Atiré, Redika and a Drone

July 29, 2022

The weather turned great for a trip out to the lagoon, but still not good enough for a seven-day passage to Australia. We would only get two good days before more frontal activity and strong trade winds came our way. It turns out, two days was just a tad optimistic – more on that in a bit.

After all the cruising we’ve done in the lagoon in six visits to New Caledonia, Cyndi still has more places on her cruising New Cal bucket list. This time, it would be two tiny islands called Redika and Atiré. Here are some pics of Redika from the air…

Our next stop was another tiny island called Atiré. While we didn’t go ashore, we did enjoy the anchorage (for a while, at least) and the view from the air…

We look at six different weather models on PredictWind. We mostly pay attention to the ECMWF model and lately, the GFS model as well. The ECMWF model predicted winds around 12 knots and what we were actually experiencing (in the real-life app, as Cyndi likes to call it) was about 4 or 5 knots like GFS predicted. That’s what we expected overnight, but that’s not what we got.

Here’s a screenshot of the two models taken as I write this an hour after our return to safe harbor…

It’s very definitely blowing more like ECMWF predicts as it started to do after we (tried) to go to sleep last night. About 4AM, with the seas building and the wind blowing at about 15 knots, we pulled the anchor and headed back to town. This kind of thing happens when you try to thread the weather needle but even with the rude wake-up call this morning, this little trip was still great.

Okay, I’m sure you’ve noticed that we have a drone. It’s a DJI Mavic Air 2 and we love it. It seems like it’s impossible to get a bad picture with it and the video is amazing as well. It’s well worth the terror.

Yep, terror. That’s about what I feel every time I fly it.  I’m not even talking about flying from a moving boat – just taking off and landing on Legacy at anchor. We flew while underway once when we first got the drone and it wasn’t pretty. Here’s a video.

I don’t think that flying while sailing is really worth the risk (to the drone and to my adrenal system). We all know what boats look like when they sail. That said, if we get a windless day on a glassy ocean during our next passage, I might try again.

Why the terror – fear of wasting about a grand and not having a drone for the rest of a trip. I have actually flown it a lot of hours now and I’m getting better, but my fingers still shake on the controls when I come in for a landing on our dodger-top solar panel (a great landing pad with the boom pulled over to starboard). -Rich

The Magnificent Coromandel Peninsula, Part 3: Cooks Beach and Whitianga (North Island, New Zealand)

March 12, 2014

Back in time, in NZ  and the Coromandel Peninsula . . .

Now that we’d visited Cathedral Cove, it was time to head to the town of Whitianga where we’d check into our motel and get some lunch. But there was one more detour along the way, a place called Cooks Beach.

After parking near Cooks, we walked over to take it in.  Wow, this was yet another impressive beach with an expanse of white sand and views of the mountainous Coromandel coastline around us. And even being the summer season, we practically had it to ourselves! Suddenly I was grateful for the long and difficult road to get to this area of the Coromandel as it keeps these beaches pretty empty.

I have to say this general area was in the running for having the best beaches in New Zealand. Below, a photo gallery of Cooks Beach (click any photo to enlarge).

Close by was yet another beach of interest, but at this point we were tired and hungry; it was time to head to town. We made a beeline to our motel, the Beachside Resort. It was pleasant, comfortable, and while not actually on the beach, it was a very brief walk over there.

Next, we headed to town. Whitianga, in spite of its proximity to the beach, actually lies along a channel leading inland from the ocean. Here the town is fronted by a marina and esplanade. Two blocks inland, Whtianga’s main street was scattered with shops and restaurants. This town caters to locals, vacation-home owners, and tourists, so it’s more active than its remote location might suggest.

The minute we got to the marina/esplanade, I was instantly taken with this pretty and charming place. Outside the marina, boats were moored in the channel, and there was a small ferry ready to take foot traffic across to an area called Ferry Landing. Ferry Landing has parkland, a bush walk, private homes, and the beach we skipped earlier. I hoped to get over there, but first we needed lunch.

We headed to a restaurant called Wild Hogs where we had an iconic Coromandel lunch: local mussels, fish and chips, and beer to wash it all down. Not surprisingly, it was terrific. Below, some photos of our lunch and a bit of the town….

By now we’d seen enough of Whitianga that we decided we’d love to bring our boat here. So our next stop was a visit to the marina office to learn more about prices, availability, and depths of the slips. We found that while we’d have to come into this area at high tide, we would otherwise be fine once we got into a slip. So, a dream was born. We were happily settled in Tauranga at this point, but maybe next year…

After stopping for ice cream cones, we bought a bottle of wine before heading back to our room. Rich was pretty wiped out. It had been a long day and he’d had enough. I opted to check out the beach nearby, Buffalo Beach, and walked over.

In this wonderland of beaches, this one could be considered just average, yet something about it was so pleasant. This was a good beach for sitting and thinking, enjoying the beach-y feeling without being distracted by a need to explore it or take a ton of photos. The evening sun was still a little bright, but it felt so good to be there that I wanted to linger as long as I could. Eventually I headed back to the room.

Later we ordered take-out pizza from an Italian place called Dino’s. While we waited we went to Buffalo Beach to admire the sunset while a half-moon hung over the beach.

and a panorama (click image for larger version)…

We headed back to our room to cap off this day with wine and quite-tasty pizza. Tomorrow’s plan included, you guessed it, more beaches.–Cyndi

Evening at Laregnere Island (New Caledonia)

The final stop on our places-we-haven’t-been tour was a little island called Laregnere. Accessible from Noumea by water taxi, it attracts a lot of day-trippers, picnic party groups, and a few campers so it wasn’t as pristine as the other islands we’d visited. Still, it was pretty nice  . . .

After this, we headed back to Noumea to sit out the next round of windy weather coming our way. This may be our final visit to New Caledonia’s lagoon as we’re still waiting for a weather window to head to Australia, but I have to say it’s been a real treat to visit these islands, “last” but definitely not “least.”

Here’s a map of this mini-cruise…

–Cyndi