Extreme Adventure on Ilot Tenia
After a week of rockin’ round la Grande Terre in a Peogeot 207, it was time to slow down and get back to the roots... We couldn’t resist the unique offer of our new Caldoche friend Mark to take his canote, some camping gear and enough supplies for water and food, and experience a Robinson Crusoe life. The coral cay of Tenia is a natural reserve with a sandy island and beautiful coral reef, based at the limit of the world’s largest lagoon and the Coral Sea. This place was to become our new home for the coming 12 days.
To get there from Mark’s place with all our gear, it took a two and a half hours ride in the little canote. Mark and his mate Bruno were so cool to show us the way, do some gunfishing, leave us some fish and cold beers before they returned to their homes through the dark of the early nightfall. We quickly got settled in an abandoned shed and prepared for some great snorkelling and kitesurfing. Being alone on an island far off civilization, our rhythm rapidly adapted to the eternal breath of pure nature. Never-before-heard, Mozart-like bird singing from all directions and distances announced the morning sun and cheered us up to get ready for the day. Of course these depended heavily on the tidal calendar and the winds. To extend some daytime, we lit campfires using stranded woods we found on our daily strolls along the deserted beach.
Having a little boat of our own was great. We could go and visit some outer reefs (with great long surfbreaks) and snorkel among unalerted marine life. The coral reef’s wild fauna and flora seemed rather intact and definitely excited us more than anything we’ve seen beforehand. However, with 22° C water temperature was chilly and kept us off doing long underwater sessions. Back on land, we enjoyed the moderate winter sun to heat up, but had to constantly take good care not to step onto one of the countless sea snakes obviously having the same intention with the sun. These creatures are extremely venimous, but fortunately behave rather passive when encountered.
Lucky enough, our stay dropped into a long period of great SE trade winds between 20 and 30 knots. Exclusively enjoying glassy waters in offshore wind conditions, we were fortunate to have the boat for emergency cases. Being only the two of us, we could never surf at the same time, since one had to secure the other. Now and again winds were so hard, Anh-Dao couldn’t control the smallest kite. On one occasion she lost the board and the gales let her no chance to bodydrag upwind. She drifted faster than the abandoned board and was relieved when she could save herself further down the island. Assured that she was fine, I rapidly drove the canote out to search for the board, but the wind was so strong I hardly could keep the boat flat in the water. Anh-Dao joined me in the canote and together we searched for another 2 hours, in vain. This loss was quite a shock for us both. Having accumulated this with the experiences the day before (sight of large shark during kite session, nightmare due to a helicopter waking us up in the middle of the night with his penetrating flashlight, mystical moon eclipse), Anh-Dao suffered a luxuation of her right shoulder on her next dive expedition, and I provoked a second, more serious one on manipulating the stiffened muscles to relief the pain and calm her down. That was the point where we realized there was more than just fun related to our adventure.
Now and again the island received other visitors coming for a daytrip. We sympathized with some kitesurfers and scientists from the capital Nouméa. Our conclusion to this is for reasons of precious time, energy and money, it is wiser to wait on a little piece of paradise for few but mostly interesting encounters, rather than get lost in a crowded place where it is hard to filter the people we would like to spend more time with.
24 hours before we left, heavy rainfalls started, that disgustingly made all our gear feel humid and wet. Fair enough, the boatride was calm and we even saw some dolphins. Mark expected us back at his weekend house and helped us to clear up and dry all the things for ongoing journey. In the evening we were invited to Laurence’s birthday BBQ with excellently tender Vanuatu beef, plenty of cold Champagne and great dessert pastry. This way we enjoyed a pleasant return to civilization.
Waiting for the ferry to transfer onto Ile des Pins and join our friends on the sailing boat Magellan, we spent a night at our new friend from Tenia, Guillem. Anh-Dao was lucky to buy the last reasonable kiteboard available in whole Nouméa from Stéphane Tranne, the Caledonian wakeboard star, who spontaneously invited us to join in for an excellent wakeboard session on his wonderful, large Mastercraft motorboat.
If you'd like to know how kitesurfers fly in glassy-flat water, check this: tenia slideshow.
After a week of rockin’ round la Grande Terre in a Peogeot 207, it was time to slow down and get back to the roots... We couldn’t resist the unique offer of our new Caldoche friend Mark to take his canote, some camping gear and enough supplies for water and food, and experience a Robinson Crusoe life. The coral cay of Tenia is a natural reserve with a sandy island and beautiful coral reef, based at the limit of the world’s largest lagoon and the Coral Sea. This place was to become our new home for the coming 12 days.
To get there from Mark’s place with all our gear, it took a two and a half hours ride in the little canote. Mark and his mate Bruno were so cool to show us the way, do some gunfishing, leave us some fish and cold beers before they returned to their homes through the dark of the early nightfall. We quickly got settled in an abandoned shed and prepared for some great snorkelling and kitesurfing. Being alone on an island far off civilization, our rhythm rapidly adapted to the eternal breath of pure nature. Never-before-heard, Mozart-like bird singing from all directions and distances announced the morning sun and cheered us up to get ready for the day. Of course these depended heavily on the tidal calendar and the winds. To extend some daytime, we lit campfires using stranded woods we found on our daily strolls along the deserted beach.
Having a little boat of our own was great. We could go and visit some outer reefs (with great long surfbreaks) and snorkel among unalerted marine life. The coral reef’s wild fauna and flora seemed rather intact and definitely excited us more than anything we’ve seen beforehand. However, with 22° C water temperature was chilly and kept us off doing long underwater sessions. Back on land, we enjoyed the moderate winter sun to heat up, but had to constantly take good care not to step onto one of the countless sea snakes obviously having the same intention with the sun. These creatures are extremely venimous, but fortunately behave rather passive when encountered.
Lucky enough, our stay dropped into a long period of great SE trade winds between 20 and 30 knots. Exclusively enjoying glassy waters in offshore wind conditions, we were fortunate to have the boat for emergency cases. Being only the two of us, we could never surf at the same time, since one had to secure the other. Now and again winds were so hard, Anh-Dao couldn’t control the smallest kite. On one occasion she lost the board and the gales let her no chance to bodydrag upwind. She drifted faster than the abandoned board and was relieved when she could save herself further down the island. Assured that she was fine, I rapidly drove the canote out to search for the board, but the wind was so strong I hardly could keep the boat flat in the water. Anh-Dao joined me in the canote and together we searched for another 2 hours, in vain. This loss was quite a shock for us both. Having accumulated this with the experiences the day before (sight of large shark during kite session, nightmare due to a helicopter waking us up in the middle of the night with his penetrating flashlight, mystical moon eclipse), Anh-Dao suffered a luxuation of her right shoulder on her next dive expedition, and I provoked a second, more serious one on manipulating the stiffened muscles to relief the pain and calm her down. That was the point where we realized there was more than just fun related to our adventure.
Now and again the island received other visitors coming for a daytrip. We sympathized with some kitesurfers and scientists from the capital Nouméa. Our conclusion to this is for reasons of precious time, energy and money, it is wiser to wait on a little piece of paradise for few but mostly interesting encounters, rather than get lost in a crowded place where it is hard to filter the people we would like to spend more time with.
24 hours before we left, heavy rainfalls started, that disgustingly made all our gear feel humid and wet. Fair enough, the boatride was calm and we even saw some dolphins. Mark expected us back at his weekend house and helped us to clear up and dry all the things for ongoing journey. In the evening we were invited to Laurence’s birthday BBQ with excellently tender Vanuatu beef, plenty of cold Champagne and great dessert pastry. This way we enjoyed a pleasant return to civilization.
Waiting for the ferry to transfer onto Ile des Pins and join our friends on the sailing boat Magellan, we spent a night at our new friend from Tenia, Guillem. Anh-Dao was lucky to buy the last reasonable kiteboard available in whole Nouméa from Stéphane Tranne, the Caledonian wakeboard star, who spontaneously invited us to join in for an excellent wakeboard session on his wonderful, large Mastercraft motorboat.
If you'd like to know how kitesurfers fly in glassy-flat water, check this: tenia slideshow.
posted by Patrick Jeannerat at 9/27/2007 06:43:00 AM
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