Current position is 20:42.198S 166:27.589E  anchored off the Hotel Paradis near the small village of Lekiny in Ouvea

 

Departed from Lifou early on Tuesday morning on the 48NM passage up to Ouvea.  We have had strong trade winds for the past few days and we had the same for our trip to Ouvea which made for a quick passage arriving at the anchorage at around 15:00H.

It is a quite spectacular place with incredibly white beaches and aqua water as the depth through most of the lagoon is just over 10mts.

 

Yesterday, for my birthday we hitch hiked, (as there is no public transport on the island) up to one of the main villages called Fajawe which was first for me as have never had the pleasure of hitch hiking before and luckily we didn’t find the Melanesian equivalent of Ivan Milat on our travels – only friendly Melanesians.   On our adventure we located the yacht club - Centre Nautique Ouvea - which was a bit of a surprise as we didn't know  there was one here however, looks like a very active club and they have a good fleet of Hobie Cats, Opti’s and Bics which was good to see.  We also found the largest shop on the island which had a good supply of goods although our lack of French makes shopping a tad difficult but we did manage to get a couple of baguettes.  We also had a night out with drinks and dinner at Hotel Paradis which was a lovely way to spend my birthday and much nicer than cooking aboard.

 

It looks like we are here for a few more days as strong trade winds are forecast to blow for a bit longer which does have its positives as we have not had to charge our batteries since arriving with both the solar panels and wind generator doing an awesome job and are both vying for honourable title of Crew Member of the Month for June.  Anyhow looks like early next week the winds will start to abate and also going into the North East so will then head back to the main island (Grand Terre) although our route back to Noumea has not yet been worked out but will probably head down the West Coast for a few days before heading back in through the Havannah Passage and then onto the big smoke of Noumea.

 

Will update with some photos when we have wi-fi again in Noumea.