Drueulu Bay w/ Pictures - Lifou, Loyalty Islands, New Caledonia
Harmonie
Don and Anne Myers
Wed 1 Oct 2008 03:42
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20:55.390S 167:04.928E
Note: This version has pictures attached.
On September 11 we left We Marina and had a
marvelous mostly downwind 45 mile sail around the north end of Lifou Island to
Drueulu Bay on the west side. Writing this now, I realize that we let 9/11
slip by without even noticing the significance of the date. Wow.
This is what the sailing life does to your brain - completely numbs it to the
news, cares and worries of the outside (some would say real) world.
Which really isn't so bad, is it?
We stayed a quiet five nights in Drueulu Bay with only a few other boats to
keep us company. We did venture in to shore a few times where there
was a village, but unlike Vanuatu no one paddled out to greet us in a dugout
canoe (there were no canoes, only aluminum boats with outboard motors), no one
stopped as they were driving by to fruit us, no kids ran up to present us with
flowers or unidentifiable pieces of fruit, no one waved from their yards or
porches as we walked by, no one offered to take us to the store (there was no
store but that's not the point), no one asked for a spare used t-shirt or rope
or batteries or certainly not an English dictionary. It's not so much that
the people were unfriendly, just uninterested. We boaters are not
fascinating to the people of New Caledonia. They have satellite dishes for
their TV's so they already know what we are like. And they have good
schools and roads and water and electricity and cars so we are just another
set of tourists to them. Geez, and we were really getting used to
being treated like visiting royalty. Perhaps New Caledonia is a
good stepping stone back to reality for us.
We did have two native men in an aluminum boat stop by our boat and
ask in a fairly demanding tone of voice (in French) for alcohol. We lied
and said we had none. Aside from some kids playing soccer near the road
that glanced up and said 'bon jour' as we walked by, this was the only contact
with the people of the village that we had over our five day stay.
Picture 1 - View from the shore of Harmonie (furthest out) and
another visiting sailboat at anchor
Picture 2 - A traditional case or 'sleeping house'
Picture 3 - One of the many extremely colorful cemeteries we've seen on
Lifou. These French Catholics sure do know how to honor their
dead.
Storyteller joined us in Drueulu Bay on our fifth and last night. On
the afternoon of the 16th (after a highly entertaining evening on board
Storyteller with John and Sue and their visiting New Zealand friend Annette) we
left together for the overnight sail to Ile des Pins, the tourist destination
that lies about thirty miles southeast of New Caledonia's Grand Terre (big
island).
Anne
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