Wednesday 17th October:  Baie des Kaoris, New Caledonia South Pacific Ocean 22 18.17S  166 51.247E 

Richard’s Blog  (Time zone BST+10.00; UTC +11.00 )

Today, I am delighted to make two breakthrough announcements:

·         we successfully sailed to a place other than Noumea. (I have been here so long, I was thinking about applying for citizenship).

·         nothing on the boat broke. (Although I did have a go at yanking off the other cheek block that I didn’t pull off yesterday).

I agree with David that it’s all very French here and this is illustrated by much Gallic shrugging and an unwillingness to do anything unless they are watched over or sat upon. However, I must say that the people are a pleasant and happy bunch, and are very courteous – e.g. cars stop for pedestrians not only on Zebra crossings but anywhere else they decide to cross. So, our stay in Noumea has been quite pleasurable.

David promised you pictures of Lenie and Terry and here is the first (Lenie was doing an impression of Monty Python’s “architect sketch” at the time):

I have a feeling that this may backfire on me in due course. (By the way, Lenie says “Hi”  to Niki and Mieke).

We are gaining confidence in our sailing abilities, although we are still having our moments. There were several discussions about which rope should go inside of the other (Bob will recognise this). Also, we had to rerig the bimini top which was erected yesterday by the two most experienced crew. To illustrate, here is Captain Caukill with no idea what to do next and Terry wondering what he has got himself into:

And, just to balance the story, here is the rest of the crew trying to remember what the front of the boat is called:

Anyhow, we had a cracking sail of 47 miles today. The winds were quite lively and the seas a bit choppy but we are now at an idyllic anchorage:

A mile or so from here, we passed Mordor! Sadly, we did not see Sauron’s Eye or any oliphants – just a working nickel mine:

One last observation. Avid blog fans may remember an amusing (well, I thought it was) account of my “cabin” last November and you will be pleased to hear, as I was, that I am occupying it again. It is much as I remembered it before although any pretext of it being a cabin has now, correctly in my view, been dropped and it is called the “workshop”. I am allowed in there for short periods for sleep deprivation therapy and I am delighted to hear that a further instrument of torture exists in there – the air conditioning fan. This blows very cold air straight into my face when I am asleep which is bad enough but then David told me that the workshop is the next stop in  recirculating “air” directly from his cabin………….