Chapter5 -Farewell to the Pacific
New Caledonia - unknown jewel
Pause a moment, find paper and pen and jot down all that you know about New Caledonia.
"Island group in the SW Pacific, French.....umm...."
That was about our limit. Our "Pacific Crossing Guide" contributed a few additional facts. The main island, Grande Terre, is the third largest island in the Pacific (after North and South Islands, New Zealand). It is incredibly rich in minerals and Noumea, the capital, is very expensive but a good place to apply for an Australian visa. Hardly surprising, then, that we had done scant research and saw our stopover there just as a chance to break the passage to Australia, get our visas and stock up on French pate and cheese.
How wrong we were.
Lionel and Isabelle, a French couple we met in Tanna and who live and work in Nouvelle Caledonie, first opened our eyes, telling us of some of the delights that awaited us in the southern lagoon. Deserted islets with golden sandy beaches, a few palm trees and superb swimming and snorkelling. Then they told us we could stop in Lifou, one of the Loyalty Islands on the south eastern side of Grande Terre, check in and then cruise the lovely bays on Lifou's western side before stopping at Ile des Pins, truly a wonderful cruising paradise. (Our cruising guide AND the world wide web all said this was NOT ALLOWED!) They loaned us some detailed charts, drew us some sketches and off we went on an easy overnight sail to We (with an accent), the capital of Lifou. Take a look at the chart to see where all these places are
Lifou, Loyalty Islands
Arriving mid morning we tried to raise Port Control on the VHF radio, in French and in English but got no reply. Still, as we turned the end of the breakwater and threaded our way into the port, a small marina opened before our eyes. At the end on one pontoon stood a genial, smiling figure, waving us in. It was Lou-Lou, the Port Capitaine, Customs and Immigration Officer and general factotum, truly the "Grand Chef". He took our lines, bade us welcome in passable English and, with the completion of three brief forms, we had arrived.
The marina was brand new and typically French - we could have been in South
Brittany. It has berths for 36 boats and most were taken, with a
smattering of cruisers, among them Maurice, a Parisian expat now living en
retraite in Noumea; Roy and his crew on Drala Magic from California and Ash and
her crew, Louis, from New Zealand and France respectively. It was a
friendly place and we enjoyed our stay there doing very little for that was how
we felt. To get to the shops was a 5 km hike or you hitched a ride.
Lou-Lou took us in to town, waited while we shopped for provisions and got some
local currency, then brought us back again. Thank you, Lou-Lou, for the
welcome you extended to us and to all your visitors.
We never did get to cruise the lovely bays on the western side of Lifou. A mild tummy bug kept us in port and we passed the time chatting with our neighbours and doing some of the inevitable jobs which are part of the cruising life. Chief topic of conversation was at what time should we reach the reef pass into the southern lagoon of Grand Terre, the gateway to Noumea. Called the Canal de Havannah, this pass has a fierce tide, 4 knots or more at certain times, and has to be taken with an ingoing tide. If you time it wrong and meet the ebb tide running into the prevailing SE trade winds, you face dangerous breaking seas. "Be there two hours before High Water at Noumea, " said Maurice and Lou-Lou agreed.
The thing was, how long would it take to sail the 92 miles to the Havannah Pass? All the skippers had their own ideas on this. We settled on a mid-morning departure allowing for a gentle overnight sail to arrive between 0600 and 0700 the following morning, an average speed of 4.6 knots. We could always slow down, we said.
Once we rounded the nearby Cap des Pins and shaped a course for the Pass, the wind came up from abeam (our fastest point of sailing) and a 2 knot current sped us even faster along our way. We reduced the mainsail and the jib to the smallest area we could and still we averaged over 7 knots over the ground in winds just touching gale force. It rained incessantly and the seas were wicked, bursting against the hull and soaking everything in the cockpit. To heave to and just sit and wait held little appeal so at 2200 hours we turned around and sailed back towards Lifou for three miserable hours, then turned again. Still it blew and the dawn, when at last it came, was red-streaked and ominous.
At last, at the appointed hour of 0700, we reached the approach waypoint and bore away to enter the Havannah Pass. The tide was indeed with us running at 2-3 knots. It smoothed the seas and we sped into the shelter of the lagoon cheered by a pale sun which crept out of the clouds to welcome us.
Grande Terre
From the sea, Grande Terre does not look much like other Pacific
islands. For a start the trees are not palms but colonial pines, a spindly
tree with a top-knot, unusual and unlovely. There is no lush vegetation.
Instead the hills are covered 
with
a low bush, broken with the red scars of open-cast mining operations. We
pulled into Prony Bay to recover from the wild night we had experienced and
marvelled at the damage Man could do to the landscape. For all that
there was a definite charm to the scenery and it was deserted.
Next day we sailed into Noumea, a natural harbour with an inner breakwater behind which we found the main Marina. Here we were given a berth (free for the first night) and were asked to wait for clearance. In almost no time we received officers from Quarantine, Immigration and Customs and the formalities were light. We had seldom had such a pleasant, easy arrival.
That night we dined ashore in a very French restaurant serving very French foods and wines. It was magnifique. The following morning we went shopping - baguettes and croissants from the boulangerie, fresh produce and fish from the market - merveilleux. Best of all we ran into some old friends - Marv and Donna from ENDLESS, Gord & Ginny from ASCENSION, Doug, Kyle and their two young daughters from ESTRELA and Catherine and Pierre-Philippe from OLLA. We had first met OLLA in Gibraltar in 2001, had been with them in Venezuela in 2002 and then again in Opua, NZ last year.
Cat and P-P are living and working in Noumea and have a car. That
Sunday they drove us into the nearby mountains for a picnic by a river in which we could swim. The scenery was amazing, very rugged and
rocky, with deep gorges and narrow winding roads. After parking the car we
scrambled down to the bed of the river and found a quiet pool for our lunch
just below one of many small dams.
There was a cold chicken, cole slaw, baguettes, brie and lots of wine. We swam, ate,
drank and swam some more, the water many degrees colder than the 28C we were
used to. A change of scene was just what we needed and we all had a great day.
During that week the VHF carried news of another of our friends, the German yacht STORMVOGEL, also a Halberg Rassy. She had lost the use of her rudder some 400 miles east (upwind) of New Caledonia and was slowly drifting towards us. Norbert, her skipper, was in daily radio contact with various friends from the German cruising community and arranged with the Authorities for a tow when he got near land. Luckily the weather was kind and they made port safely.
Exploring the lagoon
The following weekend was a long holiday one to celebrate Armistice
Day! We had had enough of marina life so we sailed out to a nearby islet for
some snorkelling on the Thursday, then went further north west to a beautiful
Bay, Baie du Maa.
There OLLA joined us and we swam and ate and talked, swapping plans for the
future and putting the world to rights. On the
Sunday we took in yet another of the islands before sailing back the 12 miles to
Nouma in perfect conditions. As a cruising ground the lagoons of
Grand Terre must rate among the finest we have encountered in our entire trip.
The climate is warm but not too hot, there are few insects, warm seas, steady winds and
great water. We could have stayed but the cyclone season had officially started
and it was time to get to Australia.
Across the Coral Sea
It is about 900 miles from New Caledonia to the eastern coast of Australia. Looking at our passage chart we saw that these waters are called the Coral Sea. So our time in the Pacific was about to end. It had started when we reached Balboa at the western end of the Panama Canal, on 1st April 2004. Since then we have sailed about 14000 miles. It is a vast ocean, a beautiful part of the planet. We felt a little sad to be saying farewell, but also excited at the thought of reaching Australia.
There are a number of Ports of Entry used by cruisers coming across the Coral Sea: Bundaberg and Brisbane in Queensland and Coffs Harbour in northern New South Wales. We want to spend Christmas in Sydney so opted for Coffs Harbour which isn't on our small scale chart but is about half way between Sydney and Brisbane. The trip should take about a week. As it is not possible to get reliable weather forecasts for more than three or four days, picking the right "window" has some risks. However the winds were clearly wrong for a while so we cleared Customs in Noumea, then sailed the 60 or so miles to the Ile des Pins off the SE tip of Grande Terre to wait for the right conditions. (Incidentally, it is so very typical of the pragmatic French to allow this privilege. Most countries require you to leave within hours of clearing out. We were given a week and took 8 days).
Ile des Pins
The Ile des Pins is a very beautiful island with some charming bays on its
southern tip. It is the local holiday resort, quite undeveloped and
unspoilt. Here we caught up with ESTRELA again, ENDLESS and
ASCENSION having decided to
remain in and around
Noumea. At first we had only a couple of other
boats for company but soon a fleet of maybe eight arrived en route for New
Zealand. The weather was fine and sunny but the winds were forecast to be
wrong for both the Australian and the NZ run so in port we all stayed.
There wasn't much entertaining as we were all watching our stores and wondering
how long they would have to last.
Go back 150 years or so and this was a penal colony where French political prisoners were transported to serve out their time. Ruins remain of their quarters and of the buildings of their gaolers. Now a boutique occupies the former barracks, selling locally produced batiks and sarongs and other chic clothing.
On Saturday Pam and I hitched the 6 km into the main village to see what we could find in the market, but when we arrived at 0915 just about everything had been sold. There was a small museum and a rather fine church with the inevitable red corrugated iron roof and a steeple. The two stores yielded a few provisions at vast expense. Still, we had a lot of fun and it has been many years since either of us stuck out a thumb! The locals were friendly and pleased to see us, which is not always the case, as the Kanaks want their independence and quite often resort to violence in protest at the continued French presence.
The following day a group of boats got together on the beach for an impromptu pot-luck picnic. We have never stood on sand so fine, it was almost the consistency of talcum powder. The sea was warm and inviting. Paradise!
The sail to Australia
The winds seemed to be settling and on the Tuesday we sailed. ESTRELA, ENDLESS and ASCENSION had departed the day before. A radio net, the "Nemo Net" had been arranged and at 0800 every morning we would chat on the SSB radio, exchanging positions, weather and fishing stories (ours a total failure as usual). These few minutes of contact are very important to the cruiser on passage, boosting morale and lessening that feeling of being totally on your own.
Two days out, the four day forecasts showed us all a Low Pressure system forming near Tasmania, then tracking north up the Australian coast instead of setting off across the Tasman Sea as they normally do. This was going to bring strong southerly winds to us as we neared our landfall. To make matters worse, these winds would be blowing against the Australian Coastal Current which runs at up to 4 knots in a southerly direction. Sailors amongst you will know that wind against or current produces very steep, breaking waves and we none of us fancied the conditions which awaited us.
ASCENSION and ENDLESS, who were a day ahead of us, decided to motor-sail in the light winds they currently had to try to get into Coffs Harbour before the bad weather reached them. In the event they didn't quite make it and had some nasty hours in which ASCENSION was knocked down in a squall so that her masthead hit the water, and both crews were badly shaken by lightning bolts striking the water nearby.
ESTRELA, with the two children aboard, decided to make for Lord Howe island, about 430 miles NE of Sydney. This is a remote outpost of Australia with a fringing reef over which the waves pour at high water. By motor-sailing hard they just beat the bad weather and were safe, if not exactly snug, on a mooring when the strong winds arrived. However they had to spend 48 hours aboard before the weather relented enough for them to get ashore and, as I write, they are still there, 12 days later, waiting for the right weather to continue their journey.
ALIESHA could not make shelter in time, so we slowed down and ambled along hoping to allow the worst of the weather to blow itself out before we got there. And that is what happened, more or less. We had one night of heavy rain, strong but not gale force winds and terrible lightning. With memories of our double lightning strike in the Gulf Stream in June 2003 still vivid in our memories, we had some anxious moments but came through unscathed.
And so we came to Coffs Harbour, NSW, a small but fast growing seaside town with a fishing harbour and a marina sheltering behind a breakwater and an island. We anchored off the first night, then took our allotted berth and were cleared by two of the nicest, most welcoming Customs Officers we have ever met. We learnt that Australians really do say "No worries" and mean it!
We are going to like it here.
