Lifou (Loyality Island) - 8 March 2014

After to days at sea we arrived shortly before 10 o'clock at Lifou. As it is only a small island we had to tender to get ashore. 

Not much to see but a lovely blue lagoon close to the pier with a lovely white sand beach and turquoise waters well suited for snorkeling and you were able to learn diving. 

Some little huts with locals and as our arrivals must have been announced local dealers arrived to sell us "local" souvenirs (some looked like others seen in the area with labels "Made in China"). 

You also could have coconut milk or a massage or tour the island by taxi.






The island Lifou is part of a small group known as Loyality Islands (Province des Îles Loyauté). These islands are included in the French Territory of New Caledonia (Latin name for Scotland as it reminded James Cook of his father's native Scotland when he first discovered the islands in 1774). Lifou is located a little over 60 miles to the east across the water from the main island of Grande Terre. As is common throughout much of this gorgeous region of the South Pacific, the people of Lifou are primarily Melanesian and Polesian with a small group of Europeans known as Caldaches. On the eastern shore of Lifou, overlooking the Bay of Chateaubriand is the island's capital, the village of Wé.

As European sailors who came ashore in New Caledonia brought diseases against which the indigenous people had neither immunity nor defense the effects were devastating upon the local population.The people of Lifou were protected, to a degree, due to their isolation. 

In 1852, under the rule of Napoleon III, France claimed New Caledonia as a colony. Again the people of Lifou benefited because the French did not feel this small island was suitable for settlement.