Easo Beach, Lifou, New Caladonia - 7th January 2014

I haven't posted anything from the cruise we did with my sister Susan last Christmas for a while, so after putting up a couple of walking posts I thought it was time for something a bit more relaxing. We spent a day at Lifou, or more specifically Easo Beach, not sure of what to expect before we turned up it turned out to be a fun day of swimming and snorkelling in a beautiful location.

From Easo Beach.

The church is just visible on top of the point.

After catching one of the first tenders ashore the first objective for the day was to work out where the best snorkelling was. As we didn't have a permit to dive at Baie de Jinek we settled on a spot under the cliffs where the old church was perched above us. It was a bit of a swim from the beach but all of us are good swimmers so that was no problem. Once we had found a good spot we all spread out and we hardly saw my niece's and nephew for the rest of the day.

Can you see the snake?

Is that better?

That'd be my furry arm.

The coral here was quite good with some decent bommie's and a lot of tropical fish, we even found a couple of sea snakes. After a few dives I decided to head around the point between Easo Beach and Baie de Jinek, a fairly long open water swim, all was going well until I got around the point under the cliffs and I noticed people waving at me from the top of the cliffs. Waving back I realised that they weren't waving hello but were concerned that I was going to drown, I guess most of the punters off the cruise ships don't set off on a two kilometre open water swim, hmmm. Not wanting to make the front page of the 'Lifou Daily' I decided that the prudent course of action would be to swim back to the beach. I took a couple of photos but the colours pretty strange as the camera was on the underwater setting.

I should have bought my sunnies.

I was a fair way from the beach.

The church was above me on top of the cliffs.

Making back to shore Sam and I decided to head up to the little market that the locals had set up, I was a little thirsty after my excursion. Jess and Tory meanwhile wrestled with the eternal dilemma for the teenage girls of whether or not to get their hair plaited. By now it was getting late in the day so after checking out the small market and grabbing a drink we headed back to the mother ship to stake our spot on deck for the sail away.

The small market that the village put on.

The Dirt.
We did this cruise with Royal Caribbean Cruises and they didn't disappoint, they seem particularly well set up if you have children with you. If Sam and I were on our own I'd probably prefer Princess.
Lifou is in the Loyalty Islands which are part of New Caledonia. The Ship anchored in the Baie de Santal near the small village of Easo and we went ashore on tenders.The market that the locals put on is only very small so shopaholics won't take long to get through it. The core activity is swimming and diving. I have to thank my guest photographers on this post, Jess, Seb and Tory.

Tory, Seb and Jess on Easo Beach.

Looks like someone got her hair plaited.

Jess, Susan and Seb back on board the Rhapsody of the Sea.