Days 93 & 94 New Caledonia

Five Islands
John & Sue
Thu 23 Aug 2012 05:27
We are currently anchored in a sheltered bay on Ile Quen, an island about 30 miles from Noumea in New Caledonia. We wouldn't have been able to make it to Noumea in daylight so have decided to have an overnight stop and head into Noumea in the morning, although I don't think the French officials approve of stops before we are checked in. There is only one other boat in the anchorage and it is over a mile away from us. We have been motorsailing for the past day or so but all in all it has been a very good passage from Fiji, taking just over 5 days to reach here. Our first impressions of New Caledonia is that is quite an impressive island which appears to have been subjected to uncontrolled strip mining with no rehabilitation, the erosion of he hillsides is sad to see. On the plus side though we saw several whales as we entered Havannah Passage, and a couple of dolphins were swimming around the bay as we came in to anchor.
We caught another Mahi Mahi yesterday afternoon, which was a bit of a surprise considering the lack of flying fish which is their favourite bait. Nigel cooked it last night (butter, garlic etc) which was a treat. This was followed by Miss Kitty's Chocolate Banana Custard Pudding, a treat for the midnight shift - Yum. There have been a couple of cargo ships that have passed us, but generally fairly quiet. The sun came out again today forcing us to find the sunnies again and with the sun came the warmth. We have all been feeling the cool weather lately (we are going to freeze when we get home). We are going to fire up the BBQ tonight and looking forward to not having to get up for watch duty for a few days.