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New Caledonia, South Pacific, May 2015
As much as I do love to hike the mountains, climb the trees, cross the
rivers and explore the caves, there is constantly something calling me
back to the sea again...
After exploring the beautiful, vegetated New Caledonian east coast, we both start to feel the strong call from the blue, refreshing lagoon.
Time to head back home to the deserted islands :-)
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Although eight weeks sounds like plenty of time, it flies way too fast when having many things you both want and need to do.
Now we just have two weeks left...
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A couple of weeks, of which we are hoping to get conditions good enough for practicing some kitesurf...
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... we also want to get more footage and stills from both above and beneath surface...
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In addition to the above, we are also crossing our fingers very hard for being able to pay a visit to the remote "Brown Booby -island" again.
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But... for being able to visit this little bird island, we will need a good portion of luck...
To get there we need super calm weather, and according to the weather forecast, we are soon going to face a long-lasting low pressure with
both strong wind and heavy rain...
... and so it arrives, the tropical depression. The sceneries surrounding our camp, on Tiam Bouene Island, starts to change rather quickly.
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The "Magic Beach" gets a new look...
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... so does the view over Tiam Bouene Island...
Beautiful blue turns into mystical grey...
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But what isn´t that fun is the sudden loss of our home!!
The trusty tarp, which earlier have been offering great shelter from both sun, wind and rain, suddenly gets enough...
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... riizzzSSCHHH!!!
All at once, we have the entire roof on our heads!
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Wet and very cold. Now we only have the tent left for gathering some heat and get dry a bit. This before making another effort keeping the boat afloat. Too much rain water and it will sink!
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How big is the risk that also the little tent might fail on us?
Hot tea and a little sleep for gathering more energy, thereafter we will see how things develop...
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After a super rainy and windy night, the next day shows up with smiling sun and no wind at all. What a surprise!! Where did the forcasted long-lasting depression go?
Nature has its surprises, and is very tough as well...
At the beach, we find young
Sooty Shearwaters (Puffinus griseus) close to drowning. We help these cold small creatures to get safe back on dry land, where they start to clean and dry their wet feathers.
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The calm weather continues, and we move on to visit new islands...
Now, we don´t have the tarp left for seeking shelter when needed. But as the tent surprisingly survived the rough night we still have a dry place to sleep during rainy nights :-)
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Lucky, lucky us!!
The unpredicted, super calm sea condition makes it possible for us to make a last visit to our favourite island, the sandy little islet with the Brown Boobies
(Sula leucogaster).
Almost a month since last time we made a visit here, and this shows on their young ones. The Brown Booby chicks have been growing a lot, and seem to be in a very hungry state of life :-)
And so it comes, the very last evening before heading back to northern latitudes.
Bye bye beautiful South Pacific...
Time to say hello to wonderful Scandinavia!! :-)
