Welcome to Zenitude’s blog where you can follow us while we travel slow in our Lagoon catamaran. We update this blog frequently when we are cruising to let family and friends know where we are. Check the complete story of our adventures that started in 2006 when Zenitude became our home and cruising our way of life. Graciela and Oscar

Friday 23 August 2013

At Ilot Kouare - A wooded island with a white sand beach

With a forecast of light winds and generally good weather we left Port Mosselle on Tuesday for a week of wondering around the lagoon.

Our first stop was Ilot Amedee, the island next to the Boulari Pass. The island is pretty and like all islands in the lagoon surrounded by reef. There is plenty of fish and lots of turtles. It doesn't look that there is any good place to anchor, at least for an overnight but there are about 15 moorings and we were able to get one. The drawback in this island is that it is very popular with local boats and it is crowded as half of the island is taken over by a local tour operator that deposits dozen of tourists for a day at the beach. Probably the abundance of fish is due to the glass bottom boat that goes around feeding the fish while lots of people marvel at the view thru the glass. Still, the place is nice and there is an operating lighthouse that you can visit and climb up for a view of all the surrounding reef. While we were there most of the people left by sunset and the place was very quiet at night.

From Amedee we came directly to Ilot Kouare in the southern lagoon. As we were approaching we could see a magnificent scenery. A green island with a white sand beach all around surrounded by corals and incredible clear turquoise waters. This is an isolated place, at least during the week and we found just 2 other boats at anchor. If the weather holds and doesn't turn bad we are planning to stay until Sunday when we start heading back to Noumea. A long walk in the beach and lots of snorkeling is waiting for us while we wait for the sun to come back as it has decided to hide under lots of clouds at the moment.


Landing 
It doesn't get much better than that ....













G.

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Saturday 17 August 2013

A big ocean out there, but still, it’s a small world


When we are cruising we often encounter other cruisers that we’ve met before, usually in the same season when we are all doing more or less the same routes. There are however, some completely unexpected encounters that make you reckon ‘wow, it’s a small world’. This season so far we have had 3 of these encounters. It is always very special to find people you’ve met in another time in another world. 

Our first surprise came one day when we were walking the docks at Port Mosselle marina back from the regular visit to the doctor treating Oscar’s spider bite. Docked a couple of berths away from Zenitude was Akka, with our German friends Andrea and Andreas. What a wonderful surprise! We initially met them in San Blass, Panama in 2010 when we were all sailing around these wonderful islands of the Kuna Yala Indians. We were together again in Shelter Bay Marina while getting ready for the crossing of the Pacific Ocean, sharing all the hectic times to get ready for transiting the canal.  We crossed the Pacific that same year, but we were always a bit ahead of Akka and even when we kept in touch for a while by email we never met again until now. 

Akka at Port Mosselle (behind little Emma)
The second encounter was even more surprising as it happened in a more secluded place. We were arriving to the Aore Resort in Luganville to pick up one of their moorings. The Aore Resort has 4 moorings for visiting yachts, only 2 were taken and as we approached to grab a free one we couldn’t believe Sea Fury was just there. The special thing about Sea Fury with Roger on board is that we met for the first time somewhere in the big Pacific Ocean in 2010, 1500 miles away from any land on our second week sailing from Galapagos to Marquesas. It was then so unreal to see a white sail in the horizon as it was unreal to find her again 3 years later in a Luganville mooring. Check our website Home page to see the picture that Roger took of Zenitude back then and the page “Galapagos to Marquesas” for more pictures and the complete story.  Here is a picture of Sea Fury now:  

Sea Fury at the Aore Resort moorings

What can we say of the third encounter? We are moored at Port Vila and behind us there is a Swiss flagged boat, Miami. The day before leaving we go ashore, introduce ourselves to George and Ute from Miami and join them for happy hour drinks. George is unbelievable with languages, he speaks German and English as well as perfect Spanish, perfect Portuguese, Italian and we don’t know what else. Ute somehow follows the conversation in any of these languages.  He has lived in Rio during same years we lived there. They crossed the Pacific 2 years ahead of us. The amazing part of the story comes next day when we dinghy our way to Miami to say good bye to George and Ute. George has recalled back from his memory that we actually met in Bundaberg 3 years ago at a Melbourne Cup lunch in Bundaberg, recalling that Oscar had picked up the winning horse becoming very popular among the cruisers that followed his lead.

It is indeed a big ocean, but still, it’s a small world!    

Zenitude sailing somewhere in the big ocean

G.  

Friday 16 August 2013

Back in French territory, arriving at Noumea

When a weather window opens for a passage the advise is 'go' and that is what we did when the forecast showed a week of settled weather and light trade winds. We are now arriving at Noumea on a gorgeous day after a good passage from Port Vila. It seems that we have got ridden of all spiders on board so this time we are planning a good 'going around' the many reefs and beaches nearby Noumea once we have rested and completed clearance procedures at Port Mosselle marina.
G.

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Friday 9 August 2013

Luganville and back to Port Vila

The week in Luganville went flying while enjoying life moored at the lively Aore resort. Staying at one of their moorings you get a bit of resort life, it is good value for money, prices are not too bad. They have a nice swimming pool, a beautiful beach, an excellent restaurant and are very accommodating with any needs you may have. This resort is in the Aore Island just across town of Luganville and has a ferry several times a day to town.
At a mooring in beautiful Aore Resort


The main attraction in Luganville is scuba diving the wrecks from the Second World War that are scattered very close to shore just out of town and the main diving site is the US President Coolidge, a huge cruise ship that was converted into a military carrier for American troops and sunk next to shore after taking the wrong entrance into port and hitting a couple of mines intended for Japanese war ships. Oscar enjoyed 7 dives to several parts of the ship. They are quite difficult dives as you traverse different compartments on the ship and some of them with depths up to 65 meters, therefore, it is advisable to use a good and responsible dive operator. He did all the dives with Allan Power, absolutely fantastic and no doubt we do recommend him to anybody looking to dive in Luganville. Allan has an excellent organization to dive the Coolidge, with very good and experienced guides. They evaluate your diving skills with easier dives before taking you to the difficult ones. Diving the Coolidge was a long time dream for Oscar and he was thrilled he could finally do it. A fantastic experience that if you ask him about it, get ready for hours of story telling.

Diving the US President Coolidge, accessible from the beach

Luganville is the turning point of our trip and from there we started our way back on Wednesday when it seemed that the weather was right for the trip. We decided to take the route on the east side of Malakula Island and sailed a first leg to a very nice and quiet anchorage, Uri Island in Port Stanley, to rest for the night. As Oscar was looking at the mangroves on shore and thinking on a dinghy ride to see if we could get a mud crab for dinner, a local lady on a canoe showed up trying to exchange a grapefruit for a tee-shirt. She said one of her 4 sons could get a 'big' mud crab for us. All enthusiastic she goes back and soon we see a guy going into the mangroves with a bag. Not long after that a live big crab materialized for us and not having the heart to bargain with this poor people we paid market price for it and had a nice crab dinner.

At 6:00 AM next day we left for the second part of the trip. We must have chosen the right window by luck as the weather had little to do with the forecast and we did a very slow and painful first half and a very fast and quite ok second half entering Port Vila at 6:00 AM this morning. Now moored at Port Vila we are having horrible squally weather thinking it is good to be in port. It will be pizza night tonight.

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Friday 2 August 2013

Malakula Island to Luganville

It was a very quiet and uneventful trip, motoring all the way in very calm seas. Very relaxing, good for a change. We arrived at the Aore Resort in Luganville, grabbed one of their moorings and sat to wait for the westerlies.

The resort has a nice restaurant and our first dinner there was excellent and reasonable priced. Oscar claimed he had the best dish at the restaurant since departing from Australia.

We are planning to stay here for a while to dive the US Coolidge and the One Million Dollar Point, the main objective for coming here.
G.

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Vanuatu - Port Vila to Malakula Island

We were in Port Vila in 2010 when we crossed the Pacific. At that time we joined the Port to Port Rally (Port Vila - Port Bundaberg) and the rally organizers took care of most of our needs in Port Vila. We didn't realize then how yachty friendly Port Vila is. Quarantine came to our boat in the morning after our arrival and let us keep all our fresh produce as long as we don't remove it from the boat and use the quarantine bins for garbage disposal. After that, Moses, from World Yacht Services took us to one of their moorings. The people at World Yacht Services is really nice, the moorings are excellent, they provide water, fuel, laundry services, quarantine garbage disposal, internet (not so good, better the Cyber Internet across the street from the open market), an excellent dinghy dock (a good break after all our beach landings with the dinghy), etc. The cost is very reasonable. Immigration is just walking distance and Customs at a dinghy ride. We were also able to fill up our propane tanks, which is not possible in New Caledonia, so we have again a good supply of cooking gas.

After 3 days resting and looking at the weather forecasts we decided we could leave towards Luganville in Santo with several stops along the way in Malakula Island. This island has many nice anchorages in both the west and the east coast and we decided we would take the west coast route. But the forecasts were playing games with us, changing every day with the risk of blowing from the west. The 30 of July, Vanuatu's independence day, we arrived to South West Bay, at the south west tip of Malakula as its name indicates. The bay is magnificent, the coral formations amazing, very big fish were chasing their breakfast when we were coming in, the Tisri lagoon (a natural ocean fed, crystal clear lagoon) is beautiful and as a bonus the bay is protected from all winds but west/south west. The sounds from Independence Day celebrations in the little village of Wintua could be heard from the boat, lots of music and political speaches. We guess that it doesn't matter where you go, politicians are all the same. A wonderful day indeed. However, weather reports were confirming the arrival of westerlies and even when forecasted as light winds we decided it would be safer to be in Luganville before the winds arrival. So, we departed from South West Bay at sunset. A dugong came to say goodbye to us as we were lifting the anchor.

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