After a 2-day, passage from Vanuatu, we finally found ourselves at our last stop of the trip, New Caledonia. We were all looking forward to New Cal, as it is pretty well known for good kiting, and with it being a French Territory, we were also pretty keen to get back into the baguette and pastry program.
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| Anchoring just out side of Noumea on our arrival into New Cal, the smiles on our faces were one-part arrival smiles and 2-parts seeing the sun for the first time in over a week smiles. |
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| Noumea sunset, taken from Cowabunga the same day we cleared in to the country. |
We caught up with Jeromy, a New Cal local, on this same afternoon, we met him surfing in Fiji and he was pretty keen to take us around town. After a few drinks he took us to one of his local bars, which just so happened to be having their birthday party; meaning we drank and ate for free for 2 hours. That lead to our first meeting with Le Roof (the French way of saying it sounds like "Le Hooooof"), a place we would somehow manage to come back to 3 more times over our 5 week stay in New Cal.
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| Le Roof |
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| Jeromy and Bucko, not sure what Jeromy is drinking here, but he got us a few rounds of it over the night; it tasted pretty average and Jeromy ended up "resting" in a garden bed for a while about 5 minutes after this was taken. |
After getting our stuff sorted in Noumea (clearing customs, grabbing some food, and figuring out where to go), our first stop was Ilot Maitre, a quick 3nm jump south-west of Noumea. Anchoring on the leeward side of the island gives you views like this of the resort and some nice calm waters filled with Remora's, sharks and Barracuda's to swim with.
Land ashore, and walk 50m to the other side of this skinny island and you will see this, what many would say is kiting paradise. With a water taxi trip taking less than 20 minutes from Noumea and arriving every hour during the day, Ilot Maitre has become kitesurfing's equivalent of surfing's Superbank.
Not being restricted by the water taxi's (they only ran from 9-5), we found ourselves getting out there first thing in the morning and, as you will see, for sunset sessions.
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| Me making the most of the 12m at 830am. |
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| Andy carving |
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| Almost every beach we went to in NC, had a few of these guys hanging around. |
After a few days kiting at Ilot Maitre, we left the crowds and made a run to the southern part of the lagoon (for those who don't know, New Caledonia is surrounded by a huge barrier reef which forms the largest lagoon in the world, this is full of hundreds of islands; where we spent our time!) to the island of Kouare. This island, we found out, is full of birds and nests, they're pretty cool little guys, but if you get within a metre of their nest they will swoop!.
Spending a few nights here, and not being too successful with our trawling , we decided to get the hand lines out and try and catch some dinner.
As you can see, we ate heaps of fish.
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| Never really been a big fisherman, I gave up on the fish and tried to catch the sharks that cut mainy's around the island all day. I may look confident here, but I really had no idea and was quietly shitting myself every time I hooked one. |
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| AB deserves a special mention of gratitude, always patient, mostly safe and sometimes wet. |
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| Giving up on the beach fishing, we jumped in to AB hoping for more. |
Realising that we couldn't fish, we left Kouare and made our way to Ilot Mato, another picturesque island surrounded by some pretty spectacular reefs, and with a nice little hill to climb!
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| Cowabunga team photo on Ilot Mato, with Cowabunga in the background just over my left shoulder. |
After leaving Mato, we found ourselves back at the mainland, this time however it was Prony Bay, a huge bay on the southern end of NC that could best be described as a Sydney Harbour without Sydney.
When we entered Prony Bay, one of the first boats we saw was Le Mistral, whom had just arrived from Vanuatu; as a result we put on a nice campfire and caught up over a few drinks and dinner that night.
Going deeper in to Prony Bay allowed us to do some bush walks, one was a quick jaunt up to lighthouse that greets all the boats coming from the east (say Fiji, Vanuatu or the Loyaly Islands). Just as we reached the lighthouse, we looked up to see three boats making their way to Noumea only to realise it was our friends Zissou, Peregrine and Sea Wolf having their own race after arriving from Vanuatu.
Being one to enjoy the use of a good prop in a photo, we just couldn't resist this opportunity.
Going even further up the bay, we thought we would check out the "Hot Springs" and make use of a whole tub of fresh water. The springs weren't that hot, but were fresh and warm enough to mean that within minutes after this photo we had sudded up the spring and smelt the freshest we had been in a few weeks.
Getting so far up into the bay was quite different, the turquoise water made way for a browner variety, birds and other animals became a lot more vocal; and the wind never really made it's way over the hills to us. This meant that we would often wake up to tranquil conditions such as this.
With these conditions, it was the perfect place for Trev, and many kayak missions were had paddling as far as the streams would allow - usually ending at the base of a fresh water waterfall.
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| Downside Up |
After a few days upstream, we began our trip back to civilisation with our first stop being Ilot Casy, a small island in the middle of Prony Bay. We had read about a nice little resort/restaurant here in a cruising guide from a few years earlier, apparently they did a good lunch and had wifi, a pool and bar; and a nice beach.
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| Resort Dock |
Making our way to shore, we noticed a funny amount of tents, and not too many "resort" people. This is what we were greeted with.
Apparently the resort shut down a couple of years ago, now only a few people camp there and there is on or 2 care takers who come around every now and then to cut the grass.
It was still a nice walk though, with this beach being on the other side of the island, it took about 45 minutes to walk around the island.
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| Oh and there was this old man who hung out here too. |
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| The beac where the resort once was, its not so bad now I guess! |
Leaving Prony Bay, we found ourselves heading to Amadee Island, this island is the first island that you would hit if you were sailing to Noumea from Australia or New Zealand. As a result, New Cal built a huge lighthouse here, built in the 1860's out of iron & steel, at almost 55m high, it is actually the tallest steel framed lighthouse in the world. We also realised that this anchorage is the closest anchorage to home that Cowabunga will go to on the trip!
After a night at Amadee, we made our way back to Ilot Maitre to catch up with Zissou and doe some kiting. Making use of the fact that all the other kiters have to get the last water taxi home and hour or so before sunset, I made the most of the epic offshore conditions, no crowd and the golden hours to get some pretty epic shots of the boys doing their thing.
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| Kim |
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| Andy |
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| Kim |
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| Kim |
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| Andy |
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| Kim |
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| Kim |
Ilot Maitre was also a chance for me to catch up with Val who I used to work with on Zefira. Having grown up in New Cal, somehow he managed to time his holidays back home off his new boat Inoui to be there at the same time as me. It was also a chance for our kite gear to re-unite (we bought almost the same set up together whilst in the USA on Zefira in 2012!). It was great to catch up with him for a few days, and have a couple of kite sessions together (definitely not enough though!).
Being a local, Val also put us on to the trail of a few pretty nice islands, and after leaving Ilot Maitre, we went north to Ilot M'be Kouen, which as you can see below, was pretty awesome.
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| Andy waiting for the breeze to get up |
Being at one of the best spots you could ever wish for flat water kiting, we decided to send the Go Pro up to capture some shots and footage; as you can see, it was a pretty epic spot with plenty of runs going over ankle deep water and no more than an arms length off the beach. We had these conditions for a few days.... all to ourselves.
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| This photo shows Andy on the kite, I'm on the left taking pictures of him (until AB decided to float away), and Josh taking Trev for a paddle. |
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| Me trying my form. |
The next day we woke up to not a breath of wind and perfectly calm water so we decided to go for some skurfing. AB laboured quite hard with his 15hp motor on the back, some take-off taking over a minute before planning speed was reached. 2 hours of this on the surfboard, and the wakeboard lead to plenty of stacks and laughs.
Andy on the board with me steering and Josh riding shotgun.
Unfortunately, for me the skurfing session meant the old muscles we seem to have grown on the boat got extremely sore, with me finding it hard to put a shirt on even; perfect timing for one of the best swells of the year to hit New Cal then!
We awoke early on the Friday having seen the charts and knowing that some surf spots could be the go nearby, and after an hour trip at dawn to Dumbea Pass, we finally saw what 3.5m SW @ 18secs does to Dumbea.
As you can see, it was a nice sized wave, however due to the size, there was no place for the boat to safely sit and as a result Andy had to sit this one out whilst I struggled to find the rhythm of where to sit and what waves to catch by myself. I guess after all the photos I got of Andy kiting, Karma did come around in this instance has he got some pretty cool shots of the session; all whilst trying to dodge the clean-up sets that washed through the "safe zone" every now and then.
After a few solid waves, and some plenty more hold-downs, I decided to pack it in and head back to the boat. This came about partly because I had copped some pretty heavy beatings and I thought my luck with the reef was surely running out; partly because Cowabunga was sitting on station, almost awaiting her own fate with the wash-throughs; and partly because the boats were slowly starting to arrive from Noumea full of the local surfers.
Once they checked it and got in the water, the waves did seem to get better and better and plenty of footage was caught of some great waves, long hold downs and lost/snapped boards. After 30 minutes of the show it was time to head back to Noumea for Josh's last night onboard.
Josh's last night onboard just so happened to coincide with Halloween, so we decided to gress up in our finest (read shit shirts) and head back in to Le Roof, for one final night together.
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| Cabin Fever is a phenomenon that occurs quite a lot on boats, being stuck on a relatively small space together, a lot of people do end up going crazy (sometimes bad). Luckily for us we went good crazy, often breaking out into song and dance, or simply taking things to the next level.... case in point above; the camera was set to multiple exposures for a simple group photo , taken in quick succession, each photo was just that little bit weirder than the last. This is photo 7 of 10. |
After saying goodbye to a hungover Josh, and doing some shopping the next day, we turned our minds to the upcoming passage that would take us home to Brisbane. Checking the weather and realising how unstable the outlook seemed, we decided to go away for one final jaunt through the islands, in the meanwhile keeping one eye on the weather for the crossing and staying relatively close to Noumea for a quick check out if needed.
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| We stayed at Ile N'du, for a few nights, making some day trips to a few more kite spots from there. We also took a couple of hours to walk around the island one afternoon. Finding a new fender on the shore; we named it Poly. |
After keeping our eye one the weather whilst we were away, we faced some pretty 50-50 calls with actually when we should leave for Brisbane. The weather files weren't looking too good for the trip, the G20 was about to start (complicating things), and the extortionist-like cost of clearing customs on the weekend (if we arrived on the weekend), were all issues that we had to consider. The fact that it was an average forecast, but still the best window for the week; and the cyclone season soon coming into fashion, we decide to begin our trip home after provisioning and clearing customs the next day.
But not without enjoying one last sunset, and having some of our good friends that we have met along the way over for dinner.
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Back L-R: Caitlin, Andy, Kim Adam and Trevor
Front L-R: Hannah, Lorna, Gwynn and me.
All young people with their own boats doing the same thing we have just done, and as it turns out, all writing very similar blogs! Just search for their boat names if you are curious: Peregrine, Leaf, and Zissou - oh and can't forget the Sea Wolf guys who had already left for New Zealand the week before. |
After saying goodbye to everyone, and bon voyage to Noumea and New Caledonia, we started our 880nm passage to our home town, Brisbane. A good trip would have taken 4.5 days, however after an initial 36 hours of good conditions and doing 180nm per day, we found ourselves in no wind doing less than1knot for the next 40 hours.
Is was so slow however, that we ended up launching Trev and going for a paddle, 400nm from the nearest land!
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| Cabin Fever strikes again! |
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| Later Andy |
Slowly however the breeze started to pick up, and with the expected north-westerly winds only a day or so away, we put the spinnaker up, and the hammock and made the most of the last south-easterly trade winds. These same south easterly trades had pushed Cowabunga all the way across the Pacific, only to peter out at the last 100nm!
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| Andy on watch. |
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| Me enjoying one of our last watches; 40 hours to go! |
With the boat moving again, the fishing lines were back in action, and after losing two massive marlin, and seeing just how excited and powerful they can be, we finally caught a couple tuna to finish off the Pacific.
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| This is the last fish of the trip, 40 hours off the coast of Cape Moreton. |
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No welcome home party is complete without some dolphins!
I always see these guys as a good omen, unfortunately this time they weren't with the following night (and last of the trip) being one of the hardest nights of Cowabunga's 14-month odyssey. |
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| Bucko enjoying the final sunset. |
After a pretty serious night of 35kn north westerlies slamming the boat, we rounded Cape Moreton and celebrated our arrival home with a few Moreton Bay Porridges (rum and milk). Coming up the North East Channel, and realising we actually knew where we were without the need of a chart was a comforting feeling.
Sailing up the river on the Sunday of the G20 to the Gateway Bridge, we were greeted on the banks by my parents, then Bucko's parents and then my brothers clan before docking at riverside; maybe it was by design that we go there just that little too late that customs couldn't clear us until Monday.
After some much needed showering, washing the boat and sorting out the mess we had created over the last 6 days, we finally sat down, took a breath, had some rum and realised what we had just completed. Then we had another rum......
The next morning, after clearing customs and quarantine, we made our way up the river to the Botanical Gardens where we would drop the pick and I would jump off the boat and make my way home.
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| Andy and Caitlin - Arrival |
Overall I was on the boat for 4.5months, and completed roughly 4000nm (7400km), it was an amazing experience with some amazing friends, and really did cap off and incredible 4 year journey for me...... but more on that later.
