Beautiful creatures

“Manta Rays!!” shouted Lyn, “manta rays, manta rays, manta rays!” Those who know her well will probably know that Lyn is obsessed with these beautiful creatures and that swimming with them has always been her dream. Our lucky charm, my mom Joliette was with us and it was fitting that we have this rare and amazing encounter with her aboard. Grabbing her snorkelling gear, Lyn dived straight off the boat and when she came across these 6 mantas, lazily milling about her in circles, we could hear the squeals of excitement all the way through her snorkel. I hurriedly explained to my mom how to put the boat into gear and steer towards us if JoliFou drifted too far away (the wind was very light) before abandoning her alone and adrift on the boat and also diving in.

On Wednesday the 5^th of October we motored from Isle of Pines to the Noumea area in flat calm and very light wind.

Lagoon islands

Contrasts

Land ahoy

Sun-baking beauty

No horizon

Kiwi kiters and drinkers

After stocking up in Noumea and seeing another Allures 44 (“Finistere”) we arrived at Maitre, hooked up with our Kiwi kiting friends and began a prolonged period of over 3 weeks of repetitive fun behaviour.

Flying Rob

Warwick going for the back loop

Warwick takes to the air

Carolyn in typical graceful flight

Warwick and Rob

Most days went something like this: Lazy morning waiting for the wind to increase, over to the island with kiting gear and kite for most of the day (with the odd rest break of course),

Warwick, Lanie, Lyn, Zoe

Not even crowded yet

sundowners on one of the boats usually carried on way past dinner time.

Clockwise from left: Rob, Warwick, Bruce, Charlie, John, Zoe, Pip, Caroline, Lanie

A particularly tough routine, hard on the body and hard on the liver too (these Kiwis can drink)! The main culprits operating under the black flag were: “Fusio” (Warwick and Lanie), “Shenanigans” (Rob and Carolyn), “Moonfish” (Mike and Sasha), “Sharpe Focus” (John and Pip) and “Bravado” (Al and Shirl). Representing the UK were “the kids”, Charlie and Zoe from “Velindra”.

Elliot 1: Fusio

Elliot 2: Bravado

Elliot 3: Sharpe Focus

A new kiter is born

The repeated days of good kiting conditions and an abundance of advice and coaching saw Lyn make huge jumps up the learning curve.

Up and riding!

Elephant legs

She progressed to being totally confident with the kite, getting up and going on the board and staying upwind. Each day was a massive improvement matching the huge grin on her face as she gained confidence in her new favourite sport. I crashed and burned many times before finally managing to pull off the elusive “back roll”, a trick where you jump and rotate backward through upside-down before landing and continuing on.

Lift off

Back roll

It feels wonderful when you get it right, and painful when you don’t!

Tepava dive

Our friends James and Flo Godfrey (and Alex and Eva) were in Noumea for a week and came out to join us on JoliFou for the weekend of the 8^th and 9^th of October. James is a super-keen scuba diver and we wanted to take him for a dive, so with calm conditions on Sunday morning we decided to check out a dive spot called Tepava on the outside of the Maitre island reef. Our friends from Shenanigans and Fusio joined us and we took the three dinghies out around the reef in search of the spot. As it turns out it was easy to find as there were a couple of moorings there. To be honest we had low expectations of a dive so close to Noumea in a relatively tame spot, but it was actually quite spectacular in terms of fish as we swam among huge schools of barracuda and Giant Trevally.

Turtle

Lyn and Bruce

Surrounded by barracuda

Beautiful barracuda

Later Lyn and Flo had an excellent snorkel with the tame turtles close to the beach at the kiting spot.

Tame turtle

Touching turtles

Barracuda

One morning Lyn spotted a large fish swimming close to the boat. She jumped in to have a look and it turned out to be the huge resident barracuda. He was really tame as we followed him around for ages, joined by Zane from “Libertalia” and James and Rebecca from “Quick Star”.

Following the big barracuda

Barry

Dumbea surf

On Friday the 14^th there was a surfing swell and we headed out to Dumbea pass where we anchored off the reef and I had an excellent surf at the 3 to 4 foot left hander.

Me paddling

Not me

A familiar yellow sea plane came flying over with Guy waving from the cockpit, and landed to say hi to Lyn before continuing his flight.

Guy Kane, the flying vet

Afterwards we motored across to the right-hander on the other side of the pass where Lyn took some great photos of Mike and Sasha (“Moonfish”) having an epic SUP surfing session.

Sasha going for it

Mike, very smooth

Evil Sasha

Mike off the lip

More Allures

On a quick stock-up trip into Noumea on Tuesday the 18^th we were amazed to see yet another Allures 44 “Pegasse 3” as we had now seen two in short succession after only seeing one other in the past 3 years. We met the owners, a charmingly eccentric older French couple (Dominique and Mariel) and we had a good look around each other’s boats.

Allures 44, Pegasse 3

Allures 44, Finistere

Death loop

On Thursday there was a good wind blowing when we had a very frightening experience. Lanie was kiting far out towards the light-house as she often did. Warwick and I were sitting on the beach having a break when Warwick said: “that doesn’t look good!” At first I didn’t know what he was talking about as I just saw Lanie standing with her kite in normal crash position in the water, but then the kite started looping in what kiters call the “death loop”. This can happen when a line gets hooked around the bar, causing the kite to continually spin in one direction, generating power as it spins in the power zone and dragging the kiter at rapid speed across the water. This was what was happening to Lanie as she was rag-dolled at incredible speed towards a sand spit and sharp dead tree at the end of the beach!

Warwick and I began sprinting down the beach, but it looked like she would beat us there. Fortunately when the kite hit the sand it paused it’s looping for a few seconds and I was able to grab it. I was hugely relieved to see Lanie moving and shakily standing up as Warwick assisted her. She is such a brave woman, not even a tear as she recounted that she had thought her time was up.

Lanie when not death looping

Special guest

On Friday the 21^st October we anchored at Citroen bay to pick up a hire car and excitedly drove to the airport to pick up my mom. So lovely to see her again and be able to show her some of the beauty of this place. We had hoped that Lyn’s parents Keith and Merle would also be joining us but in the end it proved too difficult to get them visas on their SA passports.

Rugby night

On Saturday after a great kiting session the black flaggers (and JoliFou) anchored over in Citroen Bay in order to watch the All Blacks take on the Wallabies at La Fieste restaurant. The south easterly wind was blowing 35 knots but it was very good shelter at the eastern side of the bay. In order to try to balance the overwhelming blackness of the audience, Lyn pulled out some large bright gold “Savage Bee” skiff shirts for the three of us, but besides the Wallabies playing really well the All Blacks prevailed (again). Was great to also see Pete and Ness (“Akimbo”) there as well as Santiago (“Narida”) from the Pittwater.

Manta Ray Monday

Monday the 24^th October heralded a pause to the perfect kiting trade winds, so on a flat calm glassy sea we motored out to the Amedee Island area. We motored around on JoliFou exploring the Boulari pass, checking out dive and surf spots. We were motoring down the Western side of the pass when Lyn spotted the Manta rays. We swam with them for ages, as they circled lazily around, moving quite slowly so we were able to stay with them easily. They were completely unperturbed by our presence, allowing us to get really close and even touch them. Lyn swam back to the boat to fetch the camera whilst I tracked the rays and we got some excellent photos of them.

Manta dance

Coming right at Lyn

Formation flying

Touching

Captain Joliette

We were so engrossed in the experience with these beautiful creatures that we didn’t notice that JoliFou had drifted quite a long way away into the deep water of the pass, with only my mom on board. I started swimming toward the boat and, not fancying a swim across the deep water with possible shark attention, beckoned to my mom to come closer. Soon enough JoliFou was headed at me, weaving a drunken path as my mom, totally unfamiliar with steering a boat was trying to get to grips with it and I grew increasingly worried about my irresponsibility in putting her in this situation. As she got closer I had visions of being run over and yelled for her to put it into neutral, which she duly did, and I managed to intercept the still-moving boat and scramble onto the sugar scoop with much relief! Well done mom!

We spent the night on a mooring at Amedee Island, watching huge turtles, feeding the remora fish meatballs and being entertained by a persistent seagull whom we dubbed Jonathan Livingstone as he was happy to boldly sit on the boat when others were too scared.

Amedee Island

Amedee sunrise

Next morning we tried in vain to find the Mantas again before motoring along the inside of the reef towards Dumbea pass to check out the surf. The unusual westerly wind had made the surf messy, but I jumped off for a quick surf at the left whilst Lyn and my mom motored around on JoliFou. It was a bit scary and sharky feeling surfing on my own in those conditions, but always good to get wet and a bit of exercise. We spent the night at Legionnaire island, hooking up for drinks on Fusio who now had Rob and Carolyn aboard for a few days as their boat had left for NZ with a delivery crew.

Kiting again

On the morning of Wednesday 26^th October the trade winds had returned, messing up the surf, so it was back to Maitre for kiting for a few days with a depleted group now, just Fusio and us. A fun farewell dinner was had at a restaurant at Citroen Bay, sadly farewelling Rob and Carolyn with the “Fusio” and “Sharpe Focus” crews.

Launching

Beautiful rig

Lyn and Bruce in formation

Au revoir Mom

On Sunday we hired a car to drop Mom off at the airport. On the way we drove up the lookout hill over Anse Vata beach and enjoyed the stunning 360 degree views.

Mom and I

Then it was with much regret and a tear in the eye that we said goodbye to Mom at the airport, consoling ourselves with a lovely romantic dinner at La Fieste in Citroen Bay.

Looking South

Maitre

Anse Vata

Paraglider