Back to Noumea

We finally left out beautiful anchorage and headed to Noumea. We are anchored back in the same spot in between the two marinas and will most likely be here for the next 5 days or so. 

You can see it's a little less private than our spot on Kuendu Beach.... But we are going to need groceries and fuel and water very soon. It should only take a few days to get to Vanuatu and the plan is to check out and leave early Monday morning. 

Here's a shot of our last sunset at Kuendu Beach

Life at anchor...

We really live this place...we keep saying ok we are leaving tomorrow...or in 2 days when the weather is better... Buuuut we are still here! We take a bus into town when we need food or something or just feel like getting around...it's about 420CFP which amounts to about 5 bucks well 10 buck round trip for both of us....the only thing we need is water and I think we can steal some from the resort and fill up some jugs soon...our tanks lasted about a month!! That's a surprise to us since both tanks last about 10 days total before we fixed them....wow...it's been so nice not needing to be on shore for so long! Ty has taken up spear fishing! And I am soooo supportive (from above) lol 

He has not caught anything yet but the fish are very small here in this anchorage...especially after seeing all the fish in the marine reserves... He free dives with our French neighbor in the anchorage. His name is David and he's turned out to be pretty cool!...we've had a couple happy hours together and my French was never as good as his English but his English is gettin better every day..;) so is my little French. I'm learning little words here n there...we had him over for spaghetti night which in my opinion turned out to be (formidable)-which means wonderful or fantastic! Lol Ty asked if I Even added salt...>=[ but in his defense he was diving in cold water all day with a leaky mask so he is soooooo stopped up ....but anyway..... I'm going back to pescatarianism ... Watched a PETA video and it was horrifying so now I have a whole new take on the subject.... Besides... Only eating vegetables and fish is suitable for our lifestyle...it's not the end of the world if we can't get to port for beef n chicken n pork or whatever....anyway I am not an activist so eat what you please...that's what I do ;)..... Btw I don't think I will see spinach again till I come home:( that was a good source of protien for me....and there are no peppers....like Serrano peppers...there are bell peppers but it's not the same when you are trying to make pico .... I've been makin tortillas again...I'll be honest it's for fajitas we've been making! Yeah I've been slipping since I tasted that one steak a month ago... But I just eat what I am craving most of the time...within reason of course...I don't sit around and eat brownies all day. But if I'm craving protien I will have a steak with Ty the night he cooks one....

I watched a you tube video on how to cut your own hair and I tried it;) I bought some good shears at the store and I went at it!!! Lol I'm not completely disappointed with the end result :)

Before: 

Ok never mind. I don't have a before picture cuz my hair has been out of control for so Long I always wear a pony tail or hat...it has been 2 years since Ivan cut my hair last....:)

Here is the after tho...please excuse the no smile n no make up thing...it's au natural! Haha

C'mon it could be worse and you know it lol!!!! I'm pretty happy with my first try but I think i can do better...it's a bit choppy in front but wow it feels SOO much better ;) (we will BOTH be getting a real hair cut when we get back home) lol....

Sushi night!

We made our first sushi tonight! It was so good! We haven't been able to catch fish lately so we just picked up some sushi grade tuna at the market when we went for groceries. I already had the seaweed wraps, sushi rice, sushi seasoning, sesame seeds, soy n wasabi so we just added carrots, cucumbers, cream cheese n tuna and it was amazing! So we ate sushi n watched the sunset n now we're sippin some wine ;) great night and heading to Vanuatu soon!

Here's a Saturday in the square

Scrub

We rented a car the other day after takin the bus into town. The airport was holding our new genoa since Saturday night! But there was a public holiday so we couldn't get it until Tuesday. So we took advantage of the car am loaded up on more drinking water and wine and groceries. Weather was rainy yesterday but today is gorgeous out! So we put on our wetsuits and jumped in the water and scrubbed both hulls clean. It's not like it was when we were hauled out with all the white barnicals it just had a slimy layer of algae n stuff but if we keep up with cleaning at least once a month we won't have to worry about barnacles anymore. 

Here is the view from the boat. That was early this morning with no wind and that's the only other boat in this tiny anchorage. They have the best spot because there is reef surrounding us completely and they are right smack in the middle. 

We do love this anchorage though because the resort doesn't have many people so we can hoard the wifi!! Yes our 3 ft wifi antenna that is mounted on the boat reaches the resort wifi so we can surf when we need to and get weather updates. 

So we or our sail and now we just need the starter for the starboard engine. It was shipped in from Australia I think and they are trying to tell us it's going to be $1000US!!!! Ty looked up prices and most expensive one was about $200 plus $150 for expedites shipping...from the US....I think they r trying to rip us off.... 

People walking on the reef at low tide. 

The Light House

We decided to take off to the light house for our 6 year anniversary. Designed by the one and only....guy who designed the Eiffel Tower.....haha all the history plaques are in French so we didn't get much on the history of the place but it was still cool!....Turns out the restaurant and bar and everything is owned by a ferry company called Mary D's so they are only open when the ferry is there bringing visitors. There are no bungalows or anything because they only do day trips so we snuck in and took a tour of the lighthouse...had a couple beers and took in a coconut cracking show. The snorkeling is probably the best here with all the larger schools of fish, sea turtles and a couple reef sharks. I finally blew up the paddle board but then the weather went to crap for a while. I think today it clears up for a little bit before another front hits us in 2 days. We'll be sailing back to Noumea today though because our sail is in!!! We have to rent a car and pick it up at the airport Tuesday morning since Monday is a public holiday....there seem to be a lot of those pesky public holidays around the world...

We tucked up into this tiny bay that pretty much only fits 2 boats and we r enjoying a couple of Manta beers at the bar. It was an awesome sail here! Downwind with just a breeze of 12 knots so we flew the chute and we were making about 7.5 knots! It was sunny perfect and smooth so a great end to our anniversary weekend:) thank you to everyone who wished us a happy anniversary we love you all!!!;) 

Boredom

So we are still anchored near the city of Noumea...waiting for our new genoa to come in and our new starter. We are anchored in the middle of 3 bays so we can go to either one every day. On the or side we have the marina where we checked Into the country with the fresh market next to it and also the marine stores for small parts like new headlamps and a new exhaust hose. On the other side we have this little strand of bars and restaurants along with a supermarket and a nice little beach (being French it's a topless beach of course) Both sides offer free wifi at all the restaurants but you must sit and at least buy a beer to stay and use the wifi so I'm thinking at the end of the day it's the same cost as if we had just bought SIM cards and data like we normally do in every country...the wifi is real spotty here though and we just ran into another cruiser who said this is the worst internet he has come across and he's even been to Vanuatu and Solomon Islands where we are going next! 

There's a race happening this weekend that we were invited to participate in but our sail hasn't come in yet and I don't exactly wanna be in a race with duct tape on our sail...(embarrassing!) So we may just hang back here and go dancing for our anniversary this weekend at the strand orrrrr we may go stock up on groceries today and head to the light house....and then on to Isle de Pines until we get word the sail has made it in...