Just a day after our arrival in Nouméa, our friends McKenzie, Meewon and their son Ronan arrived for a 10 day visit. Our plan was to go south to the Isle of Pines, but we were delayed a couple of days by bad weather. We fueled up and headed out for 
a wonderful tour of the Southern reefs and l'Ile des Pins. We moved the boat to a new spot almost every day, and we came to learn that the wind here is always on the nose, regardless the direction of your travel. Lots of motoring...
My "big brother" Raymond had shown us all the good spots to explore and anchor. He even drew a circle on a chart and said, Here, you will catch Yellowfin tuna. As soon as we entered the circle, McKenzie and I started bitching about how awful this place is and even in the "fish catching areas" there was no fish... Right as we reached the center of Raymond's prescribed area, one of the lines sang out and a 
few minutes later, sure enough we had a Yellowfin on board. We landed a second one a couple of days later and speared a couple of Parrotfish to make "fish nuggets" for the kids. They'll eat anything fried (no comment on the Speedo and cubicle-induced pallor).
One of the highlights was the Isle of Pines itself. It's an incredible place with beautiful, very shallow anchorages. There were a couple of times we only had a foot of water under the deepest part of the boat, but I guess a foot is as good as a fathom as long as it's low tide.We visited "la
Piscine", a natural mini-lagoon full of tame fish that eat out of your hand. The kids loved that. It was great fun seeing Ronan get the hang of life aboard and in the water.On the way back to Nouméa we stopped at the Phare Amedée and since we were the only people on the island, the keepers let us into the lighthouse for our own private tour. 250 steps up and we had an incredible view of the whole lagoon at sunset.
