. When we got up in the morning, we could see the full beauty of our anchorage. The pines (Auraucaria) here are amazing – they grow straight and tall, all the way up. This does not seem to be a cyclone-proof way to grow, in this region, but there is no evidence of them crashed to the ground. The forest here is very beautiful, with big, complex banyans, casuarina-like trees, thick lush fruit trees, coconuts in abundance.

Nick and I went for a swim first thing in the morning. It looked very promising, but…no coral near the boat at all, just a bit of weed. This afternoon I went for a swim with Steve, and he found a good amount of coral and fish closer in to shore. He was happy; he hadn’t been snorkeling for a long time, and he found it all very wonderful.

Pete wanted some couch time so Steve and I went off exploring after breakfast – Nick took us in to the beach in the tender. We walked quite a long way, along beautiful beaches, through majestic avenues of wonderful, arching trees, and also along roads which looked as if they could have been in Tasmania. Lots of variety. Also LOTS of birds, small ones fluttering around; I made up for a lack of fish-viewing today with lots of bird-viewing. Bright blue birds, white-eyes, small colourful parrots, black and white swallow-like birds, and one sighting, I think, of a big bird of prey which might have been a balbuzard pecheur (our little guide-book is only in French…)

We stopped for a coffee at a lovely café on the next, and equally beautiful, beach. Lovely café, yucky coffee, but…never mind… There was a touristy shop attached, with a big sign, in French, saying, “It is forbidden to sell alcohol to the locals.” Ouch…

We walked on a few kilometres, hoping to find the old prison. New Caledonia has a dreadful history, very similar to that of Tasmania – it was a penal colony, and many people were sent here from France over a similar period of years, including a large number of political prisoners.
We found a little shop along the way, run by a cheery lady in a festive turquoise and pink floral muumuu. It advertised a rotisserie, surprisingly, and indeed there was a little row of roast chickens sitting in foil bags on the counter. I didn’t need a chicken but I did need an iced tea, and I was very gratified to find, not Nestles, but Volvic The, cheaper and nicer. The maps and signs on the Ile des Pins are not excessively informative, so Steve and I found ourselves wandering along a little track, heading off into the forest, looking for the prison. We were accompanied by two companionable dogs, one big, one small, who very soon became bored with our company and abandoned us. We did find some grave sites, up in the bush, and a sort of steep quarry. So we went back to the road and there, opposite the shop, were some stone steps, leading to – the old prison! The shop lady had told me it wasn’t possible to go inside, but I think maybe she had never been there, because it was all open and accessible, if overgrown, and falling down. So horrid, those thick stone cells, barred windows… Beautiful, now, with banyan trees growing all around the walls, replacing them in parts, but hideous they must have been for the prisoners. We looked all around and took photos of each other looking tragic inside the cells, then went back, along a circuitous route, to the café to have a truly horrid lunch. Steve’s was smoked chicken with a seafood sauce; mine was salami and hard boiled eggs,, in an enormous sweet and curiously unsatisfying bread roll. Fortunately, we found Steve and Pete there – they had taken the bikes ashore, and were off to look for the prison too - and I was able to give most of my roll to Pete, who didn’t like it much either.

Monday we sailed off to the Ilot Brosse – I suppose that, looked at from a non-lyrical point of view, it did look rather like a brush, with its crown of straight bristly pines… Nick and I went snorkeling but didn’t see many fish; most of the coral was either dead or very muted, a bit like moss, really, with just a few subdued-looking fish. It was a few hours to get there and I am very pleased to report that – I didn’t feel sick at all. (Our last day trip, from Noumea to the Baie Uie, was very gentle and pleasant and I felt most disappointingly unwell… Sick sick sickedy sick… I drooped dismally around, and lay on the couch clutching my ipod and listening, miserably, to podcasts from ABC Radio National while everyone else tiptoed considerately around me and had a lovely time.)

We left the Ilot and came into another very beautiful bay, the Baie d’Oro. There is a big five-star resort here, the Meridien. Nick and Steve rushed around exploring in the tender while Pete and I bobbed about on the ocean waves occupied with sundry domestic tasks.

Evenings have been jampacked with activity. Nick and Steve have had some heated chess competitions, and we have also had movie nights. Together we all watched a movie with Javier Bardem called When Night Falls. A very sad film about a Cuban writer, Renialdo Arenas, who eventually gets to New York and dies of AIDS. Pete loved it because there were lots of scenes set in Cuba, where he spent a very happy three months in 2002. Steve loved it because it was so different. Nick sighed deeply and said, “Oh no, a Fag Movie.” And I found it just a bit tedious… The next night we watched…The Fully Monty, which was just about the opposite of When Night Falls. Nick hadn’t seen it before; he laughed a lot, as did we all. And last night we watched a truly dreadful movie “starring,” if that could be the word, Helen Hunt as Pamela Wojas Smart – a True Life story (you may remember) about a teacher in the US in the 80s who gets her student lover to kill her perfectly nice and inoffensive husband for no very good reason. Oh and one night we also watched A Fistful of Dollars, an early Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Western, which was nothing but SLAUGHTER.

The last two nights Steve and Nick discovered my backgammon set. They are more evenly matched at backgammon than at chess so competition has been fierce. Sadly, the set is missing three of its four dice so there isn’t quite the same amount of fierce rattling and throwing that there should be…they have to take turns with the one meek little die.

I have a lot more to write but…things to do, people to see, places to go!

We haven't quite left for the Ile des Pins so probably we are going somewhere closer...time is slipping by; lots of paperwork re getting tickets home for Steve and Nick. Island Time....

Pete and I went to the supermarket and nearly fainted at the price of our two bags full...of not very much...

I finally found somewhere to buy postcards - surprisingly shy and elusive - and then went to the Centre de Courier (mail centre, surely??) to buy stamps and post them. I was met with great surprise - OF COURSE they don't sell stamps or post mail at the Centre de Courier. To do this I have to go back into the city centre and find - a tobacconist... So my cards are still in my backpack.

Friday today - Coral on marina – SubZero –men & women – Duclos – cartrip – Yate – Apa Lagi - 2XS partytime - Ile Des Pins

At the top of the gangplank to our arm of the Port Moselle marina, there is a large oozy stinkpipe. And all around this pipe is – a profusion of coral and a thriving little colony of colourful little fish!

I have been made more aware as time goes by on this trip that…men and women are very different. For example, I told Pete about the sign in the women’s shower facilities, which says, in beautifully executed French:

“Due to recent complaints, we have now instituted a rule regarding couples who want to shower together. This is not permitted in the women’s facility. Couples who wish to do this must do this in the male facility.”

Pete blinked a bit, and asked why I thought his notice had been put there. “Well,” I explained, “women don’t really want men in their shower area.” He thought for a moment and said, “But wouldn’t men feel the same, about having women in their area? Ummm…oh no so they wouldn’t…we really are very different creatures…”

Yesterday we were parked outside a pharmacy, looking at a larger-than-life poster of a beautiful, sumptuous maiden with long flowing locks cascading over her bountiful bosom down to her waist. I thought, “What nice hair, I wonder what shampoo she is advertising.” Pete, Nick and Steve examined the poster with rapt attention, and said, almost in unison, “That girl needs a haircut!”

I went into the pharmacy to buy some new shampoo on the strength of the poster. I had actually bought a beautiful big and expensive bottle of anti-frizz-in-the-tropics shampoo in Warringah Mall, and left it very carefully on the floor in the shower facility the day before… So I needed a new one – I hope whoever found it really appreciates the luxury and expense! The pharmacist was a delightful woman, who told me she was “desolee” (ie desperately sorry) that the weather was so bad. It is in fact quite horrid, cold (well, 16, which isn’t what you expect on a tropical island,) and drizzly. I said we were having a perfectly nice time in spite of the weather, which was quite true, and asked if she knew of any public toilets nearby. “Come with me!” she said, proudly, taking me to a beautiful little locked toilet area and handing me a neat little bag with a key and my very own roll of toilet paper. (People here are very nice.)

We had a very long day in the car… We didn’t really have a plan, just wanted to explore a bit more of New Caledonia than inner Noumea. So off we went, with Steve in the front, with The Map. We went through some posherella suburbs, then through an enormous industrial estate called Duclos, which was a nightmare to negotiate for poor Driver Pete but which all of the men found quite fascinating. They tried to guess what each huge warehouse was selling, and what its Australian equivalent would be. (I hate industrial estates even more than shopping malls so my input was minimal.)

And then we headed for the mountains and the village of Yate on the other side. There is a lot of mining (New Caledonia produces 25% of the nickel in the world) and maybe this accounts for the extreme erosion n the mountains. It was very distressing, actually. The mountains are steep, a bit like in the highlands of Vietnam, where everything is terraced and productive. In New Caledonia there were no villages, no farms, orchards, just mountains with very thin scrub and great orange trenches of eroding soil washing down into the valleys. We stopped at a large dam and got out to admire its hugeness and steepness, and we stopped at various lookouts so the men could take photos of the erosion and the hills. As we negotiated the many kilometres of potholed, steep, winding road we consoled ourselves with the knowledge that we would be driving back along the coast road, which would be much more pleasant…

But this was not to be. When we got to Yate (we were a bit like the bear who went over the mountain to see what he could see – you may remember that what he saw was the other side of the mountain…) we were very excited – weehee, a settlement! Houses! Humans! Maybe even a shop! Some proper rainforest! And yes we did find a dear little shop, which sold all manner of things, including, to my delight, Nestles Iced Tea, peach flavor, and – even more surprising – Kingston biscuits. The shop keeper was a delightful woman who spoke French very beautifully, and told us that she was desolee that she couldn’t make us a cup of coffee – “la patronne” wasn’t at home and the kitchen was locked. She was also the bearer of bad news – the coast road, she advised, was impassable with a normal little car; it would take us many hours and we probably wouldn’t even get through.

So…the bears went back over the mountain, and it was all fine. Pete negotiated all of the potholes and all of the driving-on-the-right with aplomb and nobody whinged or said are we there yet.

We have had cups of tea with nice people from NSW, Geoff and Cherylle. Their boat is Sub Zero – named for the racehorse – and they have been waiting to get their mast fixed and replaced. We might meet up with them again in Vanuatu; such is the trail of the Grey Nomad Sailor. I asked Geoff, who is a knowledgeable man, about the erosion and he said New Caledonia has been very badly treated by the mining industry and that, really, it is an ecological disaster….

We had a beautiful dinner, cooked by a slightly anxious Steve and Nick. Steve was keen to time everything; Nick just said, “The potatoes can wait!” They prepared delicious veggies (from the nearby market) and fish (from Elizabeth Reef).

I got all dressed up (well I took off my warm weather gear) in my black and white FROCK – the first time I have worn a FROCK for a very long time, because Pete said we were going to take our crewboys to a nightclub. But…did this happen?? NO!! I went back into the cabin and came back up in my nightie (well, Mum’s old green nightie, the one which looks like a maid’s costume in Chile…) Then I went and got changed back again because we were going next door, with our après diner drinks, to visit a newly arrived boat, Apa Lagi, from New Zealand. Andrew and Fiona are still in quarantine so can’t set foot off their boat, but they were very happy to have visitors – all of us, plus Carolina (Poland) and Per (Scandinavia somewhere…) from Per’s boat, Arctic, also newly arrived from NZ. Party time! We left at ten thirty but it took a while to wrest Nick away from a close examination of the back rigging of Apa Lagi…

Steve went straight to bed but Nick, Pete and I played the ipod and danced around the cabin till nearly 2am... Fortunately my ipod dock has very feeble speakers so it was only noisy on 2XS...otherwise I think we would have been very unpopular with our neighbours. Poor Steve; every now and then Pete would throw open his cabin door and sing a burst of I'm A King Bee (Rolling Stones) or You Really Got Me (Kinks.) I was very happy to find that Nick already knew and loved Manu Chau so we played my whole Manu repetroire as well. Steve's suffering was not at an end; Nick suddenly remembered he had FUN THINGS in his cabin and he reappeared with glowsticks for all of us. So Steve had bursts of Pete singing, and whirling glowsticks...

This morning we are heading off for the Ile Des Pins. I think it takes all day to get there; it is about 60 nautical miles away. We will stay there for a few days so no blogs or emails till next week.