Oh Donna, Oh Donna...

Like the song by Richie Valens, our world revolves around Donna these days. She’s a slow moving cyclone (see the map), currently ambling along at 2kts over the ground and still up to the north of us and Vanuatu although we are feeling her effects already with wind gusts and rainy showers.

Yesterday we saw the updated forecast indicate that Donna would now move much closer to New Caledonia so we decided to put ourselves in a better ‘hurricane hole’. We needed a place where we were protected on all sides from the winds and also from the swell that a storm of this size can bring to the coasts.

So, we are now anchored in 24m of water with 120m of chain out (30m in reserve) far up the Bai De Prony in the Bassin Interieur. Obviously it’s a good choice as there are a number of other boats up here with the same idea!

Donna is now predicted to thrash her way down the southeast side of New Caledonia sometime on late Tuesday bringing cyclone-strength winds, rain and heavy swell to that side of the island. However, we expect to only get about 30-40kts here so hopefully things will not be too bad. We’ve anchored in places with higher winds before and Feelin’ Good has taken it well.

In the meantime, we have more things to do in this anchorage than the last one with some treks, paddle-boarding, birds to listen to, cascading waterfalls to enjoy and even a Hot Spring (actually a Warm Spring) to go sit in. We also have some 3G internet so we can keep up on the weather and email.

We’re all looking forward to getting this phase of our New Caledonia experience over with so we can go enjoy the lagoon, diving, surfing and cultural activities we came here for but it’s still way better than sitting in the marina in Brisbane!!!