Home Delivery

A change in the weather was predicted and after 4 glorious days and the weekend upon us, our exclusive use of the Gadji anchorages with just 3 other Rally boats came to an end. First 6 more boats arrived then another 4. There was space overall but not for us anymore. One of the new arrivals anchored much nearer to us than than necessary and then annoyed us by running a generator until cruisers midnight (8:30 pm) and illuminating their boat at night, not with the regulation masthead light, but with a pair of deck lights mounted on their spreaders. Too close. Too noisy. Too much light pollution.

By morning we were woken by a vibration in the water. Those pesky neighbours had their motors running already; again. Hardly a good start to the day. The rumbling continued until 12:30pm. Meantime a windshift had stretched our chain in a new direction. In the light coral dust sand over pavement, our anchor, previously buried, slipped 5m before re-setting. Thank heavens for the anchor alarm! By 1:00pm the neighbour's motor was on again. They must have sensed they'd moved too. So they raised anchor and repositioned themselves ending up even closer!

The Bloke stewed and stewed. I stewed too. The wind was going to put us on a lee shore as well as increase. We were unable to drop any more chain thanks to our new neighbours, we would swing differently too seeing as they were on a catamaran. Too much annoyance already! Mr Murphy was not being given an invitation to mess with us after dark when he's usually his most mischievous. We needed to run our motor for a couple of hours anyway and our previous anchorage was only 3/4 hr away. So we took off despite the low tide and less than ideal visibility by using our saved inward track to guide us safely out of the lagoon. We had no regrets leaving in this instance. So for that, we can be grateful to 'the thick skinned and thoughtless' as we would otherwise felt sad leaving this glorious anchorage.

It was rather comforting to be able to return to a bay we already knew. This time at Oamaeo we followed the 4-5m contour further down towards a small headland to maximize our SE shelter rather than closer to the Kojeue Resort where we'd anchored previously. Having settled into our new location, it was time for 5ers.

Right on dusk a tinnie with 4 persons aboard was silhouetted against the setting sun. It was coming right at us and then pulled up alongside. 4 young and beaming Kanak fellows, 3 still in their wet suits, wanted to know if we'd like a lobster. To hell with pork loin, let's have a home delivery! At 5,000XPF ($60) it was a bargain. The Bloke was soooo excited. Excited enough even to agree to trade our last 4 cans of beer for 4 bugs too. Something we immediately regretted because alcohol sales are banned on Ile Des Pins. Very thoughtless of us. But we were excited and the young fellows were too. They roared laughing as we handed over the vastly inadequate pressure cooker pan in which to receive our home delivery. Where there is a will, there is a way and we lived like kings for the next 3 days from our Sunday night home delivery!

Was the Bloke pleased? Oh, yes he was!