Category Archives: Locations

Places around the world

Baie de Uitoe

Isolation at its Best: Ile Ducos and Ile Puen

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Matt and I needed to decompress after returning from the States. We decided to go find some isolation and that is exactly what we found at Baie de Uitoe, Ile Ducos, and Ile Puen.

We left Noumea and headed west.  Our first stop was Baie de Uitoe which is part of the mainland, Grande Terre.

Sugar Shack tucked up next to the shore in 4m of water with excellent holding and protection.  We had the lovely Ilot Mathieu behind us.

Baie Uitoe, Grande Terre

Baie Uitoe, Grande Terre

We had a beautiful couple of days here with pretty calm waters and a gentle breeze.

Sweetie brought us over to Ile Mathieu where we were able to walk the long 3 mile beach.

Ile Ducos

Time for a change of scenery so we moved to Ile Ducos. We took Canal Ducos up to the north western end of the island and had a beautiful dolphin encounter.

The anchorage was stunning, calm, and peaceful.

Most cruisers head to Baie Des Moustiques which translates to Mosquito Bay.  It did not sound appealing to us so we anchored west of Baie Des Moustiques.

This is a protected islet whose fragile ecosystems require strict adherence to environmental rules (prohibition of fishing, hunting, collecting shells or plants

Matt was able to capture a few really pretty sunrise photos with the drone.

Love these glassy conditions.

And of course we had several really pretty sunset photos.

Ile Puen

Our next stop was Ile Puen.  Matt and I were able to snug up close to shore and dropped the hook in 3m of water during mid-tide.  We had great holding and were super protected.

Our only neighbors was a small herd of cows that liked to come out to bathe each morning.

Sea Treasures

We enjoyed a leisurely walk along a lovely beach and came up with a few sea treasures.  

I had never seen this cushion sea star (Culcita Novaeguineae) before.  It has a lovely pentagonal shape. 

I was not sure if it was 100% dead since it was still a bit soft and had some black on the bottom.  So, I put it in the ocean with the hopes he will come back to life.

A few beautiful shots of our home.

Our blog posts run 4-6 weeks behind actual events. 

We spent time at Ile Ducos, Ile Puen, and Baie de Uitoe toward the end of August 2026.

Be sure to follow us on No Foreign Land.

Matt near a Mat on Ilot Mathieu

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We find a beautiful and secluded spot called Uitoe Bay.  It is just off the mainland of Grande Terre and in front of Ilot Mathieu. 

Sugar Shack enjoys this sweet spot all to ourselves.

We had calm conditions despite the winds blowing between 20-35kts from the SE.

All around us are stunning turquoise waters.

 

Ilot Mathieu

We took the dinghy over to the neighboring Ilot to do some exploring.  We anchored Sweetie on the north side of the island where there was a beautiful 3 mile stretch to wander.

There was not much of a “beach.”  The shoreline was covered in rocks, coral, and shells.

Strangely enough, there were lots of cacti on the shoreline as well.  This is the second place we’ve seen cactus by the shore.  

It seems so out of place!

But even the cactus can’t take the beauty away from this little Ilot.

And Matt finds a mat on Ilot Mathieu.

Find Ilot Mathieu on No Foreign Land.

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Our blog posts run 4-6 weeks behind actual live events.

We anchored at Uitoe around mid-August 2026.

Here we go again. Day 5 and Arrival

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Another gorgeous day for sailing. Day break the wind started building, up go the sails and off to the races. A perfect 10-12kts from the west now. Everyone loves beam reach.. The light winds and direction change, means the seas were also very kind. Zoom Zoom on to New Zealand we go.

Drug the lines for a bit, until the boat speed was touching 8kts and above. Nothing small is going to catch the lure at those speeds and certainly didn’t feel like slowing down just to have to clean a fish, even with another Mahi being reported by boats behind us. 🙂

Final sunset.

The final sunset, was beautiful. We still had a long night and a time change to deal with. We lost 2 hrs, so our midnight arrival was really going to be 2am on Kiwi time.

Preparing quarantine flag for arrival, just before sunset.

As we were just approaching the BOI (Bay of Islands) the wind pipped up, which is opposite of normal. Normally it gets softer at near the bay, so that last bit of sleep was put on hold while speed was up. With the auto pilot still being a bit finicky it seemed prudent to be near the helm just in case he decided he needed break after 6 long days of 24/7 service. It was a good call, as he tried to take a break a few times during the final miles ..

Yellow “Q” flag, says we haven’t been cleared into country, immigration/ health / bio security/ customs.

Now that we were close enough, starlink data was full on, no longer billable by Gigabyte. I did a quick google search on the Autopilot issue, and the suspicion was correct, time for a new RAM or at least a maintenance project. It seems the ram is supposed to be sent into get serviced every 1000 hours, and with our 40,000 miles we were well past service at 8000 hrs, who knew. So guess what gets service/updated in NZ, and of course a spare brother picked up. If you have 2 on board, you’ll never need the spare, or so goes the theory.

Arrived dock at 2am, with next to no wind, perfect for negotiating the dock in the dark, spinning around 180 and getting tied up. By 3am we were settled, and finally had a cold beer before the ever too short sleep before customs / immigration / biosecurity arrived. Super efficient and we were cleared to leave the Q dock an hour after the process started. Time for some more work to rinse the boat and get a proper sleep.

Save a favorite Mongolian Pork for the final push to rid the fridge of the ‘forbidden’ items.

Interesting that the only thing Biosecurity needed to remove from us in the end was a salami that we purchased in NZ before leaving that was made in Christ Church NZ. No worries, all the officers said Christine was super organized, and made the process super easy/efficient and we were done within 1 hour.

Back in the land where we read the labels, and what’s not to love about Snaka Changi marketing.

Back to the regular scheduled posts that will no doubt have a different spin on the short daily stories.

5 days, 17 hours

900 miles.

Water-maker fitting and autopilot hiccups, or bad at all for an ocean passage. Hope the next one is just as sweet.