CALEDONIAN BLUES

JANNEKE KUYSTERS AND WIETZE VAN DER LAAN ARE CAPTIVATED BY THE PACIFIC ISLANDS OF NEW CALEDONIA

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“OK, this time you’ll do it, right?” Wietze asks, full of hope that this time I’ll grab the mooring buoy without a hitch. I’m totally focussed on the white buoy bobbing right in front of us.

I mentally prepare the mooring lines in my left hand to go through that ring. But just as we are 3m away from the mooring, a pig surfaces, a big, fat, grey pig. It looks me straight in the eye and says: “Pffff!” I am stunned.

“There’s a pig!”

I yell at Wietze.

“A what?”

And then I’ve missed the buoy and have to do another turn. The second time it all goes well and ten minutes later the stillness of this sunny day descends around us.

“Now what did you say about a pig?” Wietze asks me. I open my mouth to tell him, when it hits me – it’s not a pig, it’s a manatee! We both dash outside and there he is again, swimming slowly around our boat before making a majestic dive to the grassy patch behind us. Welcome to New Caledonia.

TIME TO DWELL

“Are you going to Vanuatu?” a lot of people asked us when we were waiting for a weather window in Opua.