December 14, 2006
The boat trip
With the cyclone seemingly fizzled out, we arrived at Noumea harbour at 5am for our departure on the Quo Vadis.
A few Silver Gulls and a lone Crested Tern were loafing in the harbour. The first day of the voyage was spent heading north along the rugged west coast of New Caledonia.
We stayed within the shelter of the barrier reef for as long as possible. Roseate Terns were common on the nearshore, gradually replaced by mixed flocks of Wedge-tailed Shearwaters and Sooty Terns along the reef edge, with smaller numbers of Black-naped Terns and noddies. Two rather acrobatic dolphins (species unknown) breached a few times close to the coast. We crossed into the open seas at the Passage de St Vincent, where masses of chocolate-coloured Wedge-tailed Shearwaters were a joy to behold. I caught sight of a similar-sized, pale-bellied bird that I initially thought was a pale morph of this species. However, it had dark underwings and described longer arcs with fewer wing-flaps than the wedge-tails - Tahiti Petrel! As the day wore on I was treated to fantastic views of several individuals crossing the wake (though I only managed one poorly digibinned shot).
Before this trip I had seen exactly two Pterodromas - one Cook's and one Dark-rumped Petrel. I was therefore delighted to see at least 50 beautiful Gould's Petrels bouncing over the high seas (it's possible there were also some Black-winged Petrels out in the distance, but none at IDable range). As you can imagine, I was more than happy to spend the day glued to my binoculars.
For the non-birders, the voyage was somewhat less interesting!
Overnight, we reached the choppier waters to the north of the mainland, and very few birds were seen the next morning. Finally, Brown and Red-footed Boobies started to appear around the boat, and a distant speck of dry land appeared on the horizon: our destination, Surprise Island.
