Today was the best of best days. We might as well pack our bags and go home now, because it simply can’t be topped. But we’ll keep trying. We work hard at this! ;-)
I was so excited about our first visit to New Caledonia that I had the backpack and beach bag packed, swimsuit laid out, morning pills on the nightstand, and alarm set for 6am...and then I slept right through it (those darn earplugs!). G heard it, and decided to let me sleep a little longer, though he left the cabin and had breakfast in the Horizon Court Buffet. He returned about 7:15am, and made enough noise that I finally woke up. When I saw what time it was, I flew into action, putting on sunscreen and swimsuit and gathering up bags (and ordering G to do the same) so that we could be in the Crown Grille shortly after 7:30am. The Golden Princess was due to arrive at 8am.
The Crown Grille is being used to pass out priority tender tickets for Elite and Suite passengers. For our first tender port, which was Port Douglas, we were totally unaware of this practice, and went directly to the forward tender area to join the back of a tender line. Luckily, Hotel General Manager Martin May took pity on us, and instead of ordering us up to the Crown Grill, had a crew member escort us through the crew area to the midship tender area where we got right on a tender. For all subsequent cruises, we’ve gotten a notice in our cabin the night before our first tender port, advising us to go to the Crown Grill. Somehow we missed it first time around. The Crown Grille has coffee and tea and juices and pastries for us while we wait, and, though I had never taken advantage of it, I did enjoy some tea today, as I had skipped breakfast.
We were on the first tender going ashore, which had been my goal, and then on the first shuttle from the village of Tadine, where the tenders come in, for the roughly 20 minute ride to Yedjele Beach. Score! Captain D had warned that we might have afternoon showers, and we wanted to make the most of the morning.
Maré island is the southernmost of the four Loyalty Islands of New Caledonia (Nouvelle Caledonia), part of French Polynesia (I knew we’d return one day!). It is an uplifted coral atoll with a southern shore marked by 400 feet tall jagged cliffs (reminding me of Makatea), but has long stretches of coral beaches on the other sides of the island. Maré, and all of New Caledonia, are new islands for us and that always thrills me. I’ve long been fascinated with the islands of the South Pacific (I once read the Fodors (or Frommers, I forget which) guidebook of the South Pacific cover to cover), but, as I’ve said in the past, it’s getting harder to get to islands that are new to us. This cruise offers us a chance to visit several, and is a large part of the reason we’re here.
Honestly, I could feel my heart weep a little in happiness as we were driven to the beach. Maré was perfectly French Polynesian, and felt very similar to Rangiroa or Taha’a (much less developed than Raiatea or Moorea or even Bora Bora). The occasional ocean views as we rode along were spectacular, with the 100 shades of blue we came to know so well in French Polynesia. It was a beautifully sunny day with a moderate breeze and a temperature right around 80. I felt certain it would be a good day...
...but when I saw Yedjele Beach, I was blown away. This long stretch of beach manages to combine beautiful sand with large coral heads. It offered something for everyone. As on so many other islands of French Polynesia, waves sounded thunderous when they crashed on the reef, a few hundred meters offshore, but the water was calm and crystal clear closer to the beach. The underwater visibility (viz) seemed endless.
We found a spot under a tree offering some shade (this is French Polynesia; there are no rows of loungers and umbrellas for rent) and set out our new beach tarp, which G thinks he bought at Home Depot. It is plastic on one side and flocked on the other and folds up into a little bundle with a handle. It’s just big enough for our bodies and is just heavy enough to stay down in a light breeze. G took a seat (and stayed there most of the day, snoozing on and off) but I wasted no time getting in that gorgeous water (before 9am!)
I decided to snorkel first, and walked down to one end of the beach not expecting much but I was shocked to see lots of fish and beautiful hard coral, and then, in a bit of soft coral on top of a coral head, I saw several clown fish! I was in heaven, and, as the day went on (I snorkeled for about four hours) I saw dozens of them. Every time I came out of the water to sit down, I rested about 5 minutes, and had to start snorkeling again. It was all just right there calling me. It couldn’t have been easier.
Eventually, I was getting hungry, and, luckily, we had packed a couple of protein bars (we found out later there were a couple of very rustic food shacks on the other end of the beach). And, before we left at 3pm, I floated for awhile in a Swimways float while listening to an audiobook, and also flew my kite (adding another island to the list of places I’ve flown it). This one day managed to squeeze in all of my favorite things.
It was still sunny when we packed up and walked down to the other end of the beach to get a shuttle, but as we rode back to the ship, we could see a large dark cloud in the distance. I’m not sure if it ever eventually rained, but we sure had been lucky with the weather and with our day.
Once on the ship, we realized how hungry we were but it was already 4pm and we had just enough time to wash and rinse out all our toys and clothes and hang them up and set them on a towel on the floor to dry (it looks very familiar in here tonight!) before we went to dinner at 5pm. I had forgotten what I had ordered for tonight but was happy that I had ordered a lot, and Rodrigo supplemented it. I started with ceviche, and then, when G ordered a watermelon starter, wondered aloud how I had missed that on the menu. Rodrigo said it had marscapone cheese on it, but then surprised me by bringing me one without the cheese. That was followed by a salad and then a huge plate of all kinds of veggies topped with salmon. And I ate every bite. Spending five hours in the water made me ravenous.
There were two shows again tonight, and I would have loved to get to both, but it was never in the cards. We went to the 6:45pm Vista Lounge show by Australian comedian Steve Allison (harious, plus we understood most of the humor) but sadly had to skip the 7:45pm Princess Theater performance by multiple instrument musician Danny Elliott. We have another island and another beach day tomorrow, and if it’s half as good as today was, I will be ecstatic.
It occurred to me today that, when our first final payment was due on August 1, my doctors said it would be safe for me to travel and I felt pretty good. A month later, on September 1, treatment had taken a toll, and I thought there was no way I was going to be able to make this trip. By October 1, I thought I could do it, but imagined that this season would largely be a rest and rebuild trip. And today I spent five hours in the water, four of them snorkeling against a current while I sought out clown fish.
I am so grateful.
Life is good. :-)