October 23, 2000-Noumea, New Caledonia

Noumea

New Caledonia 10/18

Another month, another country. We arrived in Noumea, New Caledonia at 2:00 PM Tuesday, after a fast, if wet, 50 hour trip from Port Vila, Vanuatu. If our complaint about a "wet" passage is getting familiar to you, it is getting old to us. Once again we were getting splashed by big waves for far longer than we wanted and once again, too much of it got below and dripped all over everything. No permanent damage but we got some books soaked and a lot of laundry to do. So we have another "anti leak" campaign planned.

Noumea, totally French, is pretty big and absolutely modern and civilized. This is the biggest and most normal city we have seen in the Pacific outside of New Zealand. It looks like some kind of French flavored Southern California beach town, but big. And everything looks new. We've just got here and haven't yet had time to check it out much, but we will.

So we just wanted to let you know that we arrived safely, and we'll write more later.

New Caledonia 10/23

WINGS is tied securely to the dock in Noumea where we are enjoying the Pacific Arts Festival. A few thousand Pacific islanders from 23 island countries have come here to dance, sing, and display various native arts and crafts. A few hundred cruising yachts from all over the world have come here to flock in herds to the various festival venues, drink too much French wine, and spend too much money, but we love it!

We will write more later.

Fred & Judy, S/V Wings, Noumea