On a Mooring in Noumea

0800 position 22-17S 166-26E. On a mooring outside of Port Moselle Marina, Noumea, New Caledonia

Yesterday was provisioning day aboard the mighty Van Diemen. Shortly after breakfast the rest of the crew dinghied ashore to shop and check email. I stayed aboard to mind the boat, write the blog, catch up on emails, and bake some brownies. The crew returned shortly before noon in the dinghy loaded to the gunwales with food. Noumea provides our last opportunity to provision before we reach the coast of Australia.

Marie made a beautiful salad for lunch and I grilled up the last of the aku to go with it. There was a lot of reading and napping during the afternoon.

Dr. Michael Vaughan got started early in the afternoon making the crust for a pizza he was putting together for dinner. I have no experience with bread making, so it was fun to watch. Michael spent all afternoon messing around with the dough, and while it was resting or rising he made the pizza's toppings. It took him all afternoon to prepare and cook, and it was fantastic when it was done. In addition to cooking dinner when it was his turn at sea, and again last night, Michael has cooked us two grilled sandwich lunches.

Michael's child-like and persistent enthusiasm, boundless energy, and personal mannerisms remind me of one of my other sailing mentors and heros, Skip Steveley, with whom I've sailed six Transpac races. Merlin's skipper in five of those races, Skip nevertheless ran the foredeck on the boat because he loved it up there and left the back of the boat to the rest of us. I vividly recall the first sunrise aboard Merlin in my first Transpac aboard her. Skip woke me up to come on watch by handing me a plate of bacon and eggs as I got out of my bunk. I was thinking that this was pretty special treatment, and this excessive kindness continued. It turned out that Skip had ulterior motives, and after a couple of days he broke down and confessed. Merlin was always a contender for first to finish honors in Transpac. The "Don Vaughn" trophy, given to the MVP of the first to finish boat, was awarded based on a vote of that boat's crew. Skip had won the Don Vaughn trophy in the previous Transpac aboard "Charlie", and he knew how to lobby for votes.

At cocktail hour I introduced our newer crew members to "The Van Diemen". We had two rounds.

We woke up this morning to find that the southeast trade winds had returned to New Caledonia. The trades are forecast to stick around for four more days and then shift to the northeast, north, and northwest as the high pressure area generating these winds moves off to the east. That may provide our best opportunity to sprint south to Norfolk Island. In the mean time, we have a couple of days to explore the anchorages here inside New Caledonia's barrier reef. Now all we have to do is clear customs and immigration...

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