Grande Terre, New Caledonia

We had the perfect crossing---front sail only with 18 knots of wind behind us and travelling at 6-7 knots we arrived after dawn into the lovely bay of Hienghene—we are sure to have to pay for the easy sail someday soon.
The Island of Grande Terre is only surpassed in size by NZ and New Guinea and can be circumnavigated totally inside the reef surrounding it.
Hienghene is in an inlet surrounded by huge limestone cliffs which are really beautiful—the entrance is the hen and chicken rock on one side—see pic—and the sphinx on the other.
We arrived on Sunday and as we had assumed the village was closed. The town appears to be an appeasement to the local tribe’s people with a huge fancy school, a grouping of small well built stores and marina. This was the centre of the uprising against the French for independence in the 1980’s led by a local hero who along with his deputy were both assassinated. New Caledonia is very rich in minerals—nickel mining is alive and well—and the French did not want to lose ownership to these mines. New Caledonia is still on the United Nations list for countries to become independent. The French were forced to give concessions to the people outside of Noumea---unlike Vanuatu where nothing filters beyond Port Villa.
There appear to be very few houses in the town which is a centre for the multitudes of small villages in the area. There is a bank—only the ATM was open the whole time we were there??? The patisserie was not open any more only a small grocery with basics and a snack shop at the bus stop which had cold coffee and none of the advertised “pain chocolate”??? —I assume that was from the days of the patisserie.
Monday morning we went into the tourist bureau where we can check in our boat but have 6 days to get to Noumea to have our passports stamped. A very short sighted policy on their part as it definitely cuts into the tourist dollars spent by sailors who need to travel quickly. If there are a number of boats the yachties will share the cost for one person to go to Noumea—bus or plane—and take everyone’s passport to be stamped. Makes it even harder to understand why copies can’t be faxed as our boat papers were and OK’d for 30 days. We are on our own as the six other boats that left Port Villa with us opted to go straight to Noumea so will have to do our best to get to Noumea by next Monday.
The local people are Melanesian—kanaks—and are once again friendly with smiles that light up their whole faces. It was definitely a very easy check in with the agricultural man showing up at 3pm happy that we took in our garbage and token vegetables as he had no desire to come out to the boat.
We took the dingy up the huge river going up the valley which is sparsely populated but very pretty. We are now at 20 degrees latitude—more south than we have been since leaving NZ and the hills are more reminiscent of NZ than the tropics. The coconut palms along the shore reminded us that it is still warm here.
The following day the winds that had been forecasted arrived and we were happy to be in this sheltered bay. We took a taxi to the dive shop where we took a kayak onto a small lagoon nearby and kayaked around the magnificent rock structures as it was too windy to dive.
Had delicious coffee and croissants at the hotel nearby—we are quickly finding out that anything operated and owned by the French is well worth paying for but the locals other than adopting baguettes and high prices have learned little else!!!
The local market is a disappointing contrast to Vanuatu and Fiji. I was able to buy tomatoes, pumpkin and bought the only paw paw, pineapple and small bunch of bananas available. Perhaps we will end up using some of our emergency canned vegs we have carried since Panama!!! I had thought we would give them away in Vanuatu as we knew they had nothing but it would be like giving igloos to the Eskimos!!!! Maybe we will give them away here!!!
Next morning we were picked up by the dive company to dive the reef which has a great reputation. We have been spoiled by the amazing dives we have done and were a little disappointed. We did see some lovely fan coral and a huge wahoo along with many tiny sea creatures but only the reef in the shallower waters was really live. We were about to go in for the second dive when the boat started taking water in through the drain holes in the cockpit and the two girls who had taken us out decided to take us back to shore. We were not too upset as although we had enjoyed the first dive we felt it was enough in this area.
The following day we had to depart for Noumea inside the reef with winds in our face---we knew we would pay for the passage from Ouvea!!! The winds were not forecast to be strong and we managed to sail and motor the 67 miles we had set out to travel the first day. We sailed past lovely sandy, coconut covered little islands and were sad we would not have time to stop at these.
By doing such a long passage the first day we were able to do half the distance the next day allowing us to stop at one of the island for the afternoon and night.
The second day allowed us to anchor at a pretty beach lined with coconut trees backed by pine trees---New Caledonia—where the coconut and pine trees meet.
We were inside the inner reef so had a great snorkel and relax in the sunny warm weather.
Next day back to motoring all day between more idyllic islands, the mainland is very hilly and unfortunately the topsoil has been cleared by mining. The minerals are very shallow so they can just scrape the top layer off, sadly the last 100 years has taken its toll and it is very scarred. They have recently put in more environmental conditions but it will take many years clean it up.
Our last night at anchor on passage was at another idyllic bay lined with palm and pine trees. A family having their weekend cottage beckoned us ashore and plied Ken with Scotch and we had a great few hours visiting with them. They spoke little English and we spoke little French but it was enough to enjoy the camaraderie ad they have invited us to dinner at their home in Noumea---hmm how to manage the language barrier on a telephone!!!!
We arrived in Noumea on Monday morning to check in at immigration—were told that we should have been here in three days, not the 7 we had taken---oh well, we said sorry and they told us “next time three days”. Of course we agreed.
It was once again “old home week” in Noumea. Many of the boats we have been travelling on and off with all season as everyone is congregating here to leave in the near future to Australia or NZ.
Barb and Frank on Destiny are here and leave tomorrow to go to Bundaberg. We hope to catch up with them again some time in the not too distant future.
We will spend the next week or so taking advantage of the French food—yummmmmmy and ready ourselves for our next step in our adventure.