As the sun rose on a beautiful clear morning we were approaching the Havannah Passage through the reef fringing Grande Terre. We had tide and wind with us and flew in over the bar at 10 knots. What a ride and I'd hate try it against the current.
Our first impressions of New Caledonia in the morning light was wow, beautiful. It's a rugged coastline, soil as red as Australia and tres growing down to the shoreline. What takes a while to realise is that we'd come through the pass and still had over 40 miles to travel through a maze of islands and reefs to reach the only port of entry in New Caledonia, Noumea. It was a sunny Saturday afternoon and lots of llocal boats out sailing for the day or anchored in the lee of a pretty island. Quite the opposite to Fiji and Vanuatu our electronic charts are accurate and all the buoys and leading lights are in place and working. This makes a big difference to ones level of comfort.
Our timing couldn't have been better because this evening France played Wales in the semi finals of the rugby world cup and there was sure to be someone showing the game. Sure enough the yacht club had a big screen and two televisions set up. Here we met up with our friends from the Islands Cruising Association rally; a mix of NZ, Australian and British boats, many whom we'd met before, and delightfully, Cindy and Glen from Mystery Ship. We'd last seen Geln and Cindy briefly in Luganville so this was a treat. They introduced us to their dock neighbours, Norbert and Sharon from Australian flagged Cadeau, another big passage maker boat. A fun night which would have been even more fun if Wales had won.
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