Noumea North Anchorages

Ile Ndukue

One of the reasons New Caledonia was chosen for us, is that the entire country is surrounded by a reef which creates a big lagoon with many smaller islands to play in. Using Noumea as a central base, we had decided to do the northern part first, the Baie De Saint-Vincent, then head back to Noumea for replenishing before heading south. Our first anchorage north was Ile Ndukue, a nice 5-hour sail from Noumea, with a couple of anchorages to choose from. Picking the one the Rocket Guide suggested was the better, we anchored up and Katfish came over for sundowners. They were being very polite about the spot as at this stage it was rocking and rolling quite a bit, but this dropped off by about 8pm and settled down for a nice night’s sleep.
The next day John and Kat came over for some welcome help to get our mainsail down and tape/stitch up the hole we got on the way over. Leilani B and Glamapuss (Jim and Ingrid) dropped anchor so we caught up with them on their boat before Jim suggested he BBQ the Trevally and Mackerel he had caught that day. Yum.
The next day we finally got the kayaks down and over to the reefs we could see surrounding the couple of islands here. OMG. What a surprise we had. The coral even in this ‘plain’ anchorage is terrific. Just to let the kayak drift over the corals of different colours, so many different fishes amongst them was mesmerising. James, off Adelade, arrived and Steve went back out in the kayak with him for several hours. Along with Mike and Anita on Curried Oats, Greg and Deb on Parhelion arrived and wanted to catch up with everyone so they organised the sundowners. We love listening to Greg and Deb and their experiences. We first met them on the public jetty at Abel Point Marina back in March and discovered we were both doing the rally. We then spent some time catching up once they arrived at Southport. This is their 13th boat, have sailed across the Pacific (twice I think) bought up a daughter on board for 4 years and Greg’s varied career from advertising to boat sales, whilst Deb is just the nicest person ever, dancer and Page 3 pin up girl!

PORT OEUNGHI MARINA
During our arrival info day, John Hembrow (DUR) had mentioned a marina at the top end of Baie De Saint Vincent and the Rocket Guide had a monthly market scheduled for Sunday. So, the 4 catamarans, Leilani B, Glamapuss, Adelade and ourselves motored up early to ensure we went in at high tide as the depth is only 1.5mt. It was the smallest, tightest marina we have been to! Couldn’t even see the entrance to it until you were meters away as it was so narrow. The kids fishing with sticks on the rock wall could’ve cast over us and hit the rock wall on the other side. As we were about to head in, a power catamaran started coming out, so we had to abort as there is only room for one at a time. All 4 catamarans got in, although Glamapuss had to wait until one of the berth owners left for the weekend to let them use his berth. There isn’t anything much around the marina and it is a 10-minute walk into the nearest small township, but boy oh boy, it does have THE BEST PIZZAS EVER!

We hired a car for the Sunday to head to the Tomo markets, but they were quite underwhelming. Leilani B and Glamapuss decided to head back our and continue fishing. James, Steve and I kept the car and visited FORT TEREMBA, stopped at some roadside stalls before dropping the car back at the airport and getting a taxi home. Expensive day all up! Apart from the car hire of A$100, we also paid fuel A$50, excess kms A$80 and taxi A$70. Probably won’t do that again.

ILE ISIE
WE left on the high tide again on Monday with James, to go to Ile Isie. This is the most northern Island we thought we would want to see, according to the Rocket Guide with a nice beach and good coral. This turned out to be an oversell with an ordinary beach, not much quality reef and a rolly anchorage.

ILOT TENIA
James left at 0630 to head back south, going via Ilot Tenia. He wasn’t too sure if he would stop as he wanted to get to Noumea before the winds that were predicted to blow and also to get repairs done. We got going about an hour later.
Tenia is well known for both the reef snorkelling but also because it is right at the edge of the big lagoon reef and surfers can ride the big waves that break over the reef. Mother Nature decided to provide us with a gloomy day but we anchored and took the tender across to the beach. Lots of shelters, bbq area’s and a couple of commercial snorkel tours arrived at the same time. After exploring the island we checked out the reef in the tender and WOW! Decided we would come back and snorkel it on a day that would do it justice. Either July, before Steve flys back to Melbourne, or in Septemeber with Scotty and Miriam. We then headed for Baie De Mostique.

BAIE DE MOSTIQUE
Bay of Mosquitos surprisingly enough doesn’t have any more mosquitos than any other place. We find that there are always a few if you get off onto land, and then you might get one or two around dusk but really, not any worse than back home. We entered to find Katfish, Curried Oats and Pandion there enjoying the calm bay. Needing to see what was on the island, we decided to go ashore and climb one of the hills. John and Kat joined us, so we worked our way up and around the dams and tracks to get a glorious view out to sea at the top. The island is home to horses, goats and rabbits, who we only knew about by the footprints and droppings. The next morning, we saw the 3 horses and probably 50 goats on the hills.

BAIE DE UITOE
With the predictions of 20-30 knot winds coming for the next few days, we headed over to Uitoe Bay which had good protection from NE to S winds. Thursday saw us with no wind at all and cloudy. We put the water catcher in, hoping we would top up, but only had passing sprinkles of rain. That night the winds picked up and Friday we had 20-30 knots even tucked behind a hill. Apart from cheese and herb damper on Katfish, Curried Oats, and Pandion, we’ve caught up on some other jobs. Resealed the leaking hatch in the port aft cabin, recharged batteries, admin for ARRO, and pulled out the first of the frozen meat that we bought from Australia and precooked meals.

BAIE DE MAA
We headed off on Saturday morning once we had checked the weather. It was a much better forecast and even though Sundays was better, we had itchy feet and headed off to Bay Maa which was a 4-hour motor into headwinds. This is a local weekend anchorage and there were 5 boats already in and by the end of the day around 10. Nice spot but got a little rolly with the high tide. We went over to the beach on Sunday with the intention to find a local to ask if we could climb the mountain for exercise and a potentially great view. When we asked about this, we were informed (in broken English and hand signals) that they shoot people on the weekends. By this I think he meant that they play with guns on the weekends. Was a bit funny though. He was very pleased when he found out we were from Australia, pointing to one of his dogs excitedly – a red heeler! He did give us permission to go through the little settlement that is locked from both ends, if we stuck to the road. Monday, we headed back to Noumea to restock, refuel and a catch up with James before heading off to Isle of Pines.