Best Anchor in South Pacific

[Sailor_Hutch]

NHSchneider: My french is poor, yet I've looked at the Gambiers. Mangareva is the last hitching post before Pitcairn, which is also on the wish list. The pics of Fakarava on Wiki are splendid! Do you have a Flickr page with photos?

[nhschneider]

Sailor Hutch-
There is no way your French could be worse than mine. For photos of our trip to the South Pacific, go to our website S/V Rutea and click on the pictures titled 'Jump to the South Pacific' which is a link to our Picasa albums.

Fair winds and calm seas.

[Carlisle Spirit]

Lord Howe Island lagoon would do it for me

Difficult to get to and there is some paper work but its 5 miles long with 2 x 3000 foot mountains at one end ; species of plant and animal life that are unique

Did I mention there is a great surf beach there as well as world class restaurants ?

Carlisle Spirit

[Livia]

Depending on your citizenship you will be limited to 90 days in French Poly per 6 months (can be there 3 months, go out for 3 and then return for 3) unless you apply for a long stay visa which must be applied for in your country of residence. We're currently applying for the long stay.

[Jim Cate]

FWIW,

If freedom from government oversight is your goal, Chesterfield may have a problem for you. Officially one must seek and be granted permission from the French gov in Noumea to visit there. In years past this has been enforced, with arrests and fines levied. More recently the enforcement has been lax, and to my knowledge no hasseling of yotties has happened... but the rules are still in effect.

There are two anchorage areas, one behind the sand cays in the SE corner of the reef, and one behind Long Island near the Western entrance. The SE one is good in normal tradewind wx, the W one ok in westerly winds, but not in trades. The navigation is not difficult in the area between the two... a very few large bommies, all on the french charts (AFAIK) and they are about twelve miles apart, so in theory one could switch back and forth. We have simply put to sea when a W'ly change threatened...

The Isle de Pins is indeed beautiful, but hardly free from population, and is over run with tourists daily. Further, huge cruise ships call regularly, dumping a couple of thousand additional sunburned and mostly bored "cruisers" into Baie de Kuto which is the favored anchorage for yotties.

But, there are indeed some great, isolated and unpopulated anchorages in New Cal. Most of them lie to the North of Noumea and very few yotties go in that direction. I would tell you where they are, but then I'd have to kill you... As an American you are granted 90 days when you clear into NCal (recently upgraded from 30), there are no fees, and the process is painless.

And the food is wonderful if a bit pricey!

Cheers,

Jim

[Sailor_Hutch]

My thanks go to all who made the various suggestions! It's not a matter of choosing one ... because all will suffice!

I wonder why the french are so worried about the Chesterfields. Are guano prices up? Maybe it's the automated weather station that I read about ...

[Jim Cate]

Originally Posted by Sailor_Hutch

My thanks go to all who made the various suggestions! It's not a matter of choosing one ... because all will suffice!

I wonder why the french are so worried about the Chesterfields. Are guano prices up? Maybe it's the automated weather station that I read about ...

I believe that the Chesterfields are a nature reserve. There are huge numbers of birds nesting there: three types of Boobies, Frigates, several types of Terns and likely others that I didn't see. I think that the French are trying to protect them, but perhaps it is simply intransigence!

And being just a sand cay, the guano tends to wash away in the storms... it is surprisingly clean!

Cheers,

Jim