Some Stingrays at Noumea

Helen took some good pictures at the pier!

Noumea in New Caledonia

Native dancers and drummers

Cathedral

Catholic Priest being executed by natives!

An interesting French town with Casino and Carrefour supermarkets, baguettes and pavement cafes.

We had some native dancers to greet us, and then did a small bus tour. We saw the old cathedral, WW2 guns and had coffee at a hotel that used to be Club Med.

Then some shopping town at the Supermarket, a bit expensive but convenient

Some underwater pictures

Here are some underwater pictures from Mystery Island -and a bat that has hitched a lift from darkest Peru on board the ship .....

Mystery island!

Here is a picture of the whole island!

Mystery Island - Vanuatu

Tea room

Lunch

A very small island, about 1km by 200m. It takes 45 minutes to walk round! Most of it is a runway built by the USA in WW2! We saw a plane land and did some snorkelling. It is the southerly most island of Vanuatu.

There are no locals, but they land to open up small shops, tours and even a tea room!

Suva and Fiji

We did a small tour of Suva. Not too bad after Typhoon Winston, only the north and south of the island was really badly affected.

We went to the national museum, saw the sights, and did some shopping.

Pictures include the police guard at the presidents's house.

Tackling giant cheese sandwiches

In tonga - and a Panini with a Latte!

Nuku Alofa - Tonga

Today a visit to another of Captain's Cook landing points!

A 30 minute bus ride to the landing, and some of the locals put on a display of cooking food in ground ovens,making some of cloth from Mulberry trees which seemed very long and hard work!

Then back to the ship for a wander around the town.

We were moored up only a short distance away. The Royal Palace was just near us.

No more Mondays?

Last night we missed out Monday - we went direct from Sunday to Tuesday. We crossed the International date line of course! Not sure if that makes me one day younger than everyone else, and a few people managed to avoid the Fred Olsen Birthday cake!!!

Despite this loss of one day (sadly we don't get a refund) things are going well. The Captain has managed to avoid the Typhoon, and we hope to make landfall tomorrow in Tonga. We are not sure if we will visit Suva in Fiji yet, but we will wait and see!

Latest update - Typhoons

Well, we failed to get off the ship at Rangiroa today on the Cook islands - too heavy a swell for the tenders.

We also have two cabins - one got a bit damp so they gave us another - but we hope the welding in the roof will fix it.

Typhoon Winston we are going around with some possible changes of Port, we think! These things are a bit unpredictable!!

But today is a lovely sunny day! And we are enjoying the relaxation.

Bora Bora

Helen's small Pizza

Today we had a small tour of the island by 'Le Truck' - a sort of converted lorry. Lots of white sand beaches, very expensive hotels (Meridien, Intercontinental) with villas as houses on stilts over the water, and WW2 american remains.

It rained a bit, but was fun - we had a meal out (Pizza and spaghetti with beer), and got surprised in the local chinese supermarket by firecrackers and dragons!

There is Typhoon Winston forecast for around Fiji - we will have to see if that has anything in store for us ......

Moorea in the Society Islands

We left Tahiti at about 0630am, and sailed into Cook's Bay in Moorea an hour later.

We had a three hour coach tour around the island, including various viewpoints and the Tiki village. We saw the peak of BaliHai (South Pacific filmed here) and the bay where Mutiny on the Bounty was filmed.

Finally a sacred Marai platform (no human sacrifices today).

Lots of animal alarm clocks on the Island!

Papeete Tahiti

View from our cabin of Tahiti

A 7 hour bus tour around the island, a couple of museums, one of James Norman Hall who wrote Mutiny on the Bounty, a Botanical garden and lunch in Restaurant Gauguin by the sea.

It rained quite a lot in the morning, but dried out a little bit with only small showers in the afternoon!
Point Venus is where James Cook did his observation of the transit of Venus across the sun