Where is Ruth II ?

Thursday 28th July So having prepared ourselves for a tough crossing from New Caledonia starting this day last week sense prevailed and we postponed our departure until Sunday 24th . We spent another very pleasant couple of days in Noumea sitting out the lightening storm doing some retail therapy and catching TopGun the Maverick which was easily the highlight !. We set out then in very pleasant conditions on Sunday with Babe Adelia and Acoya from the fleet all leaving the same day . We had been warned of a 10-15knt beat for the first 12 hours but the wind kindly came around after then and we settled in to a pleasant fetch followed by a full day of engine and we were even allowed a dip . We have kept the same watches I am treated kindly getting 5-9 am/pm which I love as I get both dawn and dusk ! It is definitely cooler and we are pulling out the jumpers and long pants which have been at the bottom of the cupboard for a long while . We are eating very well James did some great vegeta

Thursday 21 st July  Having sadly left Fiji on Friday 15 th we made our way towards New Caledonia. At first  we had light winds but then as forecasted the winds built and stayed too far forward for comfort levels . We all had an u pleasant 24 hrs with small amounts of toast ! However like everything it passed ,wind backed 3 m seas went down to 1.5 m and we were in luxury again !  We arrived in the channel for Noumea the Capital of New Caledonia at 2 Am Tuesday morning . Liam as always had it very carefull chatted and we picked up our pilot lights for the next 4 hours with little difficulty .I took the mountain photo at dawn to prove that Captain cool was correct in declaring it reminded him of Scotland !! We arrived to a superb marina with full services and have been exploring Noumea for the last few days . It is very French of course I keep saying Brittany James thinks Marseille ! We've walked shopped swum in a 50 m outdoor pool and have had a chance to catch up wi

On  Friday 2nd July the rest of the fleet began to appear at the dock in Musket Cove . The entrance was tricky enough through the narrow passage that could only be approached in high tide but Patrick the Marina Manager patiently guided everyone in to the Med Mooring docking something that hadn't been practised in a while!!  We passed a great weekend on the dock together culminating in a wonderful  Fijian Party on Sunday night with an excellent DJ and far more dancing than we care to remember!  For the Ruth II crew it was especially fun as we hadn't seen a lot of the fleet  since at least Bora Bora . Lots of Stories were swapped about tricky reef passages particularly in the Lau group .  One of the most striking aspects of Fiji which I hadn't appreciated before was its size and although we have been here for six weeks we have still run out of time . The Lau group of Islands are the most isolated and group of islands to the South and we heard some