Day 180, Year 2: WAG or SWAG

by Judy Handley | Oct 21, 2007 | New Caledonia, Sailing Logs Year 2 | 0 comments

Day 180, Year 2: WAG or SWAG
Date: Sunday, October 21, 2007
Weather: Overcast and Windy; Winds E 15-20 with Higher Gusts
Location: l’Orphelinat Bay, Noumea, New Caledonia

Okay. I have to be a little crass in order to share with you what WAG and SWAG mean, if you don’t know already. WAG is a “wild-assed guess” and SWAG is a “scientific wild-assed guess.” I learned this from Paul on Ranger today, and evidently I should have known this, but did not. When I heard it, I thought it was quite humorous. When you are getting ready to leave on a major passage, the weather is of upmost importance, but just like at home, weather reporting is a SWAG. That’s just a step above
being a WAG. I’d never want to be a meteorologist because the weather changes every few hours, sometimes dramatically, and people are just not that flexible. If they hear on one day that the weather tomorrow will be sunny and beautiful, and then it ends up to be partly cloudy, they think the meteorologist is crazy. Actually, he is probably just fine, but the weather decided to take a turn. This is is what we are dealing with in our preparations for our passage to Australia. Day before yesterday
the GRIB files looked like we would have a good passage, yesterday they looked terrible with a low coming south and causing all kinds of havoc, and then today they look great again. Who knows? Actually, no one. You have to take the weather information (that’s the scientific part) and put that together with your knowledge of the passage and come up with a SWAG–your best scientific wild-assed guess. We put so much effort into this and often the conditions we experience on passage are totally opposite
of what was expected. Makes one think that just going with a WAG might be as accurate. But we will always add in the scientific and hope it makes the difference for us.

Today we went to the market early, took the veggies back to Windibird, and then went back in to town to the internet cafe to download weather information and to make a Skype call to our son Justin. Afterward we started our second day of the museum marathon. We walked across town to the Maritime Museum. It was small and not all that impressive, but we managed to enjoy it. We watched a video in French talking about an expedition to the north pole, and about halfway through that we decided that
we should head back in the directions of the marina. Mark and I headed for the Museum of new Caledonia. It was a much better museum. The first floor was devoted to Kanak culture while the second floor expanded its reach to include artifacts from many of the neighboring islands in the South Pacific. In a separate wing was an exhibit of work by students who were obviously studying their history and traditions.

After visiting the museums we went back to Ranger to continue our weather discussions with Paul, Marie, Gerry and Donna. Since the information we have been getting from various sources is not always the same, we have decided to prepare to leave but to expect that we may be here for a few more days. And we will continue to monitor weather reports daily.

Day 179, Year 2: Museum Marathon–Mix of Nature and Culture

by Judy Handley | Oct 20, 2007 | New Caledonia, Sailing Logs Year 2 | 1 comment

Day 179, Year 2: Museum Marathon–Mix of Nature and Culture
Date: Saturday, October 20, 2007
Weather: Overcast and Windy; Winds ESE 15-20 with Higher Gusts
Location: l’Orphelinat Bay, Noumea, New Caledonia

We started our day before 6 AM with a Sat phone call to our boat insurance agent and we were assured that we are insured. That was a relief and once again, we want to thank our daughter Heather for taking care of that for us. Time gets away from us out here where there are few deadlines, and the delay in written communication other than email can result in weeks or even months before we get notices. No excuses, but just the way things are when we are between ports. Thank goodness someone on lands
looks after us. And if you were wondering why we called the poor insurance man so early in the morning it is because our 6 AM on Saturday was his 3 PM on Friday afternoon.

Our next phone call was via Skype at the internet cafe. We called our daughter Heather and linked up the webcams. We were so anxious to see Sam. We got to see him briefly while in Port Vila, but the connection was not very good and we kept getting frozen video. Today the video was great. Everytime we see Sam he looks more and more grown up. He had his nine-month check-up and the doctor discovered that he has an ear infection. She started him on antibiotics. Since his congestion has just been
dragging on and on, maybe the antibiotic will put him back on a healthy track. But I must say that being sick doesn’t seem to slow him down. He is in constant motion reaching for the video camera and trying to eat it, grabbing the computer key board, then grabbing the mouse. He is certainly enough to keep Heather and Jed busy 24-7. By the time we finished with that call and downloaded some weather information, it was time for Mark to take his computer back to Ranger and meet Marie and Paul, and
Donna and Gerry of Scot Free and come back to the bus stop where I waited to catch the Noumea Explorer. This was to be our transportation today for our marathon museum tour. It was another whirlwind day, and we enjoyed every aspect of it.

The first stop for today was the Parc Zoologique & Forestier or Zoo and Botanical Gardens. There were spectacular views of Noumea as we climbed to the top of a summit where the park was located. We had only an hour and 45 minutes here in order to catch the bus to the next stop, so we walked as fast and saw as much as we could in the alotted time. We saw the flightless, quickly disappearing cagou which is New Caledonia’s official territorial bird. Some of the showiest birds were beautiful white
peacocks that enjoyed fanning their tails for us. In much too little time, we had to hop back on the Noumea Explorer and make for the next destination, the Jean-Marie Tjibaou (pronounced chee-bauw). Tjibaou was a leader of the Kanak people and was assassinated by one of his own people who felt he was selling his people short by signing the Matignon Accords in 1988. Tjibaou had intended the Accords to be only a stepping stone to independence of the Kanaks. The center cost $50 million American
dollars to build and was designed by Italian architect Renzo Piano. The architecture of the place is overwhelming. There are ten huge metal and wood structures that represent the shape of a traditional Kanak case or home. These structures tower over the very long building that is divided into three parts. The inside was nice but the grounds were spectacular. A botanical garden winds around the main building and is filled with references to Kanak legend, accompanied by Kanak art, and more information
on native plants than I have seen anywhere in the Pacific. There is a ceremonial area with three traditional case or homes. One of them must have been thirty to fifty feet high. The final touch was a nine foot tall bronze statue of Tjibaou that stands on a hill overlooking the center. Tjibaou started out as a Catholic priest and left the priesthood with the Pope’s permission. He did not feel that he could best serve his people in his role as priest. He remained a spiritual man, however, and
the center is a great tribute to him. We spent two and a half hours here but could have spent the entire day. Then on we went to our final stop for today, the Aquarium des Lagons. This was a small but very well-done aquarium. The highlight for me was seeing the nautilus float through the water. We have found nautilus shells, but we have never seen a nautilus while in the water. So that was a thrill. It was also so much fun to see so many of the fish that we have been seeing when we snorkel.

That last Noumea Explorer pick-up was at 4:20 and somehow we made it. We had not eaten all day, so when we were dropped off right next door to McDonald’s, we decided to join all of the teenagers and have a quarter pounder. They are called Cheese Royale here, but they taste the same. Donna and Gerry actually had Happy Meals and we had great fun playing with their Happy Meal toys. It was a fun ending to a great day.

Back on Ranger we took a look at all of that weather information we downloaded this morning and saw that we might not really be able to leave on Monday. There is a low pressure system that would cross our path and leave us with fluky winds coming all directions. We will watch tomorrow and Monday to see exactly where that low ends up, and make our decision then. Until then, the museum marathon continues with a visit to the New Caledonia Museum and the Maritime Museum. We will visit both tomorrow
after a very early morning trip to Noumea’s fine fresh food market. That should be a real treat.

Day 178, Year 2: Port to Port Rally Gathering

by Judy Handley | Oct 19, 2007 | New Caledonia, Sailing Logs Year 2 | 0 comments

Day 178, Year 2: Port to Port Rally Gathering
Date: Friday, October 19, 2007
Weather: Sunny, Windy Day; Winds ESE 15 (Down from 20-25 in the AM)
Location: l’Orphelinat Bay, Noumea, New Caledonia

Today started on a very windy note out here in the Baie de l’Orphelinat, and even though it still sounds very windy, things have settled back down a bit. We spent our morning reading through land-based emails we received yesterday and found that our boat insurance expired yesterday unless they had received a filled-out questionnaire from us. We had asked our daughter Heather to deal with this for us, but we didn’t know yesterday was the expiration date. We knew Heather and Jed had taken Sam to
Boston for some tests today, so we waited until we thought they would be home to call. Heather had taken care of everything, so hopefully we still have boat insurance. Thank you, Heather. Insurance is a good thing since the marina we are going to in Australia won’t let us in without it. Heather also had good news about Sam for us when we called. His terrible cold is getting better and all of the tests at Mass General Hospital today verified that he has no serious problems with his digestive
system. He simply has an immature system resulting in a bad case of reflux. This wakes him up and that is the reason he sleeps in very short stints. So if the parents can survive, he will be fine. Tomorrow is his nine-month check-up with his regular pediatrician, so I know he’ll be glad when all of the tests and shots are over with. We are supposed to do a Skype video call first thing in the morning, end of the day in the eastern US, so we can see Sam. He is trying his best to crawl, and we
are anxious to see him.

Next we headed to the Port Moselle Yacht Club, packed for the day and the evening activities. Mark spent the better part of his day at the internet cafe again, this time making reservations for our plane trip home from Australia. We have ended up deciding to stay in Australia until after Thanksgiving to give us time to get all of the boat work done before coming home. We are planning on staying in the US until the first of May, and will have to leave Bundaberg as soon as we arrive in order to
get to Darwin for the Sail Indonesia Rally in late July. We would have a more leisurely trip if we could return to Australia by the first of April, and we will do that if work schedules allow. We based our current reservations to meet time schedules imposed by some possible job opportunities that might not even pan out. We were afraid to wait any longer to make the reservations, so hopefully what we have decided will work out for us. While Mark did this, I did a walk about town trying to find
large envelopes for mailing things home. I had to walk all the way across town to the information center to find out where to go. While in that part of town, I went to the Museum of Noumea to buy museum passes for us, for Ranger, and for Scot Free II. I made a quick tour through the museum while I was there, but the serious touring will start tomorrow morning. Of course, the place I needed to go to buy mailing materials was back across town where I started, so I hiked back, taking in the downtown
sights.

This evening we attended a “get-to-know you” function with other cruisers participating in the Port to Port Rally. We will all be heading to Bundaberg sometime during the next week. This rally is organized basically for the fun to be had in Bundaberg once we arrive, but it was nice to meet others face-to-face that will be on our radio sched as we cross. We met one young man, Garrett, who is crew on Silkie out of North Carolina. Garrett lived in Boston while getting his Masters in Aerospace Engineering
at MIT and we enjoyed talking about the marinas in Charlestown. He had done a lot of sailing out of Constitution Marina, and we lived at Shipyard Quarters Marina, just a few piers away. We very much enjoyed talking with some of the cruisers from Australia about what we might expect during our passage and once we arrive.

Tomorrow is museum tour day, Sunday morning is market day, and Monday is check-out and fuel up day. If the weather cooperates, we will be out of here on Monday afternoon, but we will just have to wait and see.