Mare Island Beaches and local taxi/guides to hire at the port of Tadine?

[poputchik]

Hello,

Can  anybody who recently traveled to New Caledonia, please, advice regarding Mare beaches on Dec.26, 2018?  

Our ship (Noordam) offers only one option for this island – a bus transfer to Yejele Beach.  I worry that with almost 2000 passengers on board this beach will be overcrowded and we will not enjoy snorkeling there. Are there any other nice beaches we can go to snorkel?  

How difficult is it to hire a taxi at the port?  Some recent posts on TripAdvisor are saying that “all the transport is booked by the cruise so you will need to buy ship transfer, no private hire taxi's at the port”. But other posts (about 9-10 month earlier) suggested to hire  local guys to do a private tour on Mare, plus Enis Beach with no crowds.  I am so confused!  

We’ve done several Caribbean and Central America cruises and always prefer to hire local guides via TripAdvisor or taxi drivers at the ports of call.

Many thanks

[CupcakeSusie]

My reply is late sorry, and I can’t help much except to confirm that Yejele Beach is crowded and imo it was unpleasant. Good luck hiring a taxi, I think this would be a much better option.