In the morning Emma and I took a bus from Nouméa to Thio on the East coast of New Caledonia. Then we hitched rides down south until we reached the end of the coastal road. From here a friendly local offered an (expensive) ride in his little motorboat to Petite Borindi. He took the boat quite far away from the beach, probably to avoid reefs and associated waves, which scared Emma a bit. It didn’t get better when the boat suddenly stopped dead – we’d run out of fuel! There were no oars on board so the brave captain stood in the front of the boat and rowed with a long stake! We helped with whatever we could find that seemed useable (which wasn’t much).
Eventually a guy saw us from the beach and came over with his boat. He passed over is tank to our guy who took some fuel out, and we were transferred to the other guy’s boat. Petite Borindi was already in sight when this second boat stopped, too. Fortunately he’d only forgotten to properly reattach the fuel pipe.
It was quite late in the afternoon already and we decided to stay. Emma pitched the tent she’d borrowed from Jean, and I hung my hammock between palm trees.