Harmonie - Re-Run in Kuto Bay, Isle of Pines, New Caledonia

Re-Run in Kuto Bay, Isle of Pines, New Caledonia

Harmonie

Don and Anne Myers

Thu 1 Oct 2009 23:36

22:39.514S 167:26.452E

On October 2nd, we left Ouvea and most of the ICA rally boats behind and sailed overnight 145 miles along the east coast of Grande Terre to the Isle of Pines, which sits about 30 miles southeast of Grande Terre. There was a full moon overhead and a clear sky, so we had no complaints aside from a slightly more southerly wind than we would have liked. But that's normal for sailors. As I've said before we are just a big lot of weather complainers. This time the sky was right, but the wind was from the east-southeast instead of the east. So we complained about that. It really wasn't all that bad except that if we had kept going on our more-west-than-planned heading, we would have run into the coast of Grande Terre around nine o'clock that night. Instead, we decided it was smarter to turn on the engine and motorsail into the more-south-than-planned wind. We arrived at the Isle of Pines in time for lunch the next day and all was well.

It wasn't just the bulk of the ICA rally boats that we left behind in Ouvea, but our good friends Jackie and Michael on Lady Kay as well. Michael and Jackie have decided to return to New Zealand instead of moving on to Australia with us. They may catch up with us in a year or two depending on where we are, but for now we said good-bye. A strange thing since we have been hanging around with them since Michael volunteered to come on board as one of our line handlers in the Panama Canal almost two years ago. We know we will see them again, it's just a matter of when and where. At the very least we all agreed to do the 'Single Malts Classic' rally that runs for two weeks in July up the coast of Scotland stopping at various scotch manufacturing facilities along the way. Don has been dreaming about this for years. Now we just have to get ourselves and our boat to Scotland. It might take two or three or four years, but we are pretty sure we'll get there. In the meantime, we hope to see Michael and Jackie along the way here and there.

As for the Isle of Pines, our four day stay there was almost an exact re-run of last year's visit. We anchored in the same bay, saw many of the same boats, experienced the same weather (very nice, but cool, which for us is anything under 82), admired the same beautiful beach and surrounding scenery, hiked up the same mountain and had another pizza party. I don't mean to imply that we were in any way bored or disappointed with our stay there, it's just that we've done it all before so there isn't much of anything new to tell.

Don spent time on Storyteller helping to fix or at least create a work-around for its faulty watermaker. This worked out well for me because it meant I got to take John's place on the pirogue boat trip he and Sue had booked with their friends Helen and Ray that day. This, too, was a re-run in that Sue, John, Don and I had taken the same trip last year. This year we had the same weather (beautiful), but a much improved lunch - grilled lobster on the beach instead of grilled cheese in a hut. All good.

Here are a few Isle of Pines re-run pictures (they were all taken this year, but if you work hard to compare them with last year, you might find some duplicates).

Picture 1 - Kuto Bay, Isle of Pines.

Picture 2 - Marvelous view of the Isle of Pines coastline and surrounding reefs from the top of the hill/mountain we climbed..

Picture 3 - One of the traditional pirogue boats sailing gracefully downwind. Sue, Ray, Helen and I were on the other pirogue boat sailing gracefully downwind while John and Don were working feverishly on Storyteller's watermaker.

Picture 4 - Ray, Helen, Sue and I enjoyed grilled lobster and New Caledonia's 'Number 1' beer on the beach after our pirogue ride. John and Don were still working feverishly on Storyteller's watermaker at the time, breaking only for a lunch of pastrami sandwiches and Vanuatu's 'Tusker' beer. If you had to choose between New Caledonia's Number 1 beer and Vanuatu's Tusker, it would probably be a toss up. However, grilled lobster on the beach pretty much rules over pastrami on the boat.

Picture 5 - Carved totems are a very common thing in New Caledonia, and these are a few that adorn the lobby area of one of the hotels near the Kuto Bay anchorage. The faces look like they could either be representatives of ancestors that were extremely wise or extremely devilish. If this were Vanuatu, I'd say extremely devilish, but am not so sure about New Caledonia's ancestors. Wonder what the real story is?

Like us, Storyteller is planning to go to Australia, but later in October. Our schedule requires us to move a little faster in order to get to Australia and get the boat hauled in time for our flights home on November 4th so we left Storyteller at the Isle of Pines and moved north on our own toward Noumea, the capital of New Caledonia. More on this later.

Anne