Category: Uncategorized

September 3, 2016

Stuck in Wé Marina while the wind blew, we hit the road (oh, poor us!).

Here are a couple of photospheres from the drive. The first one: Luengoni Beach. (These photospheres are big so don’t click if you’re paying by the bit or if you have a slow connection.)

And here’s one of a wild spot at the southern end of Lifou.

After all that, we hurried home to see our new pet. No, we don’t have a dog and we miss having a pet. We have to make do with what we can get. In this case, a big titan trigger that was living under our boat in the marina. He likes chicken scraps!

Update: Who’s that fish remind you of? Think Star Trek. Think Voyager. Do you know? Click here for answer.

August 30, 2016

We took a little walk today that included Chateaubriand Beach. Wow! Use your mouse to pan around and enjoy the view.

August 29, 2016

(Actually, I’m not really sure they even have zip codes here, but we moved!) We made the overnight, 100 mile trip to Lifou, one of New Caledonia’s Loyalty Islands.  We’re here…

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And while Cyndi was walking around our new marina, taking these pictures, she spotted humpback whales just offshore. What a treat!

Nice pictures Cyndi! -Rich

August 27, 2016

We’ve used the Rocket Guide now during our three stops in New Caledonia and we love it. We’ve told others about it and usually one of two things happens: either they say, “Oh yea, I have that. I got it from another cruiser” (No they didn’t – it’s not the same as the interactive guide that’s getting passed around) or they aren’t all that impressed with it (because they haven’t found all the information it contains).

Here’s a short video that I hope will help with both those issues…

The rocket guide can be found here.

–Rich

August 25, 2016

I was thinking about our most recent passage – we put up our double reefed main when we left New Zealand and didn’t touch it until we took it down when we arrived in New Caledonia. All in all, it was a very comfortable passage.

We haven’t used our full mainsail in quite some time. Legacy is easily driven. If the wind is light, the extra sail just flops around and doesn’t really help anything (maybe that wouldn’t be the case in flat water, but flat water is just an urban legend!).

More importantly to us, it seems that as you apply energy to the boat (wind on sails), after a point somewhere around hull speed, the boat speed increases very little but the discomfort shoots way up. I’m pretty sure that all the extra energy that isn’t used for speed is converted directly to misery and suffering. -Rich