So this will have to be a quick one as I have very limited time before we get going. Tomorrow morning we leave Noumea and New Caledonia for the last time as we head to the isolated and uninhabited Chesterfield Reefs for a few days and then on to the Louisiade Archipelago in Papua New Guinea.
The last week in Noumea has been great and it has made a better impression on me than the first time I visited. It was good to catch up with Spike and Gorgan (a french guy crewing here) again and the first night I got back we had a few 'welcome back' drinks before heading out to a yummy Thai restaurant in town where I consumed far too much wine but thankfully I still remember the food was delicious!! The weather is warming up here and is consistently over 25degrees during the day and most mornings have been bright and sunny.
Steffie and I have busied ourselves with stocking up for the next five weeks and the boat is very very full. I am still trying to think where to put the last six cartons of milk and the long life hot dog buns as we speak! It has taken us two full days to get all the shopping and then store it away.
The day after we arrived I spent about six hours cleaning the boat which was surprisingly a pleasant task. I just popped my Ipod on and grooved around outside with the hose first and then the brush and finally polished the stainless steel. The kids have their friends here still so most of the time they are all playing and I have no real kiddy duties at the moment. That night though they all played spotlight on the grass near the marina and came home and jumped all over the deck! I was like NOOOOOOOO my beautiful shiny boat! But its a kids boat really and she looks beautiful dirty or not so it didnt worry me too much :)
On the weekend Spike and I joined a few others at Jean Marie's house (the yacht agent here)for a French and Swedish dinner. Sooooo fantastic - the food was amazing and the company good. Jean Louis urged Jean Marie to bring out the schnapps towards the end of the night so he opened a special bottle of his grandmothers schnapps which was made in 1950 and nearly pure alcohol. We all had a little sip before Jean Louis showed us how to boil the alcohol then light the top, hold your palm over it to create a vacuum and then pop it off and shot the schnapps. I was the only girl to join the boys and try it and I woke up in the morning with a circular ring burn on my palm! Just another memory to file away!
On Sunday we went to the Meridien to relax and you can hire a deckchair so I had a day away from the boat and we spent the afternoon lazing on the beach and by the pool and watched the sun go down as the kitesurfers went crazy out on the water. New Caledonia is the best place to kitesurf in the world apparently and it makes for some pretty speccy watching.
So that has been my week in Noumea - busy but great and I will be sad to leave New Caledonia and the South Pacific and some of the people I have met here. However new horizons await and I cant wait to get into the third world part of my trip and also revisit the Louisiades and see if much has changed since I went there as a young girl 11 years ago.
I probably wont have internet access again till Port Moresby which will be about a month so Ill apologise now for staying out of touch! Thankyou to everyone who has posted comments on the site or the photos. It is very much appreciated and I only wish I had time to send my news and love to all of you individually. Still I dont so big hugs to everyone - enjoy the last of Tassie winter and take care xxxxxx
