Episode 19 Sailing to The Loyalty islands

We sail for The Loyalty Islands about 100 nautical miles from Grande Terre (the mainland of New Caledonia). We encountered ideal conditions for several hours and had a dream sail with the main and code zero speeding us along at 8-9 knots. The wind increased later and we had an unfortunate experience with our Code 0. The people of the Loyalty Islands are mostly Melanesian or Kanaks, who live in tribal villages, groups set up by the Protestant and Catholic churches and led by tribal chiefs. All the land is customary estate owned by clans and families that cannot be sold or parted with. Lifou is the largest of all three islands, it has 3 custom districts the same as Ouvea. We, the largest town is the administrative centre for all the Loyalty Islands. After a few days relaxing on the island of Lifou, we moved on to the coral atoll of Ouvea. Ouvea had been in the news lately for an attack on a Superyacht from a group of people armed with machetes and guns. So we were expecting things to be a bit tense. The people we met were very friendly and helpful and our experiences were very positive.