I just love arriving at a place that I have never been before. Our cruise on "Radiance of the Seas" took us to the Isle of Pines and I was looking forward to seeing it because it is Unka Ray and Aunty Libby's favourite Pacific island. The pines which the island is named after are tall, thin and dark. I will put up some photos of them soon (actually, you can see two of them in the background of the beach picture). We were up on the top deck early in the morning to see the ship arrive and to watch the passengers unload. We usually wait for the "mad rush" of people who feel that they have to be on the first few tenders to get off before we disembark. The water is too shallow for the ship to dock at the pier, so we all had to go ashore on the ship's tenders. These small lifeboats carry 100 passengers, and it is pretty cramped when they have a full load. You get onto them from a gangway on deck 2, just above the waterline. The door is a bit low for tall people, but my cute height-challenged Mum can forget about the sign. One of the first things that I do on a new island is to check out the beaches, usually from a spot that is out of the reach of crabs. The beach in this picture is the closest one to the pier. You can see the pier and one of the tenders in the background. Later in the day when the clouds cleared this beach was packed with swimmers, but I was off exploring the rest of the island.
Labels: beach, boats, crabs, cruising, Noumea
# posted by Bart Bear @ 12:51 pm
