Logbook: Ilot Maître, Nouvelle Caledonie

 

We’ve always enjoyed spending a night or two anchored off resorts, particularly the ones with bungalows. It reminds us that our everyday anchorage view is something people spend a lot of money per night to experience briefly.

 

Ilot Maître is actually mostly a park, and only partially a hotel. The park portion has zones for swimming only, wind sports only, and then a section you can come into with your motor (dinghy in our case, but skiffs and small power boats also) to reach the beach. It also has moorings for overnight which we used.

 

The big highlight of the place for us, is that they have tables, wood BBQs, with nice grills, with prestacked piles of wood to use – for free.

 

We organized a beach day with two other boats – Nomad and Dream Time, good friends from French Polynesia early days – and lazed about while BBQing, eating and digesting a big lunch and some wine.

 

The kiting was fun and there were loads of kiters who had taken the ferry over. Too shallow for safety at low tide but great at high tide and surprisingly flat water for the wind strength. I’m sure we’ll be back!