June 15

Today was Father's Day! I took Jonah into town on Friday and we went to a very fancy French chocolate shop. They had made chocolate boxes which you custom filled with all their fabulous chocolate. Luckily the kids from Rhapshodie picked before me and ended up spending over $60! I quickly talked Jonah into a more modest box.

We are anchored out fairly far from the marina where we can tie up our dingy. It is a long ride with all three of us but fast with only two since we can plane over the water. Jonah is learning how to start and steer the dingy. He had a bit of accident yesterday when he revved the engine too high and then popped the engine in gear , throwing me and him almost out of the dingy. I hurt my elbow and he slammed his chin on the stern. OW!

The wind dropped entirely and it is a lovely day in Noumea. The sky is blue and we are even hot! Is this the same place? I really enjoy the city with all its accoutrements, lovely fish and vegetable market every morning, patisseries, fresh bread, fabulous grocery stores, cute cafes. We considered staying and waiting for some friends (Juniper) from Australia to show up but we are still craving warm water! We are worried that if we do stay then the weather will turn bad and we won't be able to leave for another two weeks. We have currently decided to just make for Tanna on Tuesday. We will check out tomorrow and then leave 8am on Tuesday.

The boat "Valere" is here and it has been nice to have the opportunity to get to know them better. Jonah enjoys playing with little Morea even though she is only 14 months old. He is very cute and gentle with her. We stopped for tea yesterday and had a lovely time.

Today I was looking to entertain Jonah so I hauled him up the mast in the bosun's chair. He has seen bigger kids swinging and goofing around so he wanted to try. It took some time but he really started to enjoy it and stayed up for around 30 mins!

Yesterday Jonah and I went to look for "jellies" the French plastic shoes that are fabulous for the wet life of a boat. I stopped by the French boat "Perlianne" and Evelyn told me exactly where to go. The cost only $8 US which is a bargain and now Jonah has a back up pair of sandals to his Nike Water sandals.

I did piles and piles of laundry today as Jordan fixed the watermaker yesterday. A feed pump was leaking and Jordan was outraged as he said he just replaced it last year. He decided to put in the old pump and when he got it out he realized that it was the new one and he had never replaced it!! Whoops.