Team Giddyup: south pacific

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Video: A Taste of New Caledonia

Team Giddyup 4/04/2016

It's up! Here is the 7th video in our “A Taste of…” cruising video series. A taste of the places that we’ve explored.

First, we posted tidbits from our time in the Marquesas, then the Societies, then traveling backward in time to British Columbia, then Tonga, the Gambiers Islands, the Tuamotus, and now, A Taste of New Caledonia.

One of our favorite places.*sigh*

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A Pacific Ocean’s Worth of Fees

Team Giddyup 1/17/2016

How much did our Pacific crossing cost us in fees for entering and exiting countries? Time for a NUMBERS post!

Important background: We are 35’ with two people aboard and no pets. We spent four seasons in the South Pacific between 2012 and 2015. I am counting the cost of all required things for entrance and exit, even if the money doesn’t go to the goverment because I’m counting how much it cost us. We made some choices that other people don’t have to make. We didn’t visit all countries. Fees have changed over the years (particularly in the Cooks) so YMMV.

In sum: If you aren’t interested in the nitty gritty, the most we’ve paid in fees for clearances was for Australia, with Mexico coming in a close second. The least we paid in fees was for New Caledonia where we paid nothing. Most other countries were in the approximately $200 range.

Country break down: All of the below are listed in the approximate USD cost.

Mexico: $400 USD buys a lot of cheap tacos! At the time of clearance in 2012 we had to pay a little over $110 for our TIP, $40 twice for fishing licences, and $210 for Mexican liability insurance (required by the govt, paid to a private party, despite our having other insurance). This would have allowed us to stay for quite a while (I forget how long) but we left after 6 months.

French Polynesia: We paid about $200 for an agent so we could avoid the bond. If we had been willing to risk the ups and downs of the currency markets and also getting our bond back in CFP at the end of our stay, this amount could have been zero, but I think our choice was fairly representative. If you count our return to Canada for our long stay visa,

this would, of course, be the most expensive country on the list, particularly if we included airline tickets in our estimate of the “cost” so I’m just considering our first run through the country which was more normal.

Cooks: We paid a total of about $300 - $50 to clear in Suwarrow and then about $250 in various fees to exit.

Niue: It is a little difficult to decide how to categorize Niue. We only spent $54 in fees but you essentially must take a mooring which adds another $10 per day. Depending on how long you want to stay (and are able to with the exposed anchorage), this could become costly.

Tonga: We spent $183 in Tonga for three month stay. The clerance was inexpensive but after one month the visa ran about $30pp/per month.

Fiji: We paid $180 for all of the standard fees including visa extensions for our more than 4 month stay.

New Caledonia: No fee! No bond! No exit fee! …but you only get 3 months as a N American.

Australia: We paid $450 for two visas and the quarantee fee. Granted, they give you a year but holy crap!

south pacific

Kite Spot: Ilot Nge, Nouvelle Caledonie

Team Giddyup 11/06/2015

Sometimes it is fun to be in a crowd, at a park, particularly on a holiday weekend. We had a great time at Ilot Nge on Halloween weekend. The anchorage and mooring field were packed on the weekend as boats full of working stiffs escaped the capital city of Noumea for a weekend of playing at this marine park. Even with this rush, there were only a hand full of kiters here and we had the water relatively to ourselves (and our friends). Launch spot: S22°19'35.70" E166°19'13.88"

The North side of the island was good kiting at all tides. The South side got a little “crunchy” with coral at all but high tide. You could work your way upwind to the waves or to this gorgeous area of flat water over sand where the only obstacle was some spikes coming out of the water from an old shipwreck.

Some of the moorings are in water too shallow for us but there were plenty to choose from and you could anchor outside the mooring field in slightly lumpier water if you chose. We had three excellent days of kiting there and a fun Halloween party on the beach with the crews of Dream Time and Andromeda.

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Are we really about to cross the Pacific? Well, finish crossing anyways…

Team Giddyup 10/27/2015

In the next few weeks we will be making our passage to Australia. Do you remember when SV Estrellita 5.10b was at 53° North, traipsing about in “That. Green.” in the Haida Gwaii (formerly the Queen Charlotte Islands), British Columbia, Canada?

There are many ways to count a Pacific Crossing, and as we approach our passage to Australia I find myself reminiscing about the start of it all. In many ways, it was when we turned South from Queen Charlotte City that started our crossing of the Pacific. At that moment, I knew the days of poking endlessly (slowly and joyfully) around the BC coastline were over and although we continued to cruise through the Haida Gwaii and down the coast of Vancouver Island (again) to Tofino, I was starting to think forward to our next legs – our first big passage to San Francisco, crossing into Mexico, the Pacific Puddle Jump. At the time I wrote “This stop was the Northernmost apex of our trip. We are officially Southbound from here.”

And it all happened. We had an incredible trip down the coast to San Francisco. A few months later we crossed into Mexico. And 5 months after that we left for French Polynesia. Giddyup!

And we arrived in what felt like a dream land. And as you already know, we tore ourselves away from French Polynesia at the end of our 3 months, only to shortly return and spend several years, again poking endlessly (slowly and joyfully) around as much of those glorious mind boggling archipelagoes as we could absorb.

And then things sped up again and we left French Polynesia for Niue, for Tonga, and the next year for Fiji and now New Caledonia. Giddyup!

Here we are sitting in Noumea, New Caledonia, preparing for the last leg to Australia. It seems like so very far from 53° North on the west coast of Canada to 33° South on the east coast of Australia. Still, many people make that trip in about a year and so it is probably the fact that it has been nearly 4 and a half years since we left Canada that adds to the feeling of distance.

Crossing the Pacific can't be defined by mileage for me. We’ve already passed the longitude of NZ, and we certainly started from nearly the furthest corner of the Pacific we could from here. We've done the miles, but as any sailor who has contemplated this last set of passages (to NZ or AUS) knows, this last leg feels like the finish. It’s a line in the sand. An accomplishment. As a climber might say, it’s a beautiful natural line begging to be finished.

We’re stoked!

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Logbook: Mbe Kouen (CLOSED)

Team Giddyup 10/01/2015

Apparently, we slid into this anchorage right before it closed permanently for bird nesting reasons. We were there a few nights with some guests from the USA and midway there a small boat came in and installed a metal post, as if for a sign, but didn’t install the sign. We searched online later and found out that they had recently decided to close Mbe Kouen for tern nesting.

So, enjoy these pictures…but you can’t go!

We have a thing for low scrub covered uninhabited islets. Although we prefer some coconut trees, these low islands often are surrounded by brilliant colored shallows, and if there is enough water depth and sand, can make for great kite spots, like Ilot Goeland.

In New Caledonia we’ve really been enjoying the view of the mainland from the small off lying islands.

We had enough wind for a kite session, followed by a crazy flat day in which we spent the entire day snorkeling, lazing about on the beach, sitting neck deep in the water, paddle boarding, and BBQing up some tasty lunch. The water was clear, the underwater scene included live coral and plenty of fish, the colors were amazing and, other than the pole installers, we had the place to ourselves.

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Logbook: Ilot Maître, Nouvelle Caledonie

Team Giddyup 9/09/2015

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!

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Nouvelle Caledonie: First Impressions

Team Giddyup 9/01/2015

Arriving in New Caledonia was like coming home. Not because it is French (although, man, the French know how to pick them), but because it has everything we love about the South Pacific: insanely clear water, jaw dropping lagoon colors, shallow sandy anchorages floating in those colors, uninhabited islands, and great sailing conditions inside a lagoon with easily predictable wind and land effects.

In addition, because it is French there is a large community of water sports participants which include a strong contingent of women, people sailing their boats in every wind direction, very little restrictions on what you can do as a boater, and not a lot of fuss over what bits of your body are covered. Try telling a French woman (or man) that women have to cover up to be respectful of the locals and you will quickly learn why French colonies don’t play that way. We are not Francophiles by any means and we have been surrounded by French boaters for long enough to know the downsides to these upsides, but still, we love these upsides.

Too bad they only give us North Americans three months… Still, we are going to enjoy the crap out of what time we have here.

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Passage Diary: 3000 Nautical Miles in the South Pacific

Team Giddyup 1/16/2015

VIDEO FRIDAY!

Ahhh…the land of fast internet! This is the 36 minute sequel to our Mexico to Marquesas Passage Diary (our most watched video to date it turns out) and the third passage diary we’ve made. We did better on the sound this time.

Settle down and come ride with us for 3000 miles in the South Pacific.

Go directly to the video on our youtube channel here.

south pacific

Region Review: French Polynesia

Team Giddyup 11/26/2014

I’m trying to stick with my plan of doing some sort of region review as we exit a country or a region, but the reason it took me so long to write this is I struggled with whether is it possible to review a region this large in which we spent so much time?! It’s a country we fell in love with, that marked us permanently and with which we would return to with excitement someday.
First, to get a sense of how we traveled in this region, you can see where and how we spent our time there. Second, even though we spent more than 2 years in this single country there are tons of places we didn’t visit (e.g., we never visited the Australs). We can only rank what we saw.
Of the 4 archipelagos that we visited, Livia ranks her enjoyment in this order:

Tuamotus – This is what I dreamed of when I was shivering in British Columbia through several winters of living aboard a boat we purchased to enjoy low latitudes. The water clarity, the underwater scenes, the wildness of being able to romp around on the motus playing survivor Estrellita, the crazy kiting – the stuff of my dreams. Fave spots: see below.
Societies – I was very surprised at how much I enjoyed the Societies. More heavily populated and with more damaged coral, but as is often the case, there is a reason they became such a popular destination for tourists – they are stunningly beautiful – landscapes and blue lagoons. And you can find your own semi-remote spots if you take the time to look for them. Perhaps also, after so long in isolated spots in the Tuamotus, the ability to have burgers and beer, the social aspects of the Societies, were a refreshing contrast. The three M’s of paradise: Maupiti, Mopelia & Moorea.
Gambiers – If there was more than just Mangareva to visit, the Gambiers would beat out the Societies for #2. I loved the Gambiers. Great underwater scene, great land play opportunities, amazing kiting and we met some fantastic tweeners to hang out with. If it weren’t for the slightly claustrophobic feeling of being stuck for part of hurricane season with the same set of sometimes gossipy, sometimes clique-ish, ex-pats-who-never-leave boats, I would have had an even better time. Favorite anchorages: Motu Tauna, Taravai’s West side.
Marquesas – Don’t let the fact that the Marquesas are #4 make you think I didn’t enjoy them. Also, remember that we only spent 3 weeks in the Marquesas because, at that time, we only had 3 month visas for the entire country and having a short stay in an area is an easy way to have a false impression of the place. While the Marquesas were beautiful land-wise, they were missing the underwater play that I love. In a tight race between 4 fantastic spots, they are the 4th most interesting to me.

Carol (asked to rank separately without hearing mine above) chose the same rank order!
Livia’s Tuamotu Top 3. Now, the really hard part. Where were our favorite spots within our favorite archipelago? Again, there are lots of places we didn’t visit even though we spent the bulk of our time in the Tuamotus. I’m going to let us have a top 3 list for the Tuamotus which is hard enough. It is no surprise to me that my three favorite places are also the three places featured in our video Kiteboarding the Tuamotus although it isn’t just the kiting that makes these places special.

Rangiroa – If you don’t have very much time Rangiroa is a bit harder to enjoy. While the village area has some great snorkeling, you have to get out of the village to see the beauty of this atoll and for reasons of time and weather, most people don’t. You need time to make the circuit of the 35nm long atoll because in the various corners of the atoll there are totally different scenes: village with great snorkeling, strange moonscape upraised reef, kiting paradise as well as a bunch of other gorgeous nooks to tuck into. We were there a full month and didn’t get to go everywhere we wanted, in part because we spent two weeks kiting a mara’amu in the SE corner. Warning: It isn’t easy to safely travel the really big atolls such as Rangiroa and we got our asses kicked there.
Fakarava – The South pass of Fakarava is stupendous. Diving through a cloud of slick shiny slightly twitchy missiles that are grey sharks, drift snorkeling with great coral and fish, and doing it all again and again, seeing different things each run, absorbing a little more of the scenery passing by at high speeds each time. Hirifa is an epic kite spot. We anchored in front of the restaurant at Hirifa and also just West of the restaurant on our own sandbar.The rest of Fakarava is quite nice too but the South pass is why it makes my #2. Scenic kiting also to the West of the S Pass although a little crunchy with coral bits.
Tahanea

– Tahanea is one of those places that went from undiscovered to discovered because of word of mouth, track passing and blogs. This makes portions of the French ex-pat community grumpy (even though they were the ones spreading the word of mouth). It is isolated, has a wildly beautiful South coast and three great passes to snorkel on the East side – oh, and kiting. Coral in the Westernmost pass is better than at Fakarava although you don’t have the schools of sharks. Oh, and we swam with mantas. Just one time out of the nearly dozen we were there but that always makes my day.
Carol picked Fakarava, Tahanea and added Toau which is isolated and spectacular in the South side (through the East facing pass) and also has the family at Anse Amyot to visit with in the North side – particularly fun when they aren’t overloaded with visitors.

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Estrellita: Cyclone season 2014-2015 (Keel Pit, Vuda Point, Fiji)

Team Giddyup 11/22/2014

Here is Estrellita’s home for the cyclone season, and you may have noticed she isn’t floating in the crystal clear blue waters of the Marshall Islands.

No one is certain (still) whether this year will be an official El Nino year or not, but with the increased west wind anomalies and the elevated risk of typhoon activity in the Marshall’s, the fact that the Marshall’s are atolls (and our own sucky experience with wind from the wrong side in an atoll), we decided to delay heading to the RMI until next year.

We debated staying in Tonga, and were on the waiting list for the keel pits in Fiji, but by mid-October had decided that we would head to New Zealand for the first time. After planning to be in NZ at the end of 2012 we figured it was about time! We had gone so far as sending in our arrival paperwork to NZ, in a 24 hour period we were notified that we had a spot in the keel pits in Fiji if we wanted it and we had a pretty fantastic opportunity to as caretakers as a resort in Tonga.

The decision: Ultimately, we decided to make the passage to Fiji, put Estrellita in the keel pit, prep her for leaving, and fly back to Tonga for some resort time near our favorite kiting location in Vava’u. And so we did…

I’ll write more about the passage, our experience going into a keel pit, what we did to prep the boat, finish up my memories of Tonga by boat, and write about our land travel over the next few months.

The plane plan: We aren’t certain where we will head after Tonga. NZ by plane is a real possibility but we are staying open to other opportunities (anyone have any flight passes from Nadi or Auckland?) but we’ll end up back in Fiji in time to do a month or so of work on the boat and splash in Fiji at the very start of the season to start exploring a new country.

tonga

Region Review: Fun Times in Tonga

Team Giddyup 11/17/2014

We spent just under 3 months cruising Tonga – 1 week in the Ha’apai group and the rest in Vava’u. It is a long time for a cruiser trying to make it from Mexico to NZ in one season but there is so much more we could have done if we had more time. We would have loved to go back the Ha’apai group, and to have seen Niautoputapu. Even in Vava’u, we could have spent a lot more days kiting at Kenutu before we got bored of that place (if ever).

As the months past, the network of connections we had made in the place grew. We made friends. We said goodbye to friends. We joined and left (or were left by) several fun gangs of people.

We had mixed reviews of Tonga from friends before arriving. We knew boats that had been here, been very disappointed and left immediately for Fiji. We knew boats who had been here, loved it and wished for more time. It was difficult to know what to expect because most people we heard from had only spent a month here, with at least a week in the main harbor, and had their eyes on their passage to New Zealand. Many of our friends saw some cool stuff here but they didn’t have much time to explore the nooks and crannies.

We had a fantastic time. Everyone has their own soft spots in their hearts for certain kinds of places, and Tonga didn’t capture us long term as French Polynesia did, but I can’t imagine us not having a good time here. Beautiful anchorages everywhere you go and heaps of them.

What we liked:

KITE, KITE, KITE. Wow. Kenutu makes our top 5 list so far – totally. If you kite, and there is wind, go!
Holy whales! If you arrive at the right time (it was mid-August for us this year), the mothers and their wee calves are in the shallow interior waters. Later in the year the whales stay in Vava’u but go to the deeper exterior waters where you are less likely to see them. We arrived at the peak of calving and it was amazing. Every time we went sailing we saw them. We saw them breaching and playing from our anchored vessel. Spectacular.
White sand beaches.
Amazing water colors.
Loads of anchorages so even when it is busy you can find your own spot if you like. Generally great holding.
Every place has a little surprise, something good and unexpected to find when you explore.

What was a minus:

Underwater is a little underwhelming. You can find some live coral, you can find fish, except in the most sheltered bays the water is clear, but to our (admittedly jaded) experience, it is…only ok.
Spear fishing is a bit of a no go unless you are willing to go far out and deep. No leisurely shooting in the anchorage in the coral fields.
While there are lots of easy great anchorages, some of the places we wanted to explore were anchorages on shelves where swinging meant coming into the reef near the beach.
Guidebooks were whacked (this isn’t really the fault of the place, but true).
Channel 26 ;)

Thank you Tonga!

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Snapshots from Tonga

Team Giddyup 11/12/2014

tonga

Boats in Tonga

Team Giddyup 11/10/2014

Like many boaters, I enjoy walking the docks in a new location and seeing all of the different boats, the different gear and different style owners bring to each boat. If you look through the regatta photos I posted you will see a fairly large selection of the fleet of cruising boats that we saw in Tonga this year but here are a few other vessels we snapped shots of on the water.