The past few days just seem to have flown by. On Thursday morning we enjoyed a breakfast at Le Marche de Noumea with Blue Summit (Kate and Steve), but as we all savoured our French pastries and cafe au lait, we knew the inevitable was approaching - saying goodbye to the last of our World ARC friends, as we head west and Blue Summit returns to New Zealand. It was a very sad goodbye as we've come to appreciate their friendship over this past year and will definitely miss their company.

It was the start of a chain reaction though, as we had a few more goodbyes to say to friends old and new - Vivacious / Kit Cat (Jane and Russ), Lettin' Go (Ann and Cran) and Georgia (Chris and Paul). Unfortunately we missed Raya (Ros and Rick), but we'll see them and possibly Georgia again in Sydney. With that, a very strange emptiness settled over the anchorage yesterday morning as yacht after yacht sailed out of Baie de la Moselle bound for Ne w Zealand.

This morning was our turn to leave after enjoying our last breakfast of French pastries and café au lait at Le Marche de Noumea. As we sailied out of Port de la Moselle for the last time, bound for Australia, we had a lovely surprise with Lettin' Go sounding their ship's horn and waving us off.

Having watched the weather for the past week or more, the weather window we've been waiting for, opened up sooner than we expected, so it was a mad rush yesterday and today to get the last of our preparations completed - clearout, move Paw Paw to the fuel dock to fill up with diesel, drop in at the dentist to pick up Elaine's dental records so that our dentist in the USA can complete her root canal treatment when we visit family next month, complete our provisioning, cook all our passage meals, complete and distribute all our passage documentation, complete our final checklist activities and squeeze in some quic k phone calls to family.

This morning we completed the first leg of our passage with an extremely fast sail over to Ilot Maitre, where we're spending the night. Once we were anchored and had lunch we headed ashore to enjoy a walk around the island, watch the numerous kite surfers and enjoy some refreshments at the resort in order to spend the last of our French Francs. Then we had the pleasure of bumping into Plastik Plankton (Kathy and Wolgang) whom we'll hopefully also see again in Sydney as they depart for Australia later this week. We topped off the day with a barbecue aboard. Now it's early to bed to get the rest we need before our watch schedule begins.