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

Monday 9 September 2013

At anchor in Ilot Uere

We left Port Moselle marina at lunch time and decided to come to Ilot Uere, which is just 6 1/2 miles from Noumea. It was a short but quite uncomfortable trip, by the time we arrived we had head winds blowing over 20 kn. The lagoon is shallow and gets very choppy with winds over 15 kn. The anchorage is protected from the swell however the wind gets thru and there is little protection despite what we read in our cruising guide. Fortunately the holding seems excellent and we are expecting the wind to abate later tonight.

The weather is not really inviting for any dinghy trip to the beach ashore so we are just relaxing on board. On top of it the beach does not seem very inviting either as there are plenty of stones where you expect to find sand, in other words, we are not quite impressed with this anchorage.

When we arrived we found Retour already at anchor here, we might catch up with them later if we decide to put the dinghy down in the water.
 Zenitude and Retour at anchor
Next day we had a chat with Retour and came to shore for a walk. We changed our minds about this place, finding it quite nice. Ashore we did a long walk and found mangroves along the way, a beautiful and peaceful scenery, amazing considering this is very close to Noumea. Our friends in Retour tell us that they've been in this anchorage in several occasions in strong winds and they never had a problem, with the holding being excellent.
Pebbles on shore but quite beautiful nevertheless

A quiet moment
The second night something happened. By sunset French Marines started arriving. Quite interesting, all of the sudden hundreds of marines had invaded this peaceful place. We had to assume it was for training purposes, no threats hiding in the mangroves it seems. As we left next day at sunrise, we didn't hang out to find out.
Marines start arriving
Beautiful Mangroves



G.

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