Friday, October 18, 2013

Pasage to New Caledonia - Day 6 and 7

Since our last post, we have arrived in Noumea, the capitol of New Caledonia. It was quite a shock to walk around a busy city with multi-lane highways and fashionably dressed people. We are anchored on the fringe of a large mooring field with our transom poking out into a channel through which run many high speed ferries, tugs, yachts, and even a cruise ship or two.

Yesterday we made landfall, anchoring in the east arm of the Baie du Prony after a 12 mile run up the Havannah channel. We stayed there overnight, flying our yellow quarantine flag and this morning we sailed the remainder of the way to Noumea.

Our last day on passage was very rough with a strong wind out of the east and many squalls with gusts between 30 and 40 knots. We ran for most of the day downwind with cross swells from the east and southeast and additional waves from the squalls making the ride very rough. I filmed a few minutes of this and will try to put it up on YouTube when we are back in a place with fast internet. At times the waves would combine to produce a foamy mountain of water that threatened to join us in the cockpit!

We will stay in New Caledonia for a month or so before making the passage back to New Zealand.

No comments: