Spouting whales, turtles and things
Wednesday morning we were up early. Unfortunately, we could not get the anchor up because the French boat was right on top of it- very rude of them. Fiortunately they were awake and we were able to get them to move- very politely. They seemed totally oblivious of their folly even when they saw us pulling up the anchor from where they had been.
We were close hauled and tacking all the way to the ISle of Pines, but the winds were mainly 15kts with a couple of stronger squalls so we made fast progress. We averaged over 6kts for the 54NM we recorded on the GPS so we were happy and anchored by mid afternoon.
We had been picking up a ship as we got within 10NM of the Island. This seemed strange until we noted that it was the Pacific Star- a Cruise liner. It was anchored in the opening of Kuto Bay. We sailed across its bows which were opnly 50 metres away (yes, they were anchored otherwise we would not have done this!) We had an excellent audience of tourists looking down from high above. We were going at maximum speed (for us) almost 8kts under sail so we are probably now featured in a number of boring touristy photos. Fortunately, the ship left about 20mins after we passed so the Bay here is no longer filled with a couple of thousand visitors.
This is a beautiful spot with white sand beach, crystal clear water and giant turtles swimming around the boat.
We had a peaceful sleep, aided by a little Aussie wine.
Today, we went for a walk and saw some interesting things- including ruins of the convict era. We found a place that rents bikes and reserved two for Saturday. The fellow spoke not a word of English so we needed to do it all in French. Hooray- success! Of course, Saturday might come and we might find we've rented something other than velos, but we think it will be fine.
Tomorrow is snorkelling and more exploring. We might take the yacht to some of the nearby reefs and places. The extra time in Noumea allowed us to fix a broken connector on our scanning sonar so it will be very useful having it in some of the places we might visit.
It looks like there might be a Westerly change on Sunday so we may need to leave this anchorage by then. We will decide what to do closer to the time. There are a dozen yachts here but not room for all of them in the alternate anchorage in the next Bay.
One neat thing- a German boat nearby is a floating baker shop. Claudia will be baking us bread and making a Pizza for us to cook tomorrow night! She has been doing this for 12 years, presumably all over the world.
Dave & Penny
