Sunday, July 13, 2008

Journal Entry - July 13, 2008 – Illegal Immigrants Awaiting Repairs

Author: Scott

This past week in New Caledonia has presented us with some real challenges. Our day to day life has become almost routine, but our ability to reside in New Caledonia has been prolonged while simultaneously threatened.

Our agreement with the vendor who we have hired to build our new dodger/bimini was supposed to start construction on Monday July 7, when he returned from a vacation in Australia, where he was also going to purchase the Sunbrella Plus fabric and Vybak plastic for our project. Monday passed without seeing neither hide nor hair of him and when he finally did appear, we were told that New Caledonia Customs had seized his materials due to some bureaucratic glitch. We were told that construction could not begin until the material was released. Every few days the vendor would show up with an update, but the end result was always the same, no fabric yet and it would be a minimum of two weeks once the fabric was released. To further our predicament, the vendor had purchased the materials with our deposit, and so we were stuck waiting.

Finally, on Saturday July 12 the vendor came by to tell us that Customs had released the materials, and that construction could begin on July 15, as July 14 is Bastille Day a holiday in New Caledonia. Hopefully things will start to move forward, as we are now officially a week behind schedule, after waiting nearly two weeks just for the material to arrive in New Caledonia.

Our next hurdle this week has been the expiration of our New Caledonian visa. When we arrived in Koumac we were not told how long our visa was good for. So, upon investigation into the expiration date we learned that our visas expired on July 9. We are now illegal aliens with a broken boat. Next week we will face the music and see what happens. If we end up in a New Caledonian pokey – please send a cake with a file.

Otherwise, our lives in New Caledonia continue to be routine. We are enjoying our new friendship with Graeme and Rebecca. I have been working with Rebecca on her computer. Both she and Graeme have Ipods and we are getting them loaded full of new music. I have also got them watching computer movies and they are sure to become computer media geeks.

We are learning our way around town and we have now visited Ansa Vata beach, the main tourist area in town. Our trips to the market have become an almost daily event, buying our tomato, zucchini, piece of meat or whatever items will meet the day’s needs. We have gotten familiar with a nice young man at the market café and he now knows our order on sight. Our coffee comes in giant bowls for 300 CFP each, with me getting a café latté and Pam a hot chocolate. It is strange that we have been here long enough to have our coffee order memorized.

That’s about it for this week’s update. As you make your way through your week, every now and then send some energy to the two stranded sailors, awaiting repairs and avoiding deportation, as the nickel dust drifts down on their dirty boat in New Caledonia.

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