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Firefly - New Caledonia



Captain Cook and his crew, aboard HMS Resolution, anchored off the north east coast of the largest Island, Grand Terre, on September 4th 1774 and spent 10 days exploring, receiving a friendly welcome. He named it New Caledonia as it reminded him of the Highlands of Scotland (incidentally called Caledonia by the Romans). It certainly does look like Scotland and we are really enjoying our first few days here, the views while sailing around the south eastern tip of Grand Terre have been stunning.

It was never part of the British Empire and in 1853 Napoleon ordered the annexation, renamed it Nouvelle Caledonie and it remains French. The original Melanesian settlers, the Kanaks, have been fighting hard for independence for a long time and are making progress, although having significant nickel reserves clearly influences what is happening.

There is a lot of nickel mining and this has apparently led to considerable environmental problems principally with toxicity. Interestingly in 2008 the lagoon, which is in fact the largest enclosed lagoon in the world became a UNESCO World Heritage Site. The combination of nickel mining and becoming a World Heritage Site has led to difficulties but progress is being made and from what we have seen so far in terms of marine conservation, as identified on our electronic charts and our pilot information, things looks encouraging.

We are on our way to the capital, Noumea, the only place we can check in with Customs and Immigration. Its Sunday the 19th October and we will go into the marina at Port Moselle on Monday morning to do so and also to restock the boat with food and drink - for the first time on the trip we are getting short of provisions. We are not allowed to bring in any eggs, vegetables, fruit or meat due to bio security rules and knowing therefore we would need to go shopping on arrival we did not stock up with much when we left Vanuatu.

Today the weather is glorious and we are sailing down inside the lagoon, in flat water, 15 knots of breeze on the port quarter (so broad reaching) and are really trucking along. We are now at about 23 degrees south and its certainly a bit cooler that it was in Vanuatu and the afternoon downpours have stopped. Yesterday we anchored off the beach at Bonne Anse, and from there we went snorkeling on the Prony Reef. The water was much chillier than we have been used to. The marine life was fantastic and the coral in perfect condition - primarily blue in colour which we have not seen before elsewhere in the Pacific. We came across one beautiful fish in particular, about 75 centimeters long that we later identified as a 'Scribbled Filefish'.

We will stay in New Caledonia for a few weeks and here we join the first 'ARC New Zealand' to get us to Opua, New Zealand. Its a Rally, organised by World Cruising and we will sail in company with the other 8 or 9 boats who like us have dropped off the World ARC for 12 months - which we rejoin next July in Fiji. Gareth Jones is joining us for the trip to New Zealand and we are looking forward to having another experienced sailor on board. Our depart date for New Zealand is planned to be about 5th November but its often a difficult passage so picking a good weather window is important therefore we may leave a few days either side.

Paul and Susie

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