As I sit here at anchor off Morning Bay wharf, back home in the Pittwater, the weather has turned and grey rainy clouds further dampen my Monday mood as I search online for Job opportunities. Lyn has just returned from an interview, successful we hope. We’ve been back for less than two weeks and yet the care free tropical bliss of New Caledonia seems like a distant dream now. Those days where all that mattered was whether a new swell was coming, which way the wind would blow, and who’s turn it was to host sundowners. Reality has set in and I don’t like it, but there are debts to pay, the piper is here and it’s time to put in to save up for our next adventures.

Late on Wednesday afternoon (18^th November) after a rough and wet trip we arrived in the mellow and peaceful shelter of Magic bay inside the eastern branch of Prony bay. We gratefully picked up a mooring and enjoyed a restful drink and a quiet night.

Next morning it was still raining a bit with a strong south easterly, but forecast to brighten up later. Our main plan was to end up at the waterfall near Carenage bay that we had so enjoyed on our previous visit. On the way we decided to stop in at Casy island for lunch, picking up a mooring just off the wharf on the western side. Our old canine mate Moose, the only resident, was lying curled up at the end of the wharf, oblivious to the rain. After lunch we took the dinghy across and gave him a good feast of tinned tuna and cous cous.

Lonely Moose on a rainy day

Meal time for Moose

Happy on his beach

Rain nor shine

The poor old boy is starting to suffer with age, a bit stiff in the back legs and his sight seems to be suffering as we observed him diving into the water a couple of times targeting a stick that vaguely resembled a fish shape. Much as he is a local legend and may enjoy his island freedom, he definitely craves human company as is evidenced by his tour-guiding of every visitor, showing off and wanting to play. It is probably getting close to time that someone adopted him and took him home with them, if we lived in New Cal we would be sorely tempted.

Looking North from the wharf

Casy wharf

We elected to remain at Casy for the night, giving Moose some breakfast in the morning before hopping down to Carenage bay, where we anchored really close in to the rocks and trees nearby another aluminium boat that looked a bit familiar. Only on our return later did we realise it was David Plumley’s “Pied de Lune”. We launched the paddleboards and paddled up the very pretty Carenage river until a small weir where we knew from the previous time we could pick up the track to the waterfall. The waterfall was just as special a spot as we remembered and we had a lovely swim there, basking on the warm rocks after.

Carenage waterfall

Beautiful swimming ponds at the base of the waterfalls

Barelled at last!

Paddling up the Carenage river

Paddling back to JoliFou later, we saw the name of the other boat and realized it was David and his partner Marilise (whom we had not yet met). It was wonderful to meet Marilise and have a chat with her and David, which unfortunately had to be cut short due to us wanting to start sailing towards Noumea and catch the favourable tide in Woodin channel. It was an excellent downwind sail with poled out jib and 2 reefs, Lyn enjoying hand steering for most of the way.

Boise Island

Lyn surfing waves

We decided to overnight at Maitre Island, arriving just before sunset and picking up a mooring with some difficulty in the strong wind. Our jib had furled badly as the wind was strong and we had done it with pole out, so we had to re-furl it on the mooring which was a bit hectic. Not quite as traumatic as a small local boat that arrived after us and struggled for ages with a flogging half-furled jib. Bruce was about to launch the dinghy to go and help when the German boat next door did the good deed.

Maitre Island sunset

On Saturday the 21^st it was very windy. We remained at Maitre and had a mellow restful day, watching the hordes of local kite surfers. Having a drink on the beach later we met an interesting American family from a gorgeous old wooden boat called “Nirvanah”. Rod had Bruce enraptured with tales of surfing the Tuamotus and Society islands – a must-do for a future trip.

On the Sunday morning we went for a snorkel off the boat. Surprisingly pretty coral and little fish and very tame turtles.

Bruce went for a kite for a while before it became too windy for his 10.5 m kite. This didn’t seem to perturb two middle-aged beginners who asked him for assistance in how to connect the strings to their 10 m kite. Eventually Bruce and another local kiter were able to convince them that it was a really bad idea! On the other end of the scale we were entertained by a muscular guy who is an excellent kiter doing huge jumps in the flat water behind the island, then kiting with a girl on his back and even doing jumps with her attached. Very impressive.

Next morning Bruce donned the scuba gear and cleaned the bottom in preparedness for the passage. Then we sailed over to Noumea and checked in at Port Mosselle to get ready for departure. Bruce did an oil service on the engine whilst Lyn stocked up on food. On Tuesday morning Bruce did the walk to the various officials to complete clearing out for departure the next morning, a fairly painless exercise. On picking up the filled gas tank from Herve and offloading our two old European scuba tanks on him at Noumea Yacht Services we had an interesting chat about shark attacks in New Caledonia. Herve is an ex scuba diver and prolific spear fisherman. On being told about our reservations about swimming at Kouare island (scene of a bull shark attack near the boat in May this year) he explained that this was during a time when there were many sharks around that area because of a dead whale in the Kouare pass area. Also apparently the shark had been chasing a ray and the unfortunate snorkeler had been between them. Herve also recounted that most of the shark attacks had happened due to inadvisable actions by the victims, for example surfing in the river mouth at Bourail in dirty flooding river water with dead cows around. Bruce is now much happier about the shark situation here. In the afternoon we went across to the fuel dock and topped up the diesel and dinghy fuel using the duty free voucher.

On Wednesday the 25th at 9 AM we finally bid au revoir to New Cal. The forecast south easterly had filled in early and we were able to put the mainsail up, unfurl the headsail and switch the motor off whilst still inside the harbour. With 2 reefs in the main and full jib we made excellent progress reaching out to Dumbea pass. There was quite a big swell and Bruce endured a longing to be out there with the kite on the Dumbea lefts surf break – oh well, next time.

Dumbea pass left, great kiting conditions!

The first two days of the trip were excellent sailing with strong east/south-east winds and favourable tide, we quickly passed the 5000 mile landmark (seamark?) on our Navionics plotter but as predicted we then entered a transition zone with light winds and motoring for 2 days before the wind filled in again.

5000 miles since the plotter was installed!

Into the sunset, perfect sailing

We had quite a severe thunderstorm with heavy rain squall from the wrong direction and some quite rough weather from the North with big waves in the last 2 days, the seas were big and confused enough that we took the occasional wave into the cockpit, an unusual occurrence as JoliFou has quite high freeboard. It was interesting though very annoying that we had a lot of unfavourable current in the middle of the trip, probably from the Lord Howe eddy of the Australian East Coast current. This was surprising as we had thought that the trip would have mostly favourable current, but it was only after we crossed the sea mounds closest to the coast that we enjoyed any benefit from the East Coast Current.

Lazy off watch

Foul weather relaxation

Toilet time

Off watch snorer

Just like the trip to New Cal, it was remarkable how little life and ships we saw out there. No sea life except for flying fish and birds until we were greeted by dolphins when close to the Australian coast. Again apart from at the coast we only had 2 ships on AIS and both were so far away we couldn’t see them with the naked eye. We slowed up during the last night to ensure a morning arrival at Coffs, getting there shortly after dawn on Tuesday the 1^st of December and anchoring between the old wharf and the beach until the marina office opened. This actually saved us a fair bit of money as the friendly border control guys later informed us that the rates had been reduced from this day.

Coffs ahoy

Coffs marina from the anchorage

Southerly storm brewing

We were very happy to see that Pete and Ness of Akimbo were still at Coffs, being in the midst of some boat maintenance and improvement tasks, so it was great to catch up with them while we were there. On first walking into the Coffs Marina shopping area I was really struck by how rich Australia is as a country. New Caledonia is pretty advanced and you can certainly get everything you need there, but walking into this area near a small town somewhere on the Australian coast, seeing the numerous brand new cars, multiple restaurants and shops, the contrast was stark.

An unseasonably long period of Southerly breezes kept us in Coffs longer than planned. It is a great place to be stuck tho, and we enjoyed our 6 days there, filling our days with surfing (Lyn is really getting this), some kiting (a frustrating under-powered session) and exploring Coffs. Lyn delighted in finding pretty little perfect stones on the beach which sparked a new passion for creating stone necklaces, so it was off to the hardware stores in search of a diamond tip drill bit. Of course there was the social side, a lot of good times with Akimbo and some new cruising friends including Pete winning the yacht club meat raffle which resulted in a lovely barbecue in the park.

Stormy rocks off Northern breakwater

A proud Lyn’s first stone necklace

From Monday the 7^th December there would be 3 days of good North Easterlies. Much as we wanted to swing by Newcastle on the way, the time of day arrival was too awkward. We also really wanted to arrive home in the Pittwater early in the day, so we decided to do a day trip to Laurieton (Campden Haven) and overnight there. It was a very quick trip with favourable current and a building North Easterly and we arrived at this lovely place in the late afternoon. After the bar entrance which was nice and tame in the small swell we motored up the very pretty river/waterway and tied up to the public jetty outside the welcoming United Servicemen’s Club. What a great place, free docking and amenities at the club. I have never seen so many pelicans as here, there are pelicans everywhere along the river banks and about ten on the small dock.

Approaching the Camden Haven entrance bar

Inside the beautiful waterway

Pretty Pelicans

Pelicans on the dock

The club

Free public dock with amenities

Next morning we left fairly early and headed out into a strong and building North easterly with associated rising seas.

We progressively reefed throughout the day as the wind and waves increased and by night-time we were surfing at over 11 knots under 3 reefs and a half-furled poled out headsail. Fortunately the auto pilot was handling well so we didn’t need to hand steer, but it was a pretty rough night. The wind faded in the early hours of the morning and we eventually had to resort to the motor for the last couple of hours, which was actually quite nice and relaxing.

We snuck around the inside of Barrenjoey headland, grabbed a mooring and both fell fast asleep, getting some rest before our parental welcoming committee with Prince Silus arrived.

There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home.