Day 170, Year 2: Pirogue Sail Across Upi Bay
Date: Thursday, October 11, 2007
Weather: New Caledonia Has Only Beautiful, Sunny Days!
Location: Kuto Bay, Isle of Pines, New Caledonia
Today we played tourist. We rode the hotel van to the pirogue landing in Vao and got aboard for our sail up the shallow Bay of St. Joseph and through the narrow entry into the Bay of Upi. Sailing on a pirogue was so much fun. These outrigger canoes are basically a hollowed out log with a smaller log pontoon out to one side to steady it. There is a platform on top of the log canoe, and that is where you sit. The triangular sail is attached to a rustic mast. That is about it. We were amazed
at how smoothly they sailed in basically no wind. We didn’t move fast, but we continually moved forward to the head of Baie de Upi. Once there we were dropped off so that we could walk for about an hour through the forest to get to La Priscine Naturelle, the natural pool where we swam yesterday. We left Kuto Bay at 8 AM and landed at the head of Upi Bay at 10 AM. By 11 AM we were in the water at the natural pool, and we basically snorkeled and walked the reef for the next three hours. Our ride
back to Kuto was the hotel van that was going to pick us up at 3:00, so we spent our last hour at the homestay where we were to be picked up having a beer and talking to a couple from Paris. Donna of Scot Free and Mark were also looking through the underwater pictures they had taken during day.
When we first arrived at the pool today, there were other tourists standing on rocks in the pool feeding the fish. I got into the water and evidently got myself under one of the areas where the fish were being fed. All of a sudden, I had fish of all sorts nibbling on me! They were gentle, even though some of the fish were quite large, and it was just so much fun to be enveloped by so many fish. I swam around the natural pool a number of times and discovered creatures I had not seen before. I
loved watching the batfish swim beneath me and was thrilled that a huge school of goat fish allowed me to swim along with them for quite some time. On our walk to the pool, we saw lots of Reticulate Brittle Stars and fiesty little crabs, and in the pool I found a very long creature that looked a little like a sea snake, but it seemed to have no head. Later in the day, we found one of these in a shallow area and played with it a bit. It was probably about three feet long, but when you picked it
up with a stick, it totally collapsed and looked like loose skin. Instead of a head, it had short tentacles, and when you approached the tentacle end with a stick, it shrunk and became only a foot and a half long. We have no idea what this was, but it entertained us for some time. We then climbed up onto the coral wall that separates the pool from the ocean and had even more surprises. We were walking on a reef with lots of shallow pools containing small fish, colorful clams, urchins, and sponges.
By this time, almost all of the other tourists had left and we had the place all to ourselves to explore. After finishing our exploration of the top of the wall, Mark and I made one last underwater visit. I went back to see a family of anemonefish living in a hole in the side of a large coral rock. When I came face to face with the little guys, one of them actually attacked me. I knew I had come too close to her home, so I backed off just a bit and Mark got a video of the two anemonefish coming
toward by dive mask, backing off, and coming back again and again. La Priscine Naturelle is one of the most magical places we have visited and we enjoyed it to its fullest today.
Our ride home in a van was not nearly as beautiful as our ride up Upi Bay in a pirogue, but the driver went home via the only road we had not already traveled on the island. We cut across on the airport road and at one point we had a fantastic view of the bays on the west side of the island. Tomorrow morning we are hoping to climb Pic N’ga, the tallest mountain on the island, and from there we should be able to have a 360 degree view of the Isle of Pines and all of her bays. Here’s hoping we can
make it to the top.
