We are in New Caledonia

Just wanted to let you know we arrived safe and sound - but with a bit of excitement. We got in to the teeny-tiny marina on one of the outlying Loyalty Islands. We hoisted the french flag and the quarantine flag but neither the marina, nor harbour control answered our many calls to them. Finally, we decided to just go in the marina and then try to track them down once there. We got ourselves in there, but there was no room at the inn - instead we were greeting by a French official who waved us off and told us to "get out". For those of you who know Peter's unfair bias against the French, this did't help him to feel any differently.

It was already 2:00 in the afternoon and we didn't have many options. The sail to the next anchorage was 70 miles away which would put us there in the dark - but of more concern was that the wind had built up to about 18 knots against us and we were pretty tired from 2 nights of little sleep. We opted to anchor instead, even though this outer bay is not considered an anchorage. The fact that the weather was against us for continuing, was in our favour for this harbour. It is not recognized as an anchorage as the prevailing winds are from the south which would make this open roadstead untenable. Since the wind was coming from the west however, we were able to anchor in 40 metres,. The southern swells were rolling in all night, but we are lucky that we cam sleep sideways in the beautiful Princess cabin that Peter designed just for me.

The weather is forecasted to be West again for at least 2 or 3 days, which means we won't be going anywhere - unless we get kicked out of the country for not following protocol and checking in yesterday. Once we get organized, Peter will take the dinghy in and find out about checking in and requesting an extension for us to make it to the official check in port (Noumea) which is 270 miles away. Usually you are allowed 7 days to get there, but with the weather conditions, we may need longer, so we can also stop at a few points along the way. We have to carefully time entering in to Havannah Pass which had a current of about 4 knots, so we need to hit it at slack tide.

This looks like an interesting little island to explore, so we look forward to a few days here. I'll update the blog again a week Friday.