Wonderful Newcastle

After a detour to Noumea we proceed direct to Newcastle.

                                                                   Beautiful Sunset

Almost full moon

Welcome to Newcastle

That is where we dock

Well we do not need that many towboats

Finally Sophie , Paul  and Henry onboard the ship - Henry seems a little surprised.

The table still a little empty

After a wonderful lunch

 

Back home after being the hero of the day onboard the Christel Serenity

Goodbye Newcastle and goodbye to the wonderful family Dayton

What did the Captain say ? Old tradition - we will be shut upon when passing

the old Fort Scratchley.They missed all three times, but what a BANG.

You certainly get surprised as you did not recognize that the Captains warning was real.

Not fast enough for the "fire", but I got the smoke.

Waiting for the big wave

The coal facilities north of Newcastle harbour

Noumea - New Caledonia

The 3. of february 2012 at 8 am local we arrived at Noumea on schedule.
We probably took several short cuts through some very narrow passages, but what do a cruise-captain do when having lost time due to circumnavigation of a big storm.

                                                           Special Slalom for Norwegians

                            Aircraft just delivered some paratroopers must be from the foreign legion
                                                    

                                                                     Paratroopers

The day at Noumea was one of those days where you get wet no matter what ever you do.
It was pourring down from the sky and the humidity was 95% , so either you get wet from the outside, if you do not use an umbrella, or you get wet from the inside when you use a raincoat.
My tour in a glass bottom boat was cancelled due to  rough seas.
Just to get off  the ship after 7 days at sea I took a panoramic country bus-tour.
As it was pourring down the visibility was very limited and the tour-guide had to describe what we normally could see from the different look-out points.
New Caledonia has about 260.000 inhabitants. They are under French protection. The tour-guide said that they have been promised a referendum within 4 years from now, and no matter the result they would get there independence thereafter.
The economy of New Caledonia are based on a very big nickel mine just outside Noumea.
The population is very mixed  as they have had to import labour from eastasia to run this Nickel mine.

Tjibaou Cultural Center

Famous Church of Miracles

                                                  Kuendu Beach on the water Resort

Water .... Water .... Everywhere !!!

Sometimes the crossing of the Equator-festival is vere modest like here.

                                   Some lady can not help it she wants to show her big fat ...


No ships, no birds and no islands -- wait a minute it looks like the Captain has found some small islands around Vanuatu.
Suddenly a deep depression showed up on our direct track to Ny Caledonia and as these pressure systems even in the southern hemisphere moves from west to east chose our Captain to head west towards the Vanuatu Islands to avoid passing right through the center of the depression close to Fiji Islands. The weather system was rather wide spread so we had to fight windspeeds in excess of 50 kts, but I think he saved most of our "china"

                                                  Well through the Vanuatu Islands