Arriving in Noumea

At dawn we can see New Caledonia ahead. It is a rainy day and we are approaching the "Passe de Boulari" to get into the lagoon. The pass is easy and we enter the big lagoon. It will take us about 3 hours to navigate the lagoon and arrive in Port Moselle, where boats coming from overseas need to clear with customs, immigration and agriculture. Finally, at around 1.00PM we enter the marina and dock at the visitors pontoon. We have arrived.
G.

At Sea - Day 5 - Our position: 22.51S 166.09E

We are just 25 miles from the entrance to Noumea, arriving at the end of day 5 on Monday morning. Sunday was another pleasant day but no much wind so Zenitude is going along in her trawler mode, motoring for the past 18 hours. It was warm and sunny with very little wind until the front arrived during the night as expected with cold rain and no wind. It doesn't look very pleasant out there at the moment, hopefully it will improve before arrival. The highlight of the day is the Mahi-Mahi Oscar caught in the late afternoon.
G.

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At Sea - Day 4 - Our position: 24.33S 164.49E

A pleasant day, with light winds. The only issue is the wind direction just dead on the back which makes it almost impossible to keep course. We've been motor sailing to help keeping up the speed and try to arrive in Noumea on Monday with day light. News from our weather guru are good, it seems that the approaching front will have weaken by the time it gets to us, with winds no higher than 20kn. With day 4 being a boring day we've been able to rest and feel much better today.
G.

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At Sea - Day 3 - Our position: 27.24S 162.29E

Last night we had 2 mild squalls and a third nasty that took us by surprise. It created havoc on board for about 20 minutes. Other than that the night was uneventful and we did good speed. Today we had a good run with seas a bit high but coming from behind so it is quite comfortable. We are trying to keep up the speed and get as much north as possible before the next front comes on Sunday night. At least all these fronts are giving us the wind in the right direction, something very uncommon for this leg of the trip. Tomorrow we expect less wind and calmer conditions.
The tired crew of Zenitude.

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At Sea - Day 2 - Our position: 29.24.740S 160.48.984E

Good sailing today with winds between 15 and 20 in the back. There are a few squalls around now and we think the front is approaching as predicted. Hopefully it will have weaken by the time it catchs up with us but we are expecting a squally night. So far all is good and all is well on board.
G.

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Left Lord Howe Island - Our position: 31.15.007S 159.15.212E

We left LHI today at noon towards Noumea. It is a perfect day for motoring! A nice day with no wind, but we decided to leave ahead of a front that should catch up with us some time early Friday and bring winds to push us in the right direction. We could have waited for the front to pass and leave behind it but there is a new front on Monday and our weather guru recommended to get in Noumea before the second front. Mustang Sally, another sailboat we met at LHI is traveling to Noumea too and is slightly behind us.
All is well on board.
G.

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Radio email, working again

We finally found the cause of our communication problems after a test showed we were transmitting loud and clear but we were not able to receive a reply back. This is most unusual and we wrongly assumed transmission or grounding problems, so we were all the time looking at the wrong end. Knowing where the problem was and after reading the manual we figured it out. It was only a problem with the radio settings that God knows how we managed to change. It is all working now.

With the communications back we are now looking at the weather for our next leg to Noumea. At the moment it seems that we should be leaving next Thursday or Friday. There is a front coming and it is going to get nasty here. We are 3 sailboats in the lagoon and one of them is going the same way so we are planning to leave together. In the meantime we are getting ready, fuel, water and supplies.

The weather has been fantastic so far and we are enjoying the island. We'll post pictures when we get good internet.
G.

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