Noumea, New Caledonia

Noumea was never on the schedule! We were supposed to go to Vanuatu but a recent hurricane wiped away roads and 3000 people descending on them would have been hard as they are trying to rebuild the devastation!

So Noumea it was! Our onboard friend group has grown from Erik and Colette to include Karen and Chris from the UK now living in Spain and Jim and Luse (pronounced Lease) who we met through Colette and Erik.

Nouméa is the capital of the South Pacific archipelago and overseas French territory New Caledonia. Situated on the main island, Grand Terre, it's known for beaches and its blend of French and native Kanak influences.

I said I’d look into tours for us all in Noumea and options were limited. It’s all about the water there and smaller islands to snorkel. I found Frederic from Noumea Tours on WhatsApp and arranged for our private group to be taken by water taxi to the island of Larégnère . Most tours go to signal island but when he sent me a photo of no less than 20 people circling a single turtle I knew that island would be a MESS! So we decided on Larégnère Island.

Frederic said to get off as early as possible so we could go to a market across the street to get snacks for the day and I was in desperate need of reef shoes!

Erik said we should meet at 730am which if anyone knows me- is like trying to get up with sandbags layered on my body and gravity holding me pinned to the bed! But I did it!

We took a shuttle bus from the cruise ship to the city center and found Frederic. Colette, Dre and I went to the market for bread, cheese, salami, and water. We then went to a cool marine store where Colette treated me to my very first pair of reef shoes. We also decided to invest in snorkeling gear because many of our upcoming stops involve water/swimming:beaches etc!

Finally Frederic’s team was ready to take us and his coworker walked us towards two boats. 1. A small rubber speed boat that was so small the thought of 8 on there was terrifying but in my mind I knew THAT was the water taxi- so imagine my surprise when the worker took us to a big white catamaran right behind it instead.

I played stupid and got onboard with our captain Kevin. Within 10 minutes Frederic came running back to say his employee had put us on the wrong boat. His bad. I said well I don’t see how we are all going to fit in that rubber rowboat and had zero intention of getting off the catamaran! He realized I was going nowhere so begrudgingly he told Kevin just to take us.

Talk about an upgrade! But it wasn't my fault….

The ride to Laregmere island was about an hour and we watched as many many others went by us in those rubber speedboats and all I could think was yeah no way we would have survived that! One of us if not all would be hurling over the edge.

The water was at least 4 different shades of blue. It was gorgeous and might have even been better than Rarotonga!

We arrived at the island and Kevin took us in groups of 3 in a speedboat to land. Getting in/out of those things is neither easy nor flattering!

We set up under a “tree” and only saw maybe 2-4 other families who were from the ship. The beach blankets we bought in Sydney were perfect- the umbrellas provided some shade and we found a small table to set up. But we all really just wanted to get Into the water!

With my new reef shoes and snorkel we got and it was gorgeous. Fish of all sizes and colors were all within 20 feet of the beach in unfortunately dead coral- which was the saddest thing. Mounds and mounds of broken/dead coral and now those discovery channel sea shows about dead coral areas made sense. But the fish we saw were striped black and white, blues of every shade, needlefish about 2 feet long skimmed the surface, Dory style fish, big white almost transparent fish. All while we stood in the water protected by a reef. It was much easier than our swim in Rarotonga!

There was a table of Italians next to us who forgot their swimsuits so we were subjected to a man in his white underwear and a woman with a shirt/no bra/boobs down to the ground and would not have won a wet T-shirt competition unless “WTF”was a category. What was worse than their attire was watching them break off coral and bring it back to the beach. We all wanted to say something but we’re beaten to it by a local yelling at them that Longmire is a protected sanctuary and they could not take anything off the island let alone break coral. They did the whole “we don’t speak English! Huh what did we do wrong routine” but he wasn’t having it! They knew what they’d done!

Colette became a pro at underwater filming and I was so bummed of all the crap I bought for this trip I never thought to buy a water camera bag for my iphone- so any underwater footage in this and next post are courtesy of her!

Our 3 hours flew by and before we knew it we were heading back on much choppier waters! Karen and Luse decided to stay up front of the boat and Karen looked so chic with a Grace Kelly chignon in her hair, lying back on her arm it was like a perfect movie scene…. Until a massive wave came by and literally devoured her in water- she was soaked. But her laughter was the best! She was hysterically laughing and boom, another bigger wave came by!

Luse who gets seasick was left in the hammock net up front- we figured if she got sick at least it would stay up there with her! Lol

We got back to shore and had to go look for our Port magnets. Erik, Dre, Colette and Luse went with me to a massive souvenir shop where the amount of penises carved out of wood was crazy. Or the tribal figures with balls the size of meatballs - I assume some kind of fertility thing!

We found these really cheap Capiz shell plates (we all know about my dish issue) and these adorable shell/seagrass coasters. All a gift to us from Erik and Colette!

Covered in sea salt and sand and honestly exhausted we made our way back to the ship shuttle stop where magically there were more buses than people.

It was a fun adventure! Noumea was not a planned stop and we ended up very lucky to have been able to go. And I’m getting really really good at this snorkeling thing! What’s crazy is that in the water my body feels no pain at all and so I can stay in for hours. It’s only when I get out do I realize how exhausting it is.

PS: a day on the water/swimming and on the beach all equal a great night sleep!