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SECTION 2
"THE BUBBLE BURSTS"
The Sydney Herald Tribune 14-01-1988
NOUMEA, Wednesday: Two people drowned and about 80 were injured today as a cyclone raked New Caledonia with torrential rain and winds of up to 180 kilometers an hour. Cyclone Anne, the strongest freak typhoon to hit the territory in the past 12 years, broke over the northeastern coast of the island before spreading along the East coast. Police said two people who tried to cross a flooded river in the South during the night were swept away and drowned. Weather officials said the cyclone blew itself out by the end of the morning after covering two-thirds of the territory. Police and rescue services said the most serious damage was caused by flooding, which swept away huts, crops and soil.
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As a consequence of that natural event the Yacht Club declared, on the evidence gathered by its expert Ian Thompson, who presented a fat bill for his services, that all of the yachts in Noumea were a total write-off; that did not at all accord with the facts - but Noumea was far away and Lloyd‘s did not want to go into a fight over it, as it was subject to French jurisdiction and the hearing would have been in front of French judges, who could not be trusted. So Lloyds paid AUD 3 Million to avoid escalation. ++++++
Years later I came across a boat builder from Noumea on the Caribbean Island of Anguilla. We struck up a conversation and the builder said he had had plenty of work; he had repaired four 36 foot Swan yachts for which he had cashed in AUD 550,000 and there was not much work to be done on the remaining two yachts.
„Noumea Yacht Charter?“
I asked.
“Yes. How come you know that? “
I did not reply. Here it was again: the phenomenon of time, my pre-cognition - as I had understood it, back at our visit in Noumea, the storm, the boat builder in another part of the world. Everything may happen simultaneously - I thought. If we could see what was actually to happen but had not been perceived by us, many things would evolve different. But perhaps that is how it had to be so since we were living in the boundaries of the third dimension and to make our experiences.
oOo
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