Noumea

30.10.2015

Noumea

Noumea, the capital city of New Caledonia with round about 100.000 people, is located on a peninsula, has a couple of lovely beaches and is close to mountains. Most French people live here, plus some Kanaks. Most of the Kanaks live in villages outside. In Noumea you find good restaurants, french supermarkets, a local market (which by far is not as good as the ones in Fiji or Tonga). I have not seen much from the city, but what I have seen was not special or beatiful, so I did not even take many pictures. I was more interested in the water side of the city. It has a remarkably big bay and thousands of boats in marinas, on moorings or at anchorage. It was hard to get an spot for over night (we anchored out for one night). The check-in procedure was quite easy. In the afternoon on the forst day (when we arrived) we went to customs and biosecurity. That took a total of 30 min. (including changing the office). Immigration is only open in the mornings so we came back next morning at 8am. 15 min later we were out of that office as well. Unfortunately as Europeans you don't get a stamp into your passport…Before immigration we stopped by the office of biosecurity again to bring them our remaining vegetables from Vanuatu (they will be burned) in a bag. With all that the check-in was completed. We have not been in a country where you are allowed off-board before you're completely checked in and biosecurity has checked the entire boat for insects since Argentina!

View to southern Noumea from the ocean