loaves and fishes

Summer continues here. It has been 30 degrees with high humidly for weeks now, but fear not, we have an air conditioner! Yes we broke down and bought an air conditioner after a few nights of troubled sleep and days in the boat reaching 36.8 degrees C! No that wasn’t fun, and necessitated a trip to some waterfalls. Normally we are blessed with constant trades, humidity below 60% and amicable temperatures. Normally people ask what do we do on the boat in terms of climate control and we say the breeze is sufficient, but Summer arrived and all that changed. We are lucky enough to have a neighbor who does plumbing and refrigeration. Until this heat wave began, he stood fast on the pretense that he installed and repaired the retched things and did not want the likes on his boat. He had to eat his words this month when the record heat descended upon us.

I am attributing the heat to it being a La Nina year, known for its increased sea and air temp, high humidity, and increased storm activity. All this equals a higher incidence of cyclones/hurricanes/typhoons. Whatever you call them, they are things I do not like. I like “cold” tropical waters. Not this year. The water in the north of the island is already hotter than it reached last year and it’s only January! Think cold thoughts for me. Maybe another iceberg can break off of Antarctic and make its way all the way up here this time.


Empire means different things throughout the world. For me the British Empire means roads and education systems and the French empire means their cuisine traveling the world. I think the British created colonies to improve its culinary pallet, while the French colonized for resources. Maybe that is why the British gave up its territories with greater ease, it already had the recipes and could return home to make better food. While the French needed to remain abroad for financial reasons (humor me with my brazen generalizations). From the above picture we are most certainly in a French territory. The bread is lovely to eat, but I think I enjoy smelling it even more when it is fresh and still warm. What is even better, it is a feast for the eyes. It is funny to walk into any gas station and see baguettes, but here is a photo from a local supermarket. What I like more than the bread is the French cheese. Oh, it is delicious all smelly, gooey, and whether subtle or pungent it adds something to any meal. We try to keep expanding our cheese palette. The other night was no exception. We had a Moulis and a Chevre sur Paillon. They are quite different with the Chevre having high sodium content and the Moulis being quite smooth with an earthier flavor.


Let us not forget that this is the South Pacific. This photo was taken next to the boat. It was taken right after a few days of rain and you can see the water quality is not good thanks to all the runoff. Look carefully and find the fish in the photo. There is a fish here, which defense mechanism is to camouflage itself as a leaf, pretty smart!


My classes have begun. The first few hours were a bit overwhelming to figure where I need to be checking, reading, posting, and downloading. One professor made a podcast with her reading her PowerPoint presentation notes for the first section. The discussions come by way of message boards where the professor poses a question and the students respond to the question and each other. In a traditional classroom setting students speak extemporaneously. On the internet one has time to compile and research ones thoughts and opinions raising the caliber of discussion. It should be interesting. I have a text book per course and am taking two courses. I one book is read and the other I am about 1/3 through, so the text reading is not an issue at the moment, but there will be a lot of time searching the internet. Google here I come.

Massive Position

Massive Position is what a banker from Société Générale called Jérôme Kerviel $7.2 billion in losses made on bullish bets in the vanilla market. They cannot figure out how or why he did it. He apparently did not benefit from these losses, but one has to wonder...Who would benefit from the demise of one of Frances top and most stable financial institutions. Why would a quite trader who was incredibly lucky to have a job ear marked for a graduate of a Grande Ecole be willing to risk his position for losses.

Maybe he did benefit from the loses, but not directly. Maybe someone else benefited from the loses and paid him to lose. hhmmmm....

I am certainly no banker, but I would hope that it takes a certain amount of effort to lose such an amount of money. I would also hope that someone would notice at say the 1 billion mark and start asking question. Mr. Kerviel has to be quite smart if he was able to outwit the bank for such a period of time and dealing with said amount of the money.

I guess we should always watch out for the quite ones.

These are merely my musings, for it all seems surreal.

On a final note this is also my bank here in Noumea.

Please Repeat – Répétez si vous plait

Things get lost in translation, ones ears are not as attuned to the foreign language, a speaker mumbles, different cultures speak at different volumes. It is not unusual to ask someone to repeat something. The following account is something I heard loud and clear. It was not lost in translation for lack of audio comprehension. I was unable to comprehend what I heard for the lack of logic driving the issue.

My thoughts upon here this issue were, “Certainly this is impossible. How can people make such assumptions and presumptions?”, but here in New Caledonia certain individuals feel this makes perfect sense?

The unions in France are very strong. Anyone who pays attention to French news sees the annual strikes which seem to grind the country to a halt with a certain amount of regularity. Next transport yourself thousands of miles/kilometers away and you will find yourself in the New Caledonia. Here we are France, or as I like to think France when they want to be. So guess what we have with even greater regularity… strikes! The garbage men strike not for higher salary (of course), but for further respect, i.e higher salary. I always make sure to say hello to the garbagemen, to make sure they feel they have the appropriate amount of respect they are due. The Pizza workers strike. Do your Domino’s delivery guys strike, because the equivalent here do.

Unions are even stronger here than in Metropol France. The government seems to kowtow to them for fear of having a repeat of the social unrest from the 1980s. Until the referendum in 2014 they do not want to be too heavy handed. For more information see Winkpedia.

What is unique about striking here in New Caledonia is the amount of time, energy, duration of which the strikes last. In France metropol – a few weeks is normal. Here a few months is normal. People camp out, they build structures, sleep there, decorate for Christmas. People have been known to strike for years. The business simply closes, the owners file for bankruptcy, life goes on, but the strikers remain.

Solidarity is another strong issue here. It follows the lines of race, union, and island affiliation. The unions themselves are not racially divided. If someone from Wallace and Fatuna (an even smaller French island nation -comprising two islands east of here) has a problem and wants to strike there have been numerous instances where everyone from the island goes on strike with them. There are a lot of people from Wallace and Fatuna here (more than on the islands themselves) and this makes for a certain amount of unrest I have been told.

The most recent strike involves the local city bus drivers, and like many strikes has been going on for over a month- I honestly lost track of time when it began. I shall give you a little historical background to help understand where we are today. The buses are privately managed and owned, but receive support from the government. Over a year ago a bus driver was caught steeling money from his employer. He said he “borrowed” the money under the auspices that he needed it and would return it. After lengthy negotiations with his union (USTKE) he was given a year’s salary, plus a bonus equivalent to tens of thousands of dollars and was asked to leave his job. One year passes, his salary is over, and said gentlemen want his job back. When the employer says no, his fellow workers rally for him to be able to return. Eventually a strike ensues, soon after the garbage men are on strike in solidarity. Last weekend this strike erupted in violence where the police officers were attached and thirty arrests were made, this all in the defense of someone who stole money.

This is where things get really interesting or entertaining. The union’s defense of the actions was the following. The newspaper reported that the union leader said it wasn’t fair that the men caught were arrested as the police didn’t give them enough time to run. Since they have jobs, families, and homes they must be upstanding citizens (who accidentally were throwing rocks and attacking police). They employer is depriving this man of his right to work. One person told a reporter for the local news that is normal to take money from your employer, apparently “everyone does it”.

So people are striking in order for someone who stole money from his employer to get his job back. Let me remind you for the Americans especially, people here work 35 hours a week, get 5 weeks vacation and receive full healthcare. The bus drivers make a living wage here. What is so hard about all this?

I heard this on the news, read this in the paper, and heard people speaking about it, but truly I did not understand it.

If you want to read more about this issue in French go to www.lnc.nc. If you want to read an English translation Google Les Nouvelles, Nouméa and click on the English translation option. It is not 100% accurate, but one may obtain an general understanding.

A note about safety: the violence happened in the industrial zone near the nickel refinery. A place we do not go to, so we were never in danger.

Recieving...guiltily

Receiving a package here reminds me of summer camp, always wondering if they will find contraband to confiscate or in this instance pay tax on. I always enter the OPT (French postal service) office feeling guilty, like a child owning up to a crime. I enter tentatively with my slip stating, I have a package, always fearful they will force me to open it up in front of them and sort through its contents. I have a flashback to summer camp where a counselor would have you open your package and confiscate any candy your parents lovingly sent to you hidden within the package, knowing full well that, ‘candy was not allowed.’ I think I had gum confiscated once, no financial burden incurred, but the thought of someone taking my possessions from right in front of me still rings as severely unjust. Stories circulated that one parent went so far as to cut out the pages to a book in order to fill it with candy. I cannot imagine my parents doing this, not for lack of creativity, but simply for the sacrilege of ruining any form of reading material.

Though the rules are clear anything under 30,000 FCFP (French Pacific Franc) roughly $240 (the dollar really is painful to track these days) sent from a private individual or 3,000 FCFP sent from a commercial enterprise is tax exempt. I have some antiquated concept of mail as being extremely personal and beyond the hands of the law. For me it truly is a crime for anyone to open your mail, especially a package. So the thought of the post office having ultimate control is still not something I have come to terms with.

I also must provide a thank you to my parents who are always willing to send me things to any where in the world. Mom and Dad: THANK YOU

I have had only had two experiences thus far, and both were perfectly legal packages. The first time I felt I got a bit of the run around. The package arrived as a gift (and unbeknown to me), but was sent directly from a commercial enterprise, thus necessitating a facture (a receipt). This being a surprise gift I did not have a receipt. Visit number one was a bust. The second attempt I came prepared with facture and passport. I entered, took my number and waited. Luckily the wait wasn’t that long. My number was called I went to the appropriate person. She told me to go to another person. I went to person number two, he asked for the receipt. The receipt was presented and deemed acceptable, but then he smiled a big sneering smile, which in my experience of French public servants means, ‘I am going to make this difficult for you’. He sent me back to person number one. She retrieved my package and sent me to person number two who smiled again and sent me back to person number one saying it wasn’t for him to be involved with. In the end the package involved another round of back and forth, but was eventually received.

The second package was received last week. I was a bit concerned because inside the package was the book I requested, but there were also CDs listed in the contents. I was happy to see that no tax was required, but still a bit concerned as I did not know if these were new CDs or burned CDs, what would customs or OPT think of either circumstance/ There was a bit of a time lag between arrival in Nouméa and receiving confirmations in our Boite Postale (P.O. Box), but this time the visit to OPT was painless. Maybe one day I will get over my residual guilt from summer camp.

New Year's Sunset

DSCN6972
Originally uploaded by zayasail

This was one of the few sunsets we saw, but it was lovely while it lasted.

New Year's Adventures

I am writing this post to the readers of this blog and asking you what did you do for New Year’s Eve? You can email me the answer if you do not want to post in the comment box. How was your New Year’s Eve? I want to here what everyone did. This year I would like to collect everyone’s stories of adventures, mishaps and mayhem.

OOur New Year’s Eve was relatively quite. We sailed to Ilse of Pines, one of the small outer islands arriving Christmas Eve. It’s an interesting mix of tourism and island life. I wouldn’t call it touristy in comparison to the Caribbean, but you do see a lot of tourists. The island has a population of roughly 1500 people, so it is easy to for a visitng cruise ship to make a big impression on the population. There are cruise ships arriving every few days and there are resorts and gites throughout the island, but it is nothing like arriving in Nassau, Bahamas. In the fashion with Melanesian culture, the main beach has nothing for sale on it normally. When the cruise ships arrive there are some women selling fruit and some homemade snacks, but otherwise it remains a serene beach aside from the sole resteruant. I know the locals have worked to keep it that way. Lucky for us that the island cannot support a cruise ship entering it’s main harbor, so the cruise ship must stand off outside the entrance to the harbor and ferry people to land. So every few days the beaches would be inundated by Australian and Japanese tourists.

Isle des Pines is known for its beautiful white sand beaches. It is truly incredible to walk on the beach and have such soft white sand that is squeaks under your feet. We were in a beautiful location, but not blessed by the weather, as we had a lot of grey rainy weather, but it didn’t sop us from swimming. It did how ever stop us from visiting the other anchorages with the boat. As any passage through the reefs necessitates good visibility which we never got. We did make a tour of the island by bike. It is a small island and in a couple of hours of biking went around. Being out of biking shape we felt it the next day.

New Year’s arrived, and it was a grey rainy day at the beach. We did go swimming in the drizzle earlier in the day, and mother nature gave us some respite from the clouds with a lovely sunset before the clouds settled in once again. We were joined by our neighbors in Noumea, who were our neighbors in the anchorage as well. We did have wine, fois gras, and home-made bread (by me). We never got to the champagne, as we were so stuffed with snacks. Our neighbors, who just arrived in Ilse de Pines, had caught a fish on the way and gave us two giant pieces for us to cook later – quite a nice New Years present. Other highlights from the island were collecting oysters from a nearby beach which we cooked in a garlic sauce… so yummy

So that was my New Year’s Eve and the time leading up to the tranquil evening, and now I want to heart about from other people.

Taking the treat home

In my yoga studio after most classes the entire class (never more than six people) sits around and drinks tea out of Moroccan glass tea cups. The aprés class thé is a nice tradition. I cannot quite imagine it in America, as we are always rushing off to something else. Though I did attend one class where we came close to such a tradition, with an after class coffee on occasion (a la Christine in Golden Heart Yoga, Annapolis, MD).

What made this new tradition so lovely was not so much the camaraderie, my burgeoning French skills don’t allow me to feel at ease the way I do during the actual practice, but the actual tea itself. I discovered a new kind of tea. What was even more interesting to me, was that the tea was a generic brand found at the local Casino (French supermarket chain) as I discovered from the familiar graphics on the box. Not only was it delicious, but it wasn’t even some secret expensive tea leaf picked by monks on far away mountain tops. I could get it wherever I wanted! Here was a new tea, which apparently must be as common to the French, but completely foreign to me. It was mint with something else, and finally I got a look at the box and discovered Menthe Réglisee.

The following is the composition:
Réglisse, mint douce, arome de citron

The secret is the réglisse… the licorice!

I bought myself a box today and have now made my first cup at home. It is as good as in class, even if I am not drinking it out of Moroccan tea glasses.

Diwali in Noumea

I must begin with brief apology for my extended absence.

The blog was put on hold for a long time, as we are now living in Nouméa New Caledonia (Nouvelle Calédonia). I guess shore life seemed to pale in comparison to our recent adventures cruising, but there has been a request for an update, and life on land has it’s own adventures. I am unable to fill you in on everything which has occurred, but I will let you in some recent past events.

Diwali in Nouméa

Diwali is the Hindu New Year. Though Diwali was some time ago, we just celebrated it here, not that either of us is Hindu. We thought it would be fun to go, meet new people, and eat some good food.

I was highly encouraged to break out the sari I bought in Fiji. It's intended use was to cut up for craft projects, but since the holiday appeared before the crafts did I was left with something festive to wear. Mind you I never got a lesson, due to its intended use. So thanks to the powers of Google I was able to make an attempt at wearing a Sari. Dressing is the first challenge then one must walk, and finally there is dancing in a Sari. I will get to that later.

So we arrived and there were some Indians, and the women were all dressed in lovely traditional outfits. There were some non Indians dressed in traditional outfits (myself included). Like anything in New Caledonia the event was comprised of toute le monde: French, Polynesian, Malagasy, Polynesian, and South Asian, and Asian. There was one Indian dancer, and we were sad to see the festivities quite limited in terms of Indian events. I assume it is not easy to bring troops of people in for one night to entertain 200 hundred people.

I am also sad to report the food was quite disappointing. I am sure there are some wonderful cooks among the organizers, and cooking for over 200 is no easy task. I can only assume scale was the downfall to the quality of the cuisine.

Beyond the dancing we had our own entertainment at the table. I am sure any event planner with tell you seating is very important to the success of ones events, and this event was no different. Our first location was next to what we found out later to be the Malagasies group. We moved to the other end of the table for what we assumed would be a better view of the dancing – big mistake. We found ourselves seated amongst a most inhospitable group. The woman across from me was hysterical. She looked like a character actor: makeup circa late eighties and not a smile crossed her lips. Philippe and I just looked at each other and had to control our amusement. Another woman who was running around trying to look important was sitting near us as well, she was one of the organizers. Once she realized we had “ruined her plans” of being surrounded by people she knew she asked politely if we might move, doing her best impersonation of an Indian bow. We were quite happy to move, and our fellow diners were from Reunion Island. They seem to have colored our dining experience more than the food. Philippe knows the couple, and provided me some warning about them. Normally he is happy to speak about Reunion especially with people from there. There is small population of Reunion Diaspora in New Caledonia, so it does happen from time to time. This couple is the anomaly. Not only does he not care to speak about Reunion, but he just doesn’t care to speak much with them. This couple is quite entertaining to say the least. They are both full Indian, unlike Philippe who is Creole. I will not attribute their behavior to their ethnicity, nationality, or citizenship. I can say that bad manners or taste always translates. They are perfectly pleasant to when you first meet them, but as the conversation develops one discovers it is the choice and breadth of topics which limits fellow interlocutors’ enjoyment. With my limited French it was easy to understand that the conversation was limited to how hard everything is outside of Reunion, how much better Reunion is, how expensive everything is, and how they “have to travel so much” – to places like New Zealand and Italy on vacation. The couple who are in their 50’s and appear to be well traveled, but have never lived outside Reunion and do not seem to make for good overseas inhabitants. As you can see their life is “very difficult”. I hope everyone with think of them next time they think of someone in need!

I am able to report that DJs are the same throughout the world: cheesy dated music, too loud, and this one had a smoke machine to boot! We did dance a little, which is no easy task in a Sari. I am happy I used safety pins and can only assume I should use more in the future. We saw westernized Polynesian dancing. Think ballroom meets the Pacific, most of the steps are similar to a waltz, but as the song progresses so does the speed of the steps.

All in all it was fun to go out more for the cultural aspects than anything else. The pieces may not all be perfect, but the rough parts did compromise a whole evening which was fun. We stayed until 1am and the DJ was going strong, though the participants were dwindling.

The flipside

L'Shana Tova for all.

I returned to the US to receive my visa which took over three months, yes over three months! Then rescheduling a flight was no easy task using frequent flier miles – limited seating availability. I finally arrived back in Nouméa after four months. It is so nice to be back, Philippe and I are happy to be reunited.

What have we been doing in the time? Well, we have both been working, Philippe in Nouméa and myslf in New Jersey. There was some trepidation on my part in regards to my return. Why you ask, well, I returned to Tontouta airport (local international airport) with a great deal of luggage. My concerns were twofold: customs would decide I had an inordinate amount of luggage and decide to search and then tax me on everything and the bags would not all fit in the car. Went through quarantine and all they asked was if I had any food, which honestly I did not, and amazingly all items fit in our little Twingo. Small, relatively, remote French islands have a considerable importation tax rendering most goods considerably more than they are in US. With that in mind I had done some serious shopping in the US. Almost all items made it through, of course the one item which will be the most expensive to ship from the US or replace here was damaged beyond repair in transit. I am waiting to hear from my credit card if they will reimburse me. American Airlines lays responsibility on the international carrier and Quantas says they are only responsible for the exterior of a bag. So we shall see how responsive Citicards is to their customers needs…I shall keep you informed.

Other news the picture below is of my Carte de Sejur. This is really more important than the Visa, as this allows me to work, and live in New Caledonia. After so many months of waiting it was surreal to walk into the Bureau des les affairs des Entragers and simply fill out a form, hand over the appropriate documents (while they made their own copies!), and be told to return in a week.

The other issue we have (more Philippe) been dealing with is importing the boat. Philippe is French, so he has no problem. Like me the boat is American. Unlike me ZAYA and all other foreign boats receive a one year stay upon their arrival. Though it is far easier to change a flag rather than a passport (don’t worry I am not giving up my American citizenship). The biggest challenge is that no one seemed to know what was required of us. People tend to air on the dramatic, and were telling us everything from the idea that we had only 6 months to import the boat, and would have to pay 30% of what they deem the value of the boat to be. A scary proposition as the market here seems to bear considerably higher than US market prices. One example of the confusion happened to our friends, who are French with a French boat. They were told they would have to pay tax on the shipping of their boat from France. When they informed the official that they sailed from France, the confused government representative merely repeated the information they had in front of them. They eventually worked everything out and did not pay tax on a container ship which was never used. As for Zaya, our situation, after speaking with the head of customs, Philippe seems to have worked everything out. Now we will have an American flagged boat, which resides in Nouméa (similar to my situation – foreign resident).

Why not get a French flag for the boat. This was an issue Philippe dealt with in the US. The Zaya is an American built boat and is not CE certified (a standard for all goods in Europe). In order for the boat to get a French or European flag it would need to pass a CE certification. To get the boat accessed in the US was going to cost $10,000! This was just for the assessment of all the things which would then need to be fixed/or replaced to meet standards from 1998. That idea was economically ridiculous. Why $10,000 for a survey, well that survey would then allow all boats of the same make or model to be sold or imported to Europe. 10K is not much for an American boat builder to pay to be able to import a whole line of boats. The coast may easily be shared over hundred of boats. For us it was just not practical. Below you have the beginning of our documentation!

The next item on the to do list is to a job, and then everything will be well on Zaya.

Flickr

This is a test post from , a fancy photo sharing thing.

Sydney Family

I have to apologize, as this post is very overdue. I am a country behind. I, Sara am now in America and have been for almost two weeks. JP is in Noumea. My route from Noumea to America took me through Australia. This allowed me to meet my Australian family or rather my family in Australia. Yes, I do have family in Australia, and no they have not just recently arrived. My family first arrived from England in 1949.

It was wonderful to meet them, and I had a great time. They definitely proved that Australians have a great sense of humor, enjoy life, and are a little less stressed than Americans (it must be the amazing weather). There was much discussion as to how I am related to everybody, second cousin twice removed or three times removed. The general consensus, was that we are family and to leave it at that.

Upon my arrival I was whisked off to Bondi Beach, the CBD, and see the Opera House as well as other sites. I was given my own private walking tour of beautiful spots minutes from downtown Sydney, which shall remain secret unless you inquire with my cousin Gerald.

I have to give Anne and Gerald a big thank you for being wonderful hosts. They made the visit very special, and provided me a warm welcome to Australia. It is wonderful to arrive in a New Country and meet more family.

The following are some pictures from my brief visit.


Family

Coffee, Cake, with Family at Bondi Beach…What could be better?


My cousin Anne and I overlooking Sydney habour.

L’Omelette géante

This weekend was full of festivities. Noumea hosted its own carnival. It entailed a long parade with a variety of dancing and some very subdued observers. It was really nothing to write home about, so I shall move.

The more interesting event was the Omelette Géante hosted by the local town of Dumbea. It is about a 20 minute drive from Noumea. Where literally they crack over 7,000 eggs, cut up enormous loaves of bread, and make giant scrambled eggs in a frying pan made to size. The whole thing was a bit ridiculous, and the French people I have asked have not been able to give a history of where in France this comes from. I do know that this tradition was brought to Dumbea thanks to Bernard Beilles in 1983. The proportions of the ingredients are so large they use drills to beat the eggs, the spatulas were over 10 feet long, and the pan itself must have been 5 meters in diameter and necessitated a crane to move it. One has to love the hats and the attire of the cooking staff. The French take their gastronomie very seriously, and even outdoor antics require the proper attire.

Here are a few pictures from the festivities.




Aside the from the giant omelet the carnival hosted all the usual carnival aspects of bumper cars, cotton candy, games for kids, and music. We got to see some nice Polynesian dancing (the best since we left Polynesia). This is because New Caledonia is very diverse and has a large representation from populations throughout the Pacific and the world. This was followed by a torturous unending representation of how mediocre music can be. It was a Polynesian female singer with a keyboardist who didn’t so much play but destroy the prefabricated sounds from the synthesizer. I don’t know if it was to serve as a foil for the final act or make her feel important. The best part was magic System. They are a group from Ivory Coast. They had a top 10 hit in France in 2002. It was a wonderful performance (something sorely lacking here). The show was a pleasant change to see everyone singing and dancing along. The final song had kids come up on stage and dance with them. They made sure to have black, white, and pacific islanders all represented and it was great to see all the kids dance as they had been taught from there own cultures.

Check out my Slide Show!

Cote est

Easter in New Caledonia provides a three day weekend, so we took advantage of it and went exploring with the car. Seeing as we finally have a car, and a super fuel efficient one at that…why not?

Looking out onto the water rather than looking onto land. Seeing a coast from the other side is a nice change... eh?

We crossed the island from west to east… only about 30 kilometer wide is fairly quick even with the narrow roads and hills. We arrived in Thio (pronounced Tio), where we found a small village with architecture from the late 19th and early 20th centuries: small homes, bright colors, metal roves, and little gardens.

We headed south and hiked down to the beach, where we met a mother and her children searching for crabs, muscles, and clams to have for dinner.

I found lots of lovely shells. The highlight of beach and probably the afternoon for me was the discovery of a BLUE STARFISH. Check this guy out, so beautiful and so blue!


Cote Est - East Coast

We then hiked back to the car, and JP wanted to continued south to see how far our little car would get us before the road would necessitate a 4X4. Then the plan was to head north again to find a place to camp.

On the way we picked up a local hitchhiking. OK, OK this is normally a bad idea, but as this is fairly sparsely populated area, public transit is non-existent, so hitching a ride is pretty normal. This man looked quite respectable and older. He works in Noumea and was heading home for the holiday weekend. When we picked him up he had walked all the way from the nearest town (15 kilometers) of very hilly winding roads and had another 20 to go. Needless to say he was happy for the ride. We mentioned we were looking for a place to camp. He told us the campground we were thinking about is almost always full and recommended another campground just past where we would drop him off.

The directions we were given were to look for a board with a camping sign, turn and you will end up near the beach. We continued until the road literally ended at the beach. A lovely spot to camp, but as this is all tribal land, one cannot just camp without permission. So we backtracked and confirmed that the only board in view was declaring independence. This did not bode well for camping, as in “Hi, how are you?, Oh, you want to kick the French out. Oh, that’s nice. Can we stay on your land?” We didn’t think that would go over well either, so as we still had some twilight left asked the first person we saw for some clarification on the aforementioned directions. That worked out, and we found the spot. It turns out the camping sign is literally right in front of the beach after you have driven though a small hamlet, community meeting grounds, and beyond some houses. We were greeted by a terribly friendly and rather drunk gentleman who made some sense in his explanation of where he wanted us to camp. He was happy to accommodate us and the car. It was quite a site to see JP trying to follow is directions of where to put the car in relation to where we would put the tent. Twingo’s are small, but palm trees, rocks can still make parking a challenge make for an interesting obstacle course. We crashed out early and realized in the middle of the night we were missing the local party we discovered through the music which played all night. So maybe the proprietor’s lugubrious mood made a little more sense.

The next morning we went north towards Canala. This necessitates passing through a 13 kilometer stretch of road which is only one way. If you want to go north you go on odd hours and south on even hours. We timed it just right making it through the pass just as the clock struck noon only to discover no one was waiting on the other side.

Canala was our first to the northern province of New Caledonia. It is mostly tribal land with little development or industry. The majority of the inhabitants are Kanak who live in a traditional manner of subsistence farming within a tight knit family and tribal community. 20 years ago there was a great deal of political turmoil for independence. At the moment things are quite and people are very friendly. To visit tribes requires a visit to the chief and the presentation of a gift.

We took out time exploring some waterfalls, and then headed up to the hot springs north of town. They were developed several years ago by the local Marie (Mayor), but because of tribal disputes over whose land it is they have fallen into disrepair. Not the prettiest place, but it did have the old façade left from when it was a “hospital” using the thermal for there healing properties. The enjoyed the warm sulpher springs even if it wasn’t as inviting as it has once been.

Canala has the regional high school and a very large grounds for the Marie which boats many beautiful carvings as you can see.

It's getting exciting...

CLOSE ENCOUNTERS… OH BECKY

Last week as a little exciting as we had our third cyclone warning of the season and the second since we have been here. Though technically it never actually deepened into a cyclone, but stayed a Strong Tropical Depression. It was named Becky and it was the closet of the three so far.

The marina has a very structured alert system, beginning with a green flag for the “pre-alert” and red for the final stages when everything needs to be ready. What that entails is moving the boats away from the pontoon and setting up the hurricane lines which run off the stern and are attached to a chain laid on the bottom of the water.

The hurricane lines were set at the technical beginning of the cyclone season. Although this year has been unusual as the first cyclone occurred in October and the season should begin in December. If you want to see more about Becky and other cyclones in the Southwestern Pacific and Southeastern Indian Ocean check out this site:
http://www.australiasevereweather.com/cyclones/

I went a little over the top and decided to take everything off the deck. This means: water jugs, fuel jugs, unnecessary lines, the sails, the canvas, and the cushions. This has made for a very cramped boat. I did this 36 to 40 hours before we would have been hit by at that time 80 knots of wind. Nothing too bad, but certainly more than we have ever encountered with the boat. Though JP being from Reunion has experienced more than twice that. Taking everything off the deck was a bit premature, but my thinking was that is often begins to rain before a storm and then it would meaning taking everything inside when it was wet (not something I was looking forward to), so I took some preemptive measures. It hasn’t been all for naught as I discovered that the deck was in dire need to a really good scrubbing, something which can not be done thoroughly with everything we normally keep on it. Now we have a cleaner boat on the outside, but a very cramped cabin. Tomorrow I will remedy this putting the main and the Mizzen back. The Genoa really is a two person job, so I will have to wait for JP on that one.

Things I like...

I like the phone...
I like not paying ridiculous phone bills...
I like being able to chat with people on the other side of the world...
I like VOIPBUSTER!


We have been using skype for over a year now to make international calls. It started out so so cheap, but recently there have been many new costs creeping into the bill.

A friend mentioned Voipbuster. Don't ask me to say it three times fast. I believe it is a Swiss company. They have super cheap prices and a special running at the moment where you can call the US and Europe (mobile or land) for free!

This makes me very happy!

Check out:http://www.voipbuster.com

Now if I could get a better connection and not get the funny delay I would be set.

Happy chatting!

OK, BUT NOW WHAT?

So I bought a local tuber at the market thinking we could expand our palate and support local growers. It was purplish on the outside with a rough skin pictured below and appeared to be much denser than the western potatoes or yucca for that matter. It was totally overpriced roughly 3 times what an imported potato costs. I definitely got the tourist price on this one. I thought I could bake it or make French fries with it (we have a deep fryer, but that’s another story) or possible bake it.

I began by peeling it, and discovered it was pink and bright purple on the inside. It would have been my dream plant had my color palate from when I was six remained. I then set about to cut it into French fries only to discover that was not possible as it was just too dense.. Instead of slicing it vertically I cut it into round slices. I also soon discovered that it, like many other tropical plants secretes a white milky liquid which proves to be quite stick and hard to get off hands and cutting implements. The slices revealed further the tubers intricate structure (the picture below). The colors are amazing, but leaves me to ponder… OK, BUT NOW

TIJABAOU

TIJABAOU the local cultural center had it's opening the other weekend with performances and new exhibits. It was a lot of fun and we ran into almost everyone we know (I guess it is a small island).

It is a gorgeous center designed by Renzo Piano, whose more famous works can be seen in Paris. Here is the link to the center and below are some photos from the day.

http://www.adck.nc/

COMING HOME

It has been a while, and we are settling into Noumea. Still looking for a car, but we are just being incredibly picky.

It is official!.. I will be heading back to America to visit family and friends, while JP will remain in Noumea to work (sorry JP if I could work I would, but the visa says no). I leave April 30, one day before my visa ends, with a two day layover in Sydney. I had no choice (sure you say), as I am using my frequent flier miles. I am feeling very lucky to have been able to fly at all using my miles as this was all done within less than 90 days from departure (something I haven’t done in a while).

AMERICAN EXPRESS VS. AMERICAN AIRLINES
WHO WILL BE THE WINNER?


DEALING WITH FREQUENT FLIER COMPANIES

I think I should first thank Skype for being able to call American 800 numbers for free and to Valerie Morrison the lovely American Advantage representative who spent an hour on the phone with me allowing me to get back to the US.

The Plan
Fly from Noumea to New York using frequent flier miles. Could it be done?

The plan originally was to use my parents American Express points, because they had enough points and save me from having to buy miles from American Airlines. In the end American Airlines won out as they had seats and far less hassle (so much for a surprise ending).

The Saga…

I had stalled in using my frequent flyier miles because I was 27,000 miles short and didn’t want to have to buy that many miles. My parents checked with American Express, and though they were short by about 10,000 points because they are long standing valid customers they were allowed to have a points deficit. Thus allowing me to fly from Noumea to New York for free!

Great!...BUT, the first challenge was to transfer points. I have an AmEx card, but not one with a points plan, so that had to be dealt with.

The second challenge is to determine which airline will fly the route I want to go while allowing me to use American Express points. American Express boasts so many options, maybe you can fly with any company in the world, yet the routes these airlines allow you to fly using American Express points is very limited. I thought Quantas would be no problem, but they only allow you to fly from the US to Melbourne or Sydney. My trip begins in New Caledonia and ends in America squashing all chances of that being an option. I then called Air France thinking they certainly fly from New Caledonia to many places. I then learned that in order to use American Express points you must transfer them to the airline company. Once you transfer the points or miles cannot be transferred back and are valid for I believe up to three years. I had to first determine if there were seats available. There are many seats still available, but not using normal point allowances, there were seats for using double points! YIKES! Double points actually cost more than the seat itself. Would my parents be in points debt forever? I believe the better question is, are my parents aren’t valued enough to have a points deficit of 170,000?... apparently not (I learned this fact later). I asked when the next available normal point allowance seat would be available? When the answer finally came I was floored…. September! Super yikes! My visa ends in May and none of this was looking like an option. I just took a deep breath thanked the person on the phone and hung up.

American Express was out!

OK, hello American Airlines. I called them knowing it was possible to fly from Noumea to New York and the number of miles 75,000. The first person I spoke with said this wasn’t possible, but with some perseverance it all worked out.

The next question and the question of the moment, is there a seat available for me to fly out not too much before, but not after May 1. At first things seemed fine, but then she took a better look and the flight would have me fly out May 3 – NOT POSSIBLE. Then I had no problem getting from Noumea to Sydney, but there were no flights from Sydney to New York. There was one moment where the representative said “There is no way for me to get you to the US at all during April or May. I have tried you flying through Sydney and Aukland.” My heart hit my stomach. Again another deep breath and I meekly responded… OK, but can you get me anywhere in the US and I will work from there. Her response was how about Hawaii? Imagine my heart sinking even deeper into my stomach. Hawaii is still in the middle of the Pacific and so far from New York. As far as I was concerned I might as well sail back at that point. I kept her talk and then we starting talking about LA and Japan. Japan was out (not allowed), but LA was proving to me an option.

Finally after 1 hour on the phone (THANK YOU SKYPE) we had things worked out. I had a flight reservation, good until March 17 midnight. All I had to do was by the remaining 20,000 points. I had received 7,000 points from my credit card just for mentioning I might cancel it, and they said, “How about 7,000 points and why don’t you think about it”, so I said “sure, I think about it.” The 7,000 points saved me $200!

It’s official paid for the miles, tax, and have the Australia visa (booked online)!

Noumea

So it's about time I posted some pictures of where we are living. Here are a few pictures of the waterfront taken from a walk on one of our increasingly common cloudier moments. The wet season seems to be coming. We are not too upset about that as it cools things down and gives us some reprieve from the incredibly strong sun. I do think we have much of an ozone here. Even JP has managed to get sunburned. I am discovering all sorts of lovely hats or sun cover combinations. It makes me imagine that women throughout the Middle East must have the most amazing skin as it is completely covered from adolescence on. Should women be covered? I think it is a choice, and I think I would opt to be completely covered here if it didn't block my ability to see. For now I will apply copious amounts of sunblock.