Aradonna's blog

It has taken us a few hops to get back from the Saint Vincent Baie area. Each morning we took advantage of the calm winds from 6am to 9am to make another hop before the winds came up and now we are back in civilisation! This bay is ideal as it is only a short walk to the supermaket and it has a nice sandy beach. Today, after restocking supplies at the supermarket, we went back to shore and did some repairs on our dinghy. While the glue set we snorkeled in the bay amongst pretty corals and then lay on the beach soaking up the atmosphere. Many families were having a day at the beach today, playing beach rugby and generally having fun.
Next to us in the bay are friends we met in Vanuatu on Darramy and some other friends we sailed with last season, on Vegas. Great to catch up! The weather forecast is for strong winds for the rest of the week, but at least we have had sunny blue skies each day and it is very pleasant once sheltered from the wind. On the beach today it was just beautiful. The kite surfers and wind surfers further out of the bay are having a ball and it is quite a sight seeing whole flocks of kite surfers flying through the air!

Our visit to the Aquarium the other day was well worth the trip and the entrance fee (about NZ$15 each). This is the first aquarium we have seen where there are live coral reefs and all the typical reef fish you would expect to see in real life. We saw staghorns, parrotfish, lionfish, butterflyfish, chromis, aenenome fish, triggerfish and many more, swimming amongst a pretty selection of corals such as lettuce leaf, blue staghorn, plate corals and soft corals. The huge tanks were amazing and watching the coral and the fish was exactly like we see it when we are diving. There were also tanks with larger fish, giant trevalley, sharks, bump heads, large batfish, sweetlips, unicorn fish and blue tangs. Wonderful to see these large species up close. There was also a turtle tank, although these poor creatures had no seagrass or any other natural features in their tank. Many other smaller tanks completed the trip, with too many displays to list here, most of them very well done. Well worth a visit if you are in New Caledonia.
Our autopilot has been giving us plenty of headaches and many of you will be sick of hearing about this recalcitrant crew member. Well, we have good news! The French technician came back to do some more diagnosis on this intermittent issue and discovered that the drive (the little motor that drives the unit)was shot. It was only connecting in the right places every now and then, which is why we kept having on and off issues! We now have a new drive installed and have been putting it through the paces over the last few days. All is working perfectly. We have tried it motoring and sailing, in calm conditions and in high winds. We have tried it for a few hours at a time and it has not missed a beat. So hopefully this is the last you will hear about it! After we waved farewell to our friends Graeme and Sue on Saturday we headed out to explore a few new anchorages. Our stops have been to the north west of Noumea this time, including Baie Maa and the many little bays and islands inside Baie de Saint Vincent. This area is dry and brown. The creamy coloured clay hills are barely covered in pale tussock grass and a few scruffy pale bushes. There are no coconut palms or pine trees here and no greenery. It looks like whatever grows here is struggling to survive. A complete contrast to the lush green slopes inside Baie de Prony to the south of Noumea. We decided to leave this area today as it is completely uninteresting - sandy bottom, clay hills, no coral and nobody lives here - remarkabley unremarkable. But the weather had a different plan! The local weather forecast from the French weather model was for light winds, about 12-14 knots SE. This would have been ideal for the trip south towards the pretty southern lagoon area. In reality, after a calm start to the day, by 11am the wind came up, and continued to rise, up, and up. We headed back into shelter as the wind gusts topped 40 knots! So here we sit, in the sunshine, listening to the wind howl by. But we cannot complain - it is 26 degrees with beautiful blue sky.

The southern lagoon area of New Caledonia is really a boaties paradise. Together with Graeme and Sue we have explored many bays and little islands. In Baie de Prony we tucked right up in the far reaches at the head of the bay and went by dinghy up the little stream to the tepid baths. A pretty area with a small waterfall/cascade. In the middle of Baie de Prony, we anchored at Isle de Casy and walked right around this island. Beautiful beaches, free camping amongst the trees, nice snorkeling on the reef. A superb area and well used by the locals who come to camp here at the weekends.
After being inside Baie de Prony for a few days we headed out into the southern lagoon, down to Amedee Island. This has the tallest lighthouse in New Caledonia, a stunning white sand beach and a coral garden to explore by snorkel. We walked around this island and had a swim. Sue decided to swim out to a smaller lighthouse just offshore and Karl helped her up onto the steps before he saw the sign saying this was strictly forbidden! Another day we anchored in Baie de Citron and enjoyed walking along the waterfront amonst the cafes and restaurants, sitting for a while to enjoy and ice cream. The area is a little like Townsville with a lovely long sandy beach and plenty of people swimming. Last week we thought we had solved our autopilot problems, alas this machine does not want to keep working! We had the technician back on board to fix it again on Wednesday evening, and again it started working. Fantastic - but wait - we had to do a sea trial.
Yesterday was a fine sunny day, no wind and flat calm sea, so we decided the sea trial for Mr Autopilot would be a trip to Isle de Maitre. This time it took 25 minutes before Mr Autopilot stopped working again. Bugger! But the day was spectacular so we carried on to Isle de Maitre. On the way, Heather saw a huge splash in the water about 100m away. We watched and we saw a large whale surface, basking in the sun. We approached very slowly and got fairly close to watch. Beside the huge whale was a baby. So wonderful to see these magnificent creatures up close. As we watched, the mother whale did a dive, lifting her tail high in the air as she plunged below the surface. The next thing, baby whale leaped right out of the water, way up high, and came crashing down with a massive splash! Later, they surfaced again to bask in the sun. We followed them to the next spot and Karl decided to jump over the side to swim with them. As he swam towards them they slowly plunged deeper, out of reach. Onwards to Isle de Maitre and we had a fabulous day in the sun, swimming with turtles, watching all manner of fish swim around the boat in the clear blue water. The snorkeling was lovely and we had a very relaxing day before heading back to the marina last night.
As I write this, the technician is on board, trying to figure out the autopilot, he now thinks it is the motor, so watch this space and see what happens - hopefully we can resolve it before our journey back to NZ.
Today is our last day with friends Graeme and Sue as they fly back to NZ tomorrow morning. We have had a wonderful week together, loads of laughter and good fun. Today we will explore things on land together, perhaps a visit to the aquarium!

It is hard to believe we have been back for one week now. Day one was spent catching up on sleep after our travels from Tokyo and meeting Nettie for lunch. On Monday we reported our stolen outboard motor to the Police but we are not holding our breath that it will be found. We also picked up our replacement piece of rigging that had arrived while we were away. The Post Office did not want to release it to us unless we engaged the services of a customs clearing agent. So we asked the man at the Post Office (which is also the Customs office) where we had to go to find a customs clearing agent. He did not know! After some time he found a telephone number for us, but he could not ring it because the Government phone lines can only ring landlines and he only had a mobile ph number for the agent. We tried calling the number he gave us but it was not a valid number. What to do? The man refused to give us the rigging because he said they had strict procedures to follow and we must have the clearance form from a customs agent. After much discussion and a second visit later in the day, we talked to the boss and explained that this part was requir ed to stop our mast from falling off and it would be a serious safety issue if we could not repair the boat before we set sail to New Caledonia. We showed him a photo of our broken rigging. The boss did not know where to send us to get the part cleared through customs either! At last, he decided to ignore official procedures and let us have the rigging. But he made us promise that next time we would need to follow procedures. Phew! We are pleased to report that this new stay has now been installed and all is fine with the rigging now.
During the week we discovered another issue - the fridge/freezer was no longer working! We had left it empty of course while we were away so it had not been used for 5 weeks and now it refused to get cold. Thursday and Friday we had visits from the local refrigeration people, who thankfully fixed the leak and filled the system up with new oil and new gas - all working well again now. We were pleased that we had purchased our new electric fridge freezer in NZ which came in very handy as a back up while the main system was down.
It has been a rather social week. We returned to Paradise Cove resort, 3 months after our wedding there, and were welcomed like long lost family. Hugs all around from the staff and owners of the resort. We had a delicious lunch and a bottle of wine overlooking Aradonna in the bay - just beautiful and such a romantic setting. Back in Port Vila there are several boats here waiting to sail to New Caledonia and we have been chatting to a few of them with promises to catch up again in New Cal. Had drinks on board Dagon with Tom and Fran, who have recently come from sailing around Japan and also know Karl and Netties Dutch friends who live there. A small world! But it seems Aradonna is still protesting about us being away and leaving her alone for 5 weeks. Now we have autopilot issues again. Different symptoms than previous times and this one is still a mystery to us. If we cannot find the solution in the next few days we may have to hand steer to New Caledonia and see if we can find someone to fix it over there.
Meanwhile, Vanuatu is having problems of it's own. The Government here is quite unstable, we have seen 3 changes of Government since we arrived in May as they keep having votes of 'no confidence' and throwing out the incumbent. Now, 16 members of parliament have been charged with bribery. One of them, the Finance Minister plead guilty! Then he changed his plea the next day to not guilty. All 16 ministers are still in their jobs and refuse to stand down until the outcome of the trial is known, which could take months - this is amazing. Procedings started on Thursday with one minister announcing that he had no idea it was illegal to accept money in return for doing certain favours... Meanwhile they are still earning full salary and still making decisions for the running of the country. It really is a different world here.