Oooh La La

Oh but the French know how to do it!

We've arrived safely in Noumea, New Caledonia and have met up with a rather bedraggled, but safe, Peter aboard Troutbridge. It appears that the opinion was that that was a cyclone that hit us (not sure if I'd classify it as such but it sure was nasty).

Anyway, dinner tonight was our long awaited baguettes, brie and pate and, oh my, it was gooooood! We went to the local supermarket which looks more like the most incredible delicatessen one can imagine. I can't remember ever seeing such choices. Just the cheese and cold meat section alone, is mind boggling. Now, all we need is the budget to go along with it.

However, I'm missing out on mentioning our time in Vanuatu. It was very brief but great. We dropped anchor early on the Monday morning and managed to arrange our trip to the volcano within an hour of doing so. By late afternoon, we were in the local village awaiting a truck to take us up the mountain.

We arrived just about sunset and sat at the edge watching sprays of lava shoot up into the air. Every once in a while, a huge thunderclap would sound and the lava put on a terrific show. As the night got darker and darker, so the viewing was more and more spectacular. And, this was apparently only a level one or two. Can't imagine what a level three would be like. By the time it reaches a level four, no visitors are allowed near the mountain at all; just too dangerous.

Getting out of Port Resolution the following morning was a bit of a mission as the seas were horrendous and the wind was right on the nose (where else?) but once we were able to turn southwards, we zapped along at quite a pace covering far more distance than we'd originally anticipated.

This, unfortunately, meant that, with another full day of good winds, we were going to arrive too early to enter the passage into New Caledonia. To try to right this, we decided to hove to and spend a relaxing night out at sea to tackle the tricky parts in the light of the following day. Not a good decision as it turned out as we ended up drifting 17 nm away from our destination despite two drogues employed to slow us down. The following day, it took us several hours to make up the lost mileage which meant that we only arrived at the pass by late morning instead of early morning. Oh well, from then on, it was literally plain sailing.

Photos of the volcano will be posted as soon as we get onto internet tomorrow or soon thereafter.

The following photos are of Troutbridge.  One in the calm waters after we'd lost and found him after the first night and the second when we finally met up again in Noumea.  He'd been through some rough times in between.

The Calm Before the Storm

A very sad kitty

Paul trying to cut the sail down