Sweet Halloween

One of the great bonus of having a catamaran is the space. So, tonight we took advantage of it while celebrating Halloween with few other boats (Totem, Victoria, Io and Fly Aweigh).

While the 11 adults were sipping a drink and enjoying the sunset, the 10 running-around-kids were having a sugar load from their trick or treat dinghy ride around the anchorage.



Out again but not quite offshore

We left the city yesterday after filling up with some duty free diesel and doing our last shopping. We sailed only 4 nm – Clea was at the helm for 2 of them.

We took a mooring buoy at Ilot Maitre. We woke up this morning to flat crystal clear blue water and went for a snorkel. Quite short as we all found the water too cold for us…even if it was 23 deg. However, we saw a crayfish, an eel, some colorful corals and lots of gelatinous zooplankton.

As the weather doesn’t seem to improve, we might check out for few more days more of New Caledonia’s anchorages.



Wanted

We are looking for a place to settle where we could enjoy the sunset everyday. Back to land life, we are going to miss this special rendez-vous where we are all together calling for the green flash.



Weather our friend

We have decided to sail to Australia, as soon as we have a good weather window. Lots of boats here that we know are waiting like us for the perfect winds to do this last passage. However, we are in a dynamic area where high and low pressures play around a lot, and it is officially the beginning of the cyclonic season in 2 days. A weather router recommended waiting until Tuesday. We were ready to follow that advice, but our grib files this morning were showing a big low pressure for next Thursday/Friday. It looks like we are still here for a while.

We are off to buy more food and we’ll be heading to some islands with bluer waters and less neighbors.



Changement de programme

Nous avions reserve une voiture pour aller explorer le Parc de la Riviere Bleue. Mais notre voiture n'etant jamais arrivee nous avons change de programme pour la journee. (Savoir etre flexible est souvent ce qui est demande lors d'offre d'emploi: je crois que nous le sommes vraiment). Nous sommes alors alles decouvrir l'aquarium de Noumea. Nous ne voulions pas vraiment aller voir tous les poissons vus dans leur milieu naturel etre alors enfermes.

Mais nous avons ete agreablement surpris et les enfants ont adore. Le premier prix de beaute revient aux coraux fluorescents (mis en evidence grace a des UV). Mais le premier prix toutes categories confondues revient aux nautiles.

Puis comme nous avions pique-nique et maillots, nous sommes alles dejeuner sur la plage de l'Anse Vata.