Kouaoua lat. 21 degrees 23.7' S long. 165 degrees 50.0' E

Well, here we are at Kouaoua, the most dead and alive place you ever laid sight upon! We had high hopes after our passage from Lebris because we had read in the Cruising Guide about good shops and fuel availability etc but things must have changed over the years because the reality was far different.
We anchored just in front of a nickel conveyor which supplies barges or ships but it appeared to be disused which probably explains the down at heel nature of the place. We wandered around the place and eventually found a shop (closed until 3 pm) and the post office which closes at 3 pm!!! These French opening or rather closing hours are something to behold. So, we sat in the post office for the air conditioning until we were told to leave when we wandered over to the shop which was woefully understocked. Bought a doz beer and 2 bottles of wine and a few other odds and ends. No fruit and veg worth a dime. The fuel station was either 2 kms or 5 kms out of town depending on whom you believed so we didn't worry about that. We can't wait to get out of here so will be leaving at 0500 when we can start to see things.
Later in the afternoon we went ashore again to have a cold water shower under a tap on the beach because our Open Ocean watermaker from Opua, for which Jim has paid NZD5000 + installation costs, is rapidly fading away. This is an increasing concern because there is still a considerable distance to cover before we are back in Noumea and we are conserving water any way we can.
The passage down here today was uneventful - under power all the way because the wind which was mostly dead ahead was only 5 knots. We have a longer passage tomorrow and hopefully the wind will treat us more kindly but the long range forecast is for unrelenting SE of varying intensity so we will just have to continue to plough on.
Congratulations to "Giselle" on catching their Mahimahi - makes us feel quite jealous but hopefully we'll catch one on our way to Bundaberg. We are hoping to be back in Noumea by the 24th. to see the RWC final - NZ v France. Should be exciting, especially in this place. We'll be lucky to get out alive!!!
More later as always.............
www.tiaretaporo3.blogspot.com

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