Once through the Pass d’Bumbo, we were guided to the anchorage by our friends from Skylark. We had to wait for a few hours until high tide, then made our way slowly to the inner anchorage, a little nervous as the depth gauge read 0.2metres! Gadji is a stunning anchorage at the northern end of the Isle of Pines, in a depth of about 3-5 metres of clear water, small beaches dotted around the many uninhabited islands and beautiful rock formations.
We invited the crews from Plastik Plankton, Ooroo and Skylark over for dinner to share the fish we had caught and then we gave them all some to take home (but there was still more!). We then watched one of the most beautiful sunsets we've ever seen, ok so maybe the adults watched while the kids had a quick glimpse and then went back to their iPads!
Our time at Gadji was spent snorkelling on the nearby reef, which is probably the best snorkelling we have done all year! The fish life was amazing and the coral in excellent shape.This is likely due to the fact that New Caledonia has been a Unesco world heritage site since 2008 and there are strict rules in place to protect the reef and marine life.
The kids had a camp out on the beach for two nights (fortunately no rats on the island) and enjoyed sitting by the campfire in the evening and spending the days swimming and mucking about on the beach.
For the first time in a while they got to go wakeboarding, windsurfing and lots of fun was had on the donut! We snorkelled every day - all wearing wetsuits as the water temperature was a bit cooler than we were used to.
G, P, S, E, and H booked in to do a couple of dives, though H and E were freezing after the first one and didn't want to go back in a second time. The dives were good, not amazing as we thought they would be given the excellent snorkelling. We did see a big school of wahoo, some tiny Pygmy seahorse, pipe fish and a disco clam, which was pretty cool. If we had the time it would've been great to do a couple more of the dive sites.
Upping anchor early Saturday morning we made our way to Kuto. Three boats followed the waypoints laid out in the Rocket guide to New Caledonia and we always had plenty of water beneath us and stayed clear of coral heads. We anchored and went ashore for a walk, to see if we could find some fresh baguette and a few veggies as supplies were a bit low. There was a cruise ship in port, ferrying people back and forth to the island, so it was pretty busy. We walked along the road till we found the shop (there was only 1) and were a bit disappointed there was no fresh produce, but we did enjoy an ice cream and a cupcake. After some lunch we dinghied across the bay to check out a snorkelling site. Swimming along the reef we saw the largest concentration of anemone fish ever, but not too much else. The water was cloudy and the coral in pretty poor condition. The kids loved playing in the waves and body boarding for a few hours. On the way back to the boat P and J were on the SUP looking for dugongs but S and G ended up seeing them from the dinghy while they drifted along.
The kids had another sleepover with Hannah from Skylark, making it 7 nights in a row. Then we waved goodbye on Sunday morning as we made our way across to Ilot Kouare, which had been recommended to us by friends on Lil Explorers.
As there wasn't much wind, we motored across the calm water and arrived early in the afternoon. Once anchored we jumped in for a swim and underneath a nearby bommie was the biggest lobster we'd ever seen. Its antennae was about a metre long and we watched as a 40cm fish seemed to be having an altercation with it. We swam down to look at it and it looked like something out of a scary movie. And the only part we could see was its head as it didn't venture out of its hole! After our lobster encounter we swam across to the reef where we saw loads of fish and lovely coral. We were super excited to swim with a turtle and followed it for about 10 minutes. Later in the day the kids spent some time on the deserted beach while G walked along and saw several sea snakes slithering up the beach for the night. As nice as it would be to stay longer, we needed to get to Noumea as family were flying in to visit, and we were excited to be seeing them.
The following day we sailed a short distance to Ilot Mato. Another pretty anchorage where we spent the afternoon snorkelling with turtles and checking out the coral and fish life.
We upped anchor early the next morning with Port de Sud marina in Noumea as our destination. A quick stop at Ou for a snorkel where we spotted a white tipped reef shark and lots of fish. We sailed past Anse Bata bay (outside our families hotel) and saw why it isn't an ideal place to anchor. The wind was strong and the water very choppy, and there were at least 2 dozen people out windsurfing and kiteboarding across the bay. So we kept going and arrived at the marina by late morning. Tied up to the dock we ship-shaped the boat so we could go and see the family. We haven't seen them since we left so are all very excited to catch up!
