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"New Caledonia"@2002@Summer Vacation


ĦDates
8/10(sat) - 17(sat)

ĦAirline
Air France

ĦAccomodations
Malabu/French New Caledonia North Province
After arriving at Tontouta international airport, We killed time by horseback riding. Then , we went to Kone from Magenta airport. The passengers were only the 2 of us. The manager of the hotel came to meet us there. It took about 1hour and 45 minutes to get there.

ĦHotel
The Malabu Beach Resort
It consists of 40 simple cottages , and is the northernmost hotel.I've heard that the number of Japanese who stay there is only 1 pair or group in a month.There are no shops or houses around there. We must go to Koumac for shopping. It takes about 40 minutes.The bread in the hotel was very delicious.Though we ate it at breakfast, lunch and dinner, we did not get tired of it.The fish, lobster and dessert were also very good.That's quite different from the Hotel Novotel in noumea.

ĦThe Time Difference
Japan{2 hours (ahead)

ĦLanguage
The official language is French.
Most of the people who work for hotels and restaurants in the South can use English.But not in the North.In the hotel, the manager is the only one who can speak English.

ĦThe Currency
French Pacific Franc(CFP)
Eurocurrency is not available as of August 2002 .The information from the travel agent was wrong.
We heard it at Tontouta international airport in Noumea, we exchanged everything into CFP.

ĦThe Voltage and the plug type
220V, 50cycle
2 round pins typeC

ĦThe Climate
It's cold in the morning and evening in August because it's midwinter.The temperature during our stay was from 15C to 30C.The water temp. was 23C.The sea condition was rough. The boat was rolling rather a lot.

ĦThe Dive Shop
Malabu Manta Diving
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ĦThe Diving Style
We set sail from the port at 8 in the morning. The time to the dive site is about 1 hour .We make 2 dives with a minimum interval.The return to the port is at 1:30 in the afternoon. After putting away the gear, we have lunch, that is sandwiches of French bread.The boat is a cruiser, not ZODIAC.the Entry is from the side and the exit is from the back.It's fundamentally a Drift Dive.We didn't have so much current then.

ĦThe stuff we saw
mantas, eagle rays, sharks, napoleon fish, barracuda, schools of horse mackerel, turtles and so on.They were all a little small, but it might be seasonal.There are many indigenous species.




M1

M2

M3
The visibility was not so good this time, and also the camera condition was bad. So the pix were all dim..I introduce the pix(M1,M2,M3) ,which Michel gave me, to make this page bright.