Fat & Happy

I love baguette!

So, we have been sitting at anchor in Port Moselle for a couple of days.

We came back to town to enjoy the wonders of a shower on land -- and to gorge ourselves on the bounty that New Caledonia provides. I haven’t quite been able to sort out whether the abundant delights of this place are derived from its great wealth of natural resources (the largest copper deposit in the world -- to take note of just one), or its obvious connection with French history and culture (baguettes here are the same price and quality as in the 5^th arrondissement in Paris – 12,000 km away). Or whether one causes the other?

For the purposes of this story it is only important to observe that it is curious and delightful.

In the past, as we were getting ourselves and the boat sorted out we noticed that we could cruise by ourselves for about 2 weeks at a time. After two weeks, if we were very careful, we could limp back into the marina with empty water tanks and dead batteries. We would plug into shore power and fill our watertanks and then head out exploring again.

We have couscous and rice -- and a couple of cans of corn.
But really, doesn't this look like it's worth a trip to town?

Now, in our second season, we feel more like we have some of these basic building blocks of cruising life behind us.

We have new lithium Ion batteries and they just won’t quit. Each day I smile as my eye catches the flashing green light on the monitor of our solar charge controller. Its rapid blinking tells me that it has our house batteries fully charged and is now shunting excess electricity (didn’t we just run the watermaker for 4 hours?) . Strange that I still find this a magical process – like a circus clown pulling a rabbit out of the hat -- I know the trick, I have seen it done a million times, but it still makes me smile every time.

Why is this important? Well, it seems that we now have to watch for a new set of cues about when to check back into town. Whoops the fridge is empty!

True we do still have a good supply of couscous and rice and beans and noodles, and a cupboard full of tins and jars so that we can manage a good and wholesome meal, but with all that cheese and chocolate just around the corner it does seem like a crime against nature not to be doing our part to help sustain the great French culture. And who needs wholesome?

Wouldn’t it be nice to go back to that pizza place where they make the Quartto formaggio thin crust pizza? And the café gourmand?

And so it was that I was waiting this morning in the cockpit for the crew to get organized for the shoreside adventures (as I sometimes do) and I noticed a couple of boats sailing across the small harbour. I noticed these boats in particular because they are working their way through a mooring field which has close to a thousand boats of all shapes and sizes.

Now it is true that I don’t really have a clue how many boat are moored in the harbour -- so let me just say that there are A LOT of boats! There are always a lot of boats in New Caledonia we are told but in October, as the seasons start to change, and boats collect from all corners of the Pacific this harbour hits MAX capacity. We are ourselves moored at the edge of the moorage area. I say ‘the edge’ generously because we are actually about 20 metres outside of the well-marked and designated area for mooring and well into that part of the harbour which is also well marked as a traffic lane. But we are not alone because there are boats moored all around us and it seems that everyone is understanding of this seasonal anomaly. And we don’t really feel alone because we know most of the boats around us, Songlines, Huck, Bella vita, Scotia, and many more too. We have seen many of these boats in Fiji, and in Vanuatu, and we have visited with many of these folks over the past two years. We don’t know everyone, but just like walking down your street, even if you don’t know everyone in every house it still feels a bit like home.

So, I was sitting in the cockpit this morning with the binoculars, doing what all good neighbours do. I was spying on our neighbours -- and I caught a glimpse of these boats working their way through the ‘hood’ -- and I recognize them too. They are from the Base Nautique, which we had walked by yesterday. They are ten identical boats, new and rigged identically. They are about 6 metres long, fast, and I can tell even from a distance that they are well handled and that they mean business.

I have not mentioned yet that it is windy. Across this very crowded harbour the wind has been whistling at 25 (gusts to 30) for the past 3 days. There are no waves but the boat still dances on its mooring and it’s ‘raincoats on’ for the dinghy ride into town as the warm salt spray gets blown off the tops of every wake and ripple. The wind is important to my story because these 10 sport boats are coming toward me and in every case the full main is inside out and they are driving to weather on the small jib alone, and they are moving quickly toward an open area in the harbour. Behind them is a wonderfully kitted out committee boat, and behind that 2 large centre console ribs as mark boats, 2 more umpire boats, and several more coach boats, and I think, this could be fun to watch.

Now remember that I am waiting for the crew to be ready to town so I only have about 35 or 40 minutes to watch but it is marvelous. The race boats were pairing off for heats of match racing and these folks are well schooled because there was a start every 10 minutes and the maneuvering was fast, aggressive, and purposeful. And did I mention that it was windy?

So we did eventually pick our way across the harbour. There are all shapes and sizes in Port Moselle and our path took us across what I will call the ‘local’ section. It reminds me that all harbours seem to have an area that we might call the ‘Last Stop’. In this situation I am always reminded of trying to find our way into the marina after a Transpac race. We were watching for markers and noticed what we thought was a stick marking the channel entrance. As we got closer we realized that it was the top section of a mast. That boat had sunk at its anchor and all that was showing above the water was the top 2 or 3 metres of the mast.

But in New Caledonia it isn’t the boats that are not used that catch your eye -- we see those everywhere. It is the boats that ARE used. People are on the water everywhere. They sail. They windsurf. They kiteboard. And judging by the outstanding fish market, it seems they fish too!

Our walk to the pizza joint at Baie du Citron takes about 30 minutes and winds across two beaches. These are remarkably different because one is in the lee and one is in the wind. The leeward beach is just another beautiful south pacific beach. Azure blue water, sunny, warm, families playing in the water, kids swimming, parents reading – the stuff of life. But the walk also takes us across a short isthmus to the windy side. This is a short walk, maybe 250 metres but it is worlds apart. The first thing we noticed on the windy side was kid’s water toys being blown along the beach like missiles. I tried to catch the first one, but even though they look like simple styrofoam toys they are actually highly sophisticated stealth devices designed to alter course sharply if a human gets within 2 or 3 metres. Clever.

But the beach is orderly too. There are the windsurfers. Maybe a hundred or so, and they are fast. Very fast. I have seen Jason Thompson wind-surfing at Wanasing beach -- but with the greatest respect -- this is a new level. Unbelievably fast.

In another corner of the baie are the kitesurfers. And they are good too. Skitting along and then off a wave and 10 metres into the air – for 10 or 15 seconds. And just beyond is a small island where there are 20 or 30 more boats all picnicking and enjoying a spring day.

I live on a boat and I am thinking that I have not even scratched the surface!

Later in the day, back in the hood, I am reflecting on how all these boats came to be here in Port Moselle. In our little area there are a couple of dozen boats that are heading into the final stages of the Island Cruising Association Rally that started for them in NZ in April or May. They have all sailed together from NZ to Tonga to Fiji to Vanuatu and now to New Caledonia. Fun.

Over these next two weeks everyone will sail back down to NZ to avoid the summer cyclone season which is approaching over the next month or two. Maybe, if they are smart, they will do the same thing again next year. I know that I am thinking “how can I work that into my plan”

We are part of a different group about to start making our way to Australia. The next leg of our journey is as part of the Down Under Rally which will see us heading to New South Wales.

Next week we have the arrival of crack crewman Kent Locke from Nanaimo to round out our roster and then we will start watching the weather for a chance to make our own 1,000 km. crossing to Australia.

Looking forward to it mate!