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19 November 2012

Wednesday 14 November Eclipse and Aquarium Part II

Four lenses and sunglasses

Shot through 4 lenses
When I opened the curtains this morning the light seemed strange. Go on deck to check for rain clouds and when I see the chap on the next boat with his camera pointed at the sun it clicked what was happening – a partial eclipse of the sun. The last one we saw was July 2010 when we were in Bora Bora. Strange how you remember these things. I also remember it coincided with the football world cup final between Spain and Holland. Lucky too to remember to use multiple thicknesses of sunglass lenses to view the partial occlusion.
Apart from the eclipse this morning another week drifted by at Ilot Maitre with clean water to swim in, boat cleaning ahead of our passage to Australia. I've heard the Customs and Quarantine people open every cupboard in their hunt for bugs and pests. Like cleaning your house before you go on holiday, in case you get burgled you don't want the burglar to think you're lazy with housework, I don't want Australian customs to tut at our housekeeping! Horrors that they should find a pest or ball of fluff under a cupboard!

leopard shark

seahorses
Angler or frog fish

juvenile leopard

lionfish

reef shark
We took our cleaner boat back to Noumea this morning to visit the aquarium for a second time after we found it closed last week. Again the Yacht Club were generous to offer safe dock for our dinghy while we walked over the headland to the next bay. It's under a mile and along the seafront so a pleasant stroll watching the people on the beach. This time it was open and we were mostly on our own. More people arrived for the regular 1 o'clock feeding. This is the bit we like when the keeper (?) feeds the fish in each of the tanks. It's only a small place and all indoors but the quality and presentation tanks are very well done. This may be the only place to have a Nautilus tank. It's kept in the dark so no photos.
It was another very windy evening in the anchorage; fortunately the holding is very good.

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