Into the unknown …

It’s fantastic discovering new beautiful things when on a cruising adventure and it’s also wonderful meeting new like-minded friends. Showing these friends the places you have discovered and enjoying them all over again through their eyes is one of the nicest things you can do, so when our friends Lanie and Warwick from the beautiful Elliot 46 “Fusio” decided to join us on a final adventure trip before their departure home we knew it would be a lot of fun.

Where are you mantas?

By Wednesday the 2^nd November the trade winds had died, predicted to be light wind for some time, so we headed out to the Amedee Island pass area for another manta ray search. We anchored at a lovely sandy spot inside the reef and went for a paddle over the reef on the SUPs.

Lyn floating in a stunning setting

“Fusio” joined us with their new crew member Grant Hugget (Hug) and we all set off for a snorkel to see if we could find Manta Rays. No such luck, but we did see a few sharks, turtles and some beautiful eagle rays.

Shark!

Hug was stoked as it was his first time snorkelling off a boat in such a remote location: “how lucky you are to be able to do this kind of thing!” With a forecast of light winds, after a typically fun sun-downer drinks session on Fusio, we decided to remain anchored there for the night, rather than going to the better shelter of the Amedee moorings.

Corvettes surf

It was beautiful to wake up in the morning at this stunning place out at the reef. I noticed a couple of little boats across the pass at a right-hander called “Corvettes” and we took the dinghy across to check it out. I went for a surf whilst Lyn took photos from the dinghy. It was beautiful conditions with a 3 to 4 foot wave size. The break has a pitchy hollow take-off and my little 5’4” “baked potato” board was not appropriate, so I entertained Lyn and the Fusio crew with plenty of spectacular nose-dives and wipe-outs.

Bruce’s best trick, the Jesus walk

Race 1

With the wind building from the West, we sailed to Ua Island along the inside of the outer reef, checking surf spots on the way. With “Fusio” in close company it soon became a race. In the light downwind conditions Jolifou had a slight speed advantage with board up, bigger mainsail and long spinnaker pole. Fusio took advantage of JoliFou being distracted by a surf break to take the lead, and it was a very close decision at the finish.

Reeling them in as we approach Ua Island

Overtaking

Overtaken?

As we arrived the wind switched to the South East as forecast, which was great timing as the anchorage is well protected from this direction. We all enjoyed watching the flocking sea birds whilst drinking sundowners on JoliFou.

Flocking birds at sunset, Ua Island

Fusio with flocking birds

Race 2

Next day Fusio was clearly the faster at the tight angles of the 15 Knots East/South East wind as we sailed towards Gadji on the Isle of Pines. Being unfamiliar with this route through the Southern lagoon reefs, Fusio was forced to throttle back the sail plan in order to stay behind the relatively pedestrian JoliFou.

Catching us despite reefs

Bruce looking worried, trying to speed up

Intimidating Kiwis catch-up stares

The cool boys?

On arrival we lead Fusio in through the tricky shallow reef entry to Gadji outer anchorage, and both anchored there. On snorkelling to check anchor it was holding on firmly but only by the tip in a tiny hole in the coral slate (we would move to the secure inner anchorage the next day). Drinks and cards on Fusio was a hilarious affair as usual.

Garden of Eden

Lyn preparing the dive gear, Gadji inner anchorage

We were stoked to have scuba diving friends with us in this place with some amazing dive spots, so next day the JoliFou dive tour began. We set off in both dinghies for a site called the “Garden of Eden” which we have dived many times before. Huggie was our willing and most able support boat boy, a pleasure having the security of this when diving a current affected reef pass. We saw quite a few reef sharks including a group of 5 grey reef sharks, a big moray eel, and stunning schools of fish in a very pretty shallower end section that we had missed on previous dives.

Over the drop-off at the start of Garden of Eden

A cute white tip

Some of the beautiful terrain of the Garden of Eden dive site

Bruce hiding from the shark?

Caves of Gadji?

Ever since our trip here last year, we have wanted to check out a dive site called the “Caves of Gadji”. This year we were determined to find it, but our information on the location basically consisted of a dot on a rough mud-map of the area, a confusing old French dive guide description, and a conflicting more recent report from a cruising friend of ours. On Sunday morning after filling the tanks we started a dive near the dive guide location and looked for the caves entrance. It was nowhere to be found and it didn’t appear to be cave-like terrain, not very interesting except for seeing a couple of beautiful eagle rays. It got much prettier and more cave-like further along as we swam northward. We found and explored some cool tunnels but they didn’t open up to caves.

Beautiful pristine coral

After re-filling the tanks during lunch back at the anchorage we set off again in the early afternoon to try further north at the location our friend had told us of. Huggie had to placate an angry local fisherman on a speedboat, buzzing around above us and yelling: “no fish no touch”! We moved southward along the dropoff and discovered awesome swim-throughs and caves. We are still not sure it’s the official “Caves” dive but it is one of the best dive sites we have discovered to date.

Huggie the best boat boy returning the divers

Cool Runnings reunion

On the way back to the boat in the dinghy we saw our friends Dave and Gudrun Hibberd (and Ben and Gabby) arriving on their Lagoon 400 catamaran “Cool Runnings”. Dave and I were fierce competitors in the Laser dinghy in South Africa over 20 years ago, and we later became good friends and were teammates in the South African Olympic Sailing Team at the ’96 Olympics (Dave in Laser, me in the Soling class). We all emigrated over the next few years, Dave and Gudrun to the US and us to Aus. We got in touch recently when we heard they were planning on doing a circumnavigation and as fate would have it they arrived in New Caledonia whilst we were there. We shot out to meet them on the dinghy and I got aboard and piloted them our preferred way into the inner anchorage. After filling tanks and sorting out dive gear we headed over for drinks, along with the Fusio crew.

Old friends re-union in paradise

Lovely to catch up with good friends after such a long absence, it always amazes me how quickly one re-acquaints, and it feels like you were never apart.

Oro Gorge

Next morning, Monday 7^th November we left Gadji for Oro, leading Fusio through the reef passes. Cool Runnings decided to remain at Gadji for a while and we would catch up again down the line. It was an interesting sail with the Westerly wind changing to a moderate Easterly half way. Our main goal was to show Warwick and Lanie the beautiful dive site we had discovered here previously, so we headed out on the two dinghies, surviving a bit of an iffy moment getting through the breaking waves on the barrier reef. It was an excellent dive with two fantastic swim throughs, a few good sized sharks, turtles and large fish including a Maori Wrasse. The highlight was a nose to nose encounter with a biggish shark as we exited one of the swim-throughs. The bar opened early on the aft deck of Fusio and the shark’s size grew proportionally to the number of beers as we relived this great dive.

Farewell Fusio

Huggie is concerned about his cabin space

Fusio had already cleared out of the country a few days previously in Noumea and it was time for them to leave for NZ. On Tuesday morning we joined them for coffee and a sad farewell. Our adventures in New Caledonia had been so much the sweeter this year with such great friends as Warwick and Lanie. Sharing our passion for kiting, surfing and scuba diving, positive, funny and easy-going we can’t imagine a nicer crew to share the cruising lifestyle with. The only thing we don’t like about them is that their boat seems to have the legs on us in most wind conditions. We already have plans to meet up again next season with them in Fiji, along with our other Kiwi friends Rob and Carolyn (Shenanigans) and John and Pip (Sharpe Focus).

Warwick, Huggie and Lanie