Rotterdam welcomed on its first entry into Noumea, February 6, 2009

Squeekie with native dancers on the dock in Noumea

Moss in front of Admiral Halsey’s headquarters Quonset hut in Noumea

Squeek and Moss on the Isle of Pines

Sunset at sea after leaving the Isle of Pines


Day Seventeen (Thursday, February 5, 2009)—Today is an “at sea” day as the Rotterdam covers the approximately 600 nautical miles from Port Vila to Noumea in New Caledonia. I awoke early this morning to a rocking motion much more pronounced than previously experienced on any cruise we have taken. Indeed, we have encountered a “Tropical Depression,” as the meteorologists call it, a low pressure system with wind and rain which has caused the ship to ride more roughly than usual. The weather stayed with us all day, imposing upon the Rotterdam a series of motions that were complex; the up and down rocking, a side-to-side motion, and an interesting corkscrew movement as well. Thank heaven for “the patch,” which has kept me comfortable in this rough sea day. Squeekie and I both camped out with our computers all day up in the Deck Nine “Crows Nest,” she doing Edison work and I writing elements of this blog. At one point I looked out and said that the very lively sea looked like how I thought the North Atlantic should appear; what made it different was that is was about 70 degrees warmer—we are in the South Pacific, after all.


Day Eighteen (Friday, February 6, 2009)-- This morning we arrived in Noumea, the principal port and capital city of French New Caledonia. I awoke around 6am to a gently moving ship motion, none of the sharp rocking we had experienced yesterday. We were approaching the southern end of the island known as New Caledonia, given that name in 1774 by British explorer Captain James Cook when he was on his way to New Zealand. The channel in to the port of Noumea is narrow and twisting, with coral reefs to make the journey even more difficult and dangerous. (I was interested to learn that the coral reef which encircles New Caledonia is the second largest coral structure in the world after Australia’s Great Barrier Reef.) As the Rotterdam nimbly picked her way in to the dock she was greeted by a fireboat spraying water as a welcome. Apparently this is the Rotterdam’s first visit to this port.

I am fascinated by New Caledonia for a number of reasons. First, its capital, Noumea, appears to be more urbanized and Westernized than any town we have visited since leaving Honolulu; as the Rotterdam docked my ears were assaulted by traffic noise from the city behind the dock. Second, the island appears to be very different in geology and environment from other Pacific islands. Third, its history is complex and it remains a French colony into the twenty-first century. All of this is very interesting to me and encourages me to write more about this place than I have done recently about other stops we have made.

Noumea— The capital of (and chief port for) French New Caledonia is located on a hilly peninsula in the south of New Caledonia's main island, Grande Terre. It is one of the South Pacific’s most industrialized cities, a fact that was made readily apparent as we approached the dock and saw smoke arising from a large mining facility at the north end of the town. It is also very westernized in appearance—Squeekie commented to me that it appeared to her to be similar to her first view of Mazatlan in Mexico.

The town and its suburbs have a population of nearly 150,000 residents, a mixture of natives (called Kanaks here) and Europeans, with a leavening of other peoples as well. The area where the city lies was not important to the original native culture on the island, but became the location of the first European colonial activities. Initially named Port-de-France in 1854, the town first functioned as a penal colony, then became the centre for nearby mining activity, and then served as the headquarters of the United States military in the Pacific during World War Two. The U.S. wartime military influence lingers in Noumea to this day in the names of some of the city’s districts: “Receiving,” “Robinson,” and “Motor Pool” are but three examples I noticed. A large Quonset hut structure just a few blocks from the dock carries a sign announcing that in the war it housed the headquarters staff of Admiral “Bull” Halsey. And, after the war, the U.S. military hospital became the foundation of a new hospital for the island, and the military headquarters became the base for a new regional development organization, the South Pacific Commission, now known as the Pacific Community.

Geology and Environment— Unlike many of the islands in the Pacific Ocean, which are of relatively recent volcanic origin, New Caledonia is a fragment of the ancient super-continent known as Gondwana. This continent split apart over millions of years, leaving fragments ranging in size from Antarctica and Australia to New Zealand and New Caledonia. The fragment now known as New Caledonia was isolated from the rest of the earth’s land some 55 million years ago, making it a Noah’s Ark of sorts, preserving an interesting sampling of very ancient Gondwanan flora and fauna, some of which still remain despite a great deal of environmental assault in the last two centuries.

As we took our tour train around the island I noticed many sedimentary rock formations which made it clear that New Caledonia is not of volcanic origin. There is a monument in Noumea where a blue-green rock is on prominent display. This commemorates the discovery of rich deposits of copper and nickel on the island; today some 30% of the world’s nickel comes from New Caledonia, which appears to be a major reason why France continues to hold on to this distant Pacific island. Needless to say, the mining and refining of nickel has caused some serious environmental concerns in the area. . . .

Nickel is not the only environmental issue on New Caledonia. This island, just like every other Pacific Island, has endured strong environmental challenges in the past two or three hundred years. The interjection of humans provided the first assault upon the flora and fauna of the island, and the (usually) much more recent arrival of Europeans, which brought rats, (often) pigs, unknown diseases, and hunting (or exploiting) to the point of extinction just increased the assault. In the past, New Caledonia's wildlife seemed very ancient in comparison to elsewhere, reflecting its Gondwanan origins and long isolation; some fauna resembled throwbacks to the Mesozoic. New Caledonia was inhabited by Meiolania, a gigantic turtle the size of a car resembling the dinosaur ankylosaur. Another interesting inhabitant was Sylviornis, a huge bird with a long, reptilian tail which closely resembled an oviraptor dinosaur. Long dominant predators on the island were the crocodiles Mekosuchus, which resembled armored, quadrupedal theropod dinosaurs. All of these animals died out when the first aboriginal humans arrived on New Caledonia.

History and Colonial Status— The western Pacific islands were first populated by humans about 50,000 years ago; the earliest known Melanesians in the archipelago which includes New Caledonia, a people known as the Lapita, arrived around 1500 BC. From about the 11th century Polynesians also arrived and mixed with the populations of the archipelago. Europeans first sighted New Caledonia and the Loyalty Islands in the late 18th century. British explorer James Cook sighted Grande Terre in 1774 and named it New Caledonia (Caledonia being the Latin name for Scotland). Whalers operated off New Caledonia during the mid-19th century. Sandalwood traders quickly stripped the region of those trees. The Europeans brought smallpox, measles, dysentery, influenza, syphilis, and leprosy, which killed off many native people.

The island was made a French possession in late 1853 as part of an attempt by Napoleon III to rival the British colonies in Australia and New Zealand; again following the British example in Australia, between 1864 and 1922 France sent a total of 22,000 convicted felons to penal colonies along the south-west coast of New Caledonia. These included both regular criminals and political prisoners. The indigenous population declined drastically in that same period due to introduced diseases and an apartheid-like system which imposed severe restrictions on their livelihood, freedom of movement and land ownership.

During World War Two, the French South Pacific colonies joined the Free French Forces; the colonies became vital Allied bases in the Pacific Theatre. Nouméa served as a headquarters of the United States Navy and Army in the South Pacific, and also as a repair base for damaged American and Allied ships. Until its deactivation in 1971, the former American 23rd Infantry Division was unofficially named the Americal Division, a contraction of “America” and “New Caledonia.”

The native Melanesians have adopted the name Kanak or Kanaky, which comes from kanaka, a Hawaiian word meaning “human” or “person.” The word, turned into Canaque in French, originally was derogatory, but with the rise of independence movements in the 1960s and 1970s, was transformed into a symbol of political emancipation and pride.

There has been some violence concerning the political future of the island; 1988 saw some particularly bloody hostage taking in which the French Foreign Legion participated. The unrest led to agreement on increased autonomy in the Matignon Accords of 1988 and the Nouméa Accord of 1998. The devolution process is described as “irreversible” and a referendum on the contentious issue of independence from the French Republic has been promised for sometime after 2014.

What we did today-- We debarked from the Rotterdam at a relatively early hour and walked into Noumea in search of a cleaning kit for Squeek’s camera lenses, which were badly muddied the other day in Vanuatu. We visited four different stores selling cameras and photographic services before we found one which had the alcohol fluid we desired. Then we walked over to the maritime museum for a “look see,” but they would accept neither Visa cards nor American cash so we could not enter. They did, however, have a good collection of recovered anchors on display in the lobby, and I found this presentation of anchoring technology to be quite interesting. We returned to the ship in the midst of a pouring rain, but fortunately it slowed to a drizzle by the time we had to leave on our island tour via “Le Petit Train.” This was an elephant train tour of key points in and around Noumea. We saw the famous “Lemon Bay” yacht harbour (where we stopped, boarded a nice cruise boat and enjoyed French pastries chased with French apple cider), and passed their famous “End of the World” restaurant, a place very popular with yachters who tour the South Pacific. We traveled around the peninsula upon which Noumea is built, saw the beaches, passed the five-star Meridian Hotel, and drove up to the top of Ouen Toro, from which a magnificent view could be had of the southern environs of Noumea. I must admit that Noumea and this end of New Caledonia seemed very nice as tropical islands go, but our long-standing love of the Mauna Kea and its beach in Hawaii has turned us off to other tropical playgrounds. Rotterdam’s departure from Noumea was uneventful, coming after 11 pm following a very interesting native culture show in the Queen’s Lounge, put on by a group of native dancers from Noumea.


Day Nineteen (Saturday, February 7, 2009)-- This morning we arrived at the Isle of Pines, our second stop in French New Caledonia. I awoke at a quarter of seven as the Rotterdam was slowing to a stop offshore. This is the first “tender port” of our circumnavigation cruise, which means that instead of tying up at a dock and walking ashore, we must board a small boat (a “tender”) to be carried over to the shore. It is another rainy day, with squalls assaulting us on an occasional basis.

This island also had once been a prison. I did not walk to the site of the old prison, which was located 8 kilometers inland from where the Rotterdam was anchored, but our new friend Don Davidson did walk up there and I have asked him for some of his photographs. Squeekie and I tendered ashore after lunch and visited a nice hotel on the Bay, then walked over the narrow peninsula to see the adjacent bay where a great deal of snorkeling was going on. Later, as Squeekie and I walked back toward the landing, we passed through some old French fortifications and stopped at a boutique where some transplanted French artists were displaying their wares. Squeekie purchased a cute little mother-of-pearl-inlaid honu (sea turtle), which we immediately named “François.”

Departure from this island was dramatic, right into a sunset that was far and away the most beautiful I have seen for quite a while. Soon after dark, however, we passed by an island (the name of which I do not know) and sailed into the heart of the Tasman Sea and the highest wave action yet seen on this trip. I got rather queasy this night despite the patch.

So now we have seen a brief selection of islands in the South Pacific. It has been interesting, each one with its unique history, but after two days sailing across the Tasmanian Sea we will arrive in Australia, one of the major goals of this circumnavigation voyage.