A Day On A Coral Island

Well, here it is, just over the half way mark for our stay in Noumea, New Caledonia. I had a good first week becoming familiar with the data I need to process, the scripts I will be using to process with as well as a review of what the job I will be doing entails. I spent my time with Andre, a former colleague with the department I used to work for with Vale who is now responsible for long term planning here at the Goro mine.

We have also met his family consisting of wife Stacey and young son, John. Having only recently moved here from Brisbane, Australia, they are adapting well to life here in New Caledonia. Stacey has also shown Janice around and helped introduce her to some of Noumea’s finer points.

They hosted a party at their apartment yesterday that Janice and I were also invited to attend. We had a good time meeting some of the people that are parts of their lives here, whether from work or just acquaintances.

Today, Sunday, September 23rd, Janice and I spent a good part of the day over at Iles Aux Canards, a small island out front of our hotel that we had been told provides excellent snorkeling of the local coral reef. We walked over to the local water taxi depot and took a boat over to the island. I will be the first to admit that we were not well prepared! Here is a picture of the island from the main land:

While I should have known better the island is the result of accumulations of storm produced fragments of the local coral barrier reef. While we were expecting coral sand instead we found ourselves on an island made up primarily of chunks of coral that make walking in bare feet difficult! Should have brought water shoes! Here is a picture of some of the detritus in front of a set of loungers we rented:

Even so we did manage to get in the water to snorkel and the advance billing was pretty much bang on even though we only saw a small part of the local reef. Wherever you find growing coral there are a multitude of fish; small ones, large ones, blue, yellow and all colours in between! I only recognized a small number such as brightly coloured parrot fish. Here are a few pictures showing some of what we saw:

I would have liked to have taken more pictures but I hadn’t made sure the seal on my camera case was clean and so some water had started to leak in. Fortunately not enough to harm the camera.