WE ARE LEAVING NEW CALEDONIA AND ARE HEADING TOWARD FIJI

I am adding this quite late for a good reason.  

• As I predicted in my blog of March 16, watch Caitlin Clark of Iowa.  
• Well, she only scored 41 points, with 8 assists and 6 rebounds, in an incredible upset of heavily favored South Carolina.  Maybe the best single performance in the history of the Big Dance, women's or men's.  

• 
  Iowa faces my team, LSU, which got trounced by South Carolina last month.  That's Angel Reese, for these two might be the best women playing at the college level this year.
• Why I'm adding this now is that my next blog will be published after that Iowa-LSU game is over, which begins at 7:30AM Fiji time tomorrow, but at 3:30PM EDT on Sunday in the U.S.  
• How to watch?  Click on this.  
• We left the Coral Sea and are now in the South Pacific Ocean.  Amazing that I am able to send this with nothing in sight around us for hundreds of miles.

I also said that if you wanted a long shot on the men's side, pick San Diego State.  They will play Connecticut on Monday at 9:20PM EDT.

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New Caledonia is a French group of 140 islands 750 miles east of Australia and 11,000 miles from France.  Noumea, the capital, is 3,841 miles from Honolulu, which is about that distance away from Houston.  The total land area of New Caledonia is 7,172 square miles, which is smaller than the Big Island of Hawaii with 10,930.

Early traces of human presence go back to perhaps 1600 BC.  Captain James Cook was the first European to sight these islands in 1774.  He named named it New Caledonia because it reminded him on Scotland.

Slavery became a business enterprise in the 1800s, called black birding.  Cannibalism was widespread, for in 1849 the crew of American ship Cutter was killed and eaten.  In 1853, under orders from Emperor Napoleon III, France took formal possession of New Caledonia, making the location a penal colony in 1864.  By 1897 22,000 of them were sent there.  Note that the first convicts came to Australia in 1787.

Nickel was found there in 1876, leading to imported laborers from throughout the region, including Japan.    Today, New Caledonia ranks #4 in the world in nickel production.  The USA is #10.

The indigenous Kanak people were confined to reservations.  There were uprisings.  Europeans brought smallpox and measles, which killed numerous natives.

In 1941, some 300 men volunteered to fight in World War II.  In 1942, New Caledonia became an important Allied base.  This is the naval group that neutralized the Japanese Navy in the Battle of the Coral Sea that year.  Perhaps as many as 50,000 American troops were stationed on these islands, matching the entire local population.  Even Bob Hope went there.

In 1946 New Caledonia became a French overseas territory, and anyone here was granted citizenship.  Nickel continued to be important.  However the years from 1976 to 1988 saw violence and disorder from the Kanak independence movement.  A vote in 2018 rejected independence.  The legal term is that New Caledonia is a territory suitable generis, a transition system with France gradually transferring certain powers.  Look for Noumea and New Caledonia someday, maybe soon, being renamed to more closely reflect indigenous terms.

The population at last count in 2019 was 271,407, with 41% being Kanak.  The spoken language everywhere is French, although there are 28 different Kanak languages.  The predominant religion is Christianity.  The GDP is about 10% that of Hawaii and larger than Guam.  

One term used here Is Kanaks, or Kanak people.  These are the indigenous Melanesian inhabitants of mostly New Caledonia.  In Hawaii, Kanakas is used for people from Polynesia, and that name is generalized to anyone from the various Pacific islands, even in California and Chile.

Here is an interesting mapping showing the GDP/capita relative to the USA in $/capita for the year, which more closely represents the relative economy (note that here, Hawaii is at $62,818 and Australia at $54,255, with New Caledonia at $34,780).

Tesla in 2021 gained a nickel partnership, an important mineral for lithium-ion batteries.

The Odyssey went to Noumea, which I reported on two days ago, and Easo, Lifou.  Easo is the capital, largest and most populated of the Loyalty Islands.

First, today a tacos lunch on The Patio, and what seven jiggers of Craggenmore Scotch look like, each.  You can speculate why this is being shown.

A caviar celebration on our veranda departing New Caledonia during sunset.  Venus, I think.

I went out only once, for lunch.  I did not wear my pedometer in the room, so only walked 178 steps.  Won't be much better in the future, for I fear walking in the corridor because of covid, and worry about doing that outside when the ship is moving.

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