Vincent Ross cruises to the paradise island of Ouvéa aboard the Pacific Sun and finds white sand, pristine waters, and nothing to think about but what’s for lunch. Read the first part of Vincent’s Pacific Sun story here.
The island of Ouvéa offered a welcome opportunity for a little exercise.
On the fourth day of the cruise, at around 6 a.m., our ship, Pacific Sun made its approach to Passage de Meurthe, passing Angemeec and Gece reefs, on its way to Atoll D’Ouvéa, at latitude 20 41.6 south; longitude 166 26.5 east, where it dropped anchor in the Bai de Mouly around 8 a.m.
Sun deck on the cruise ship Pacific Sun
It was the ship’s inaugural call to Ouvéa in the Loyalty Islands, a tiny tropical speck in the South Pacific only 35 km long and in some places less than 40 m wide, with a 25 km-long, fingernail–shaped beach skirted by coconut trees and a sparkling emerald bay.
The hour-glass fine, white sand moulded to the feet at every step and there wasn’t a food vendor in sight.
Pacific Sun off pristine Mori Beach on Ouvea. © Vincent Ross. All Rights Reserved.
With no organised shore tours, the only thing to do on Ouvéa is swim, relax, stroll and lie in the sun.
The first call of the Pacific Sun to Ouvéa was a big event for the Kanak locals, with many of the islands 6,800 inhabitants – laughing, curly-headed children out of school for the day, and big, motherly Polynesian women in colourful dresses and grey-headed old men singing welcome songs at the jetty.
Ouveans sing a welcome song. © Vincent Ross. All Rights Reserved.
The Pacific Sun’s passengers provide a welcome injection of tourist dollars to the tiny economy, which is largely reliant on fishing and coconut oil production for the local soap factory, a far cry from the mid-1980s, when Ouvéa produced 80 per cent of the territory’s copra.
Kanak girl on Ouvea © Vincent Ross. All Rights Reserved.
A stark reminder that there can be trouble, even in paradise, is the memorial near the Church of St Joseph to the 19 local Kanaks killed by French gendarmes in May 1988 during political unrest.
The Church of St Joseph on Ouvea. © Vincent Ross. All Rights Reserved.
On Divine Island in Emerald Bay, New Caledonia, catering staff staged a beachside lunch for the 1,900 passengers, with all food transported ashore by tender boat for a barbecue of lavish proportions, with cooking and serving equipment quickly packed up in precise military fashion a few hours later in time for Pacific Sun to weigh anchor by 5 p.m. and be on its way back to Sydney.
Outside the formal dining, the team of 110 chefs, cooks and galley staff pulled out all stops on the second to last day of the cruise with a lunch they call Buffet Magnifique.
The chief pastry chef and his small squad of pastry cooks turned out an eye-popping array of pastries, cakes, jellies and tarts.
There were lemon and caramel slices, cream cakes, flans, fruit slices, tarts and torts, ranks of sponge slices, tartlets topped by a flourish of cream and vivid red maraschino cherries; tiramisu slices, teetering towers of chocolate-coated profiteroles full of egg custard, fruit flans topped with peaches, strawberries and kiwi fruit ringed by jagged towers of sheet chocolate, tartlets, coconut slices, small bowls of strawberry mousse and stemmed glasses of bright red jelly.
A metre-wide “Thank you for Cruising on Pacific Sun’’ chocolate and vanilla layer cake topped with maraschino cherries took pride of place on the display table.
And that was just dessert.
Pastry cooks on Pacific Sun. © Vincent Ross. All Rights Reserved.
The main buffet featured ice sculptures of giant tropical fish and a leaping dolphin, exotically presented baked fish garnished with tiny slivers of carrot and parsley in delicate patterns and whole watermelons intricately carved to depict birds and tropical scenes of coral gardens and red grapefruit carved into giant juicy flowers.
Bread dough artwork depicted sharks and dragons, a crocodile clutched a bread roll in its jaws next to a pastry recreation of the Eiffel Tower.
There was grilled and marinated vegetables, assorted smoked fish, tomato and bacconcini caprese, overflowing bowls of carved fruit, rosemary roasted chicken, gratinated spinach cannelloni, roasted Chicago round beef, prawns, baby octopus, mussels and crayfish, and glazed legs of ham laced with delicately carved watermelon, cucumber and carrot, creating a work of art that would have been a sin to carve up.
Even a Force Eight gale, and 10 m-high seas encountered sailing west across the top of the Coral Sea on the return leg to Australia didn’t stop the production of food or the service.
The predominantly Filipino waiters and cooks were unflappably cool in a storm. They smiled their way through crashing trays and occasional falling food and glasses, as passengers staggered and stumbled their way to their seating, balancing piled-high plates.
The only downside to the cruise was the nagging fear of hearing John Cleese’s fateful lines from the mouth of a smiling Filipino waiter:
“And finally, monsieur, a wafer-thin mint…
“It’s only a tiny, little, thin one.
“Bon appétit.”
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