The evil weevil
03 October 2011 | Papeete, Tahiti
Catherine
I've collected all the seeds and pulses and popcorn and rice in one box because I know that once we are in NZ we'll have it confiscated. So when, yesterday morning, I went to said box to get dried chickpeas to soak, I was gutted – and a little disgusted – to find them crawling with weevils. So the whole of yesterday morning consisted of going through ALL of our provisions to check how much had been affected. Luckily, we keep most of our provisions in plastic boxes with sealed lids so it was actually only one box that was affected. Also, it was unlikely, despite my best intentions, that we would be able to have got through all of our dried beans and peas. Our advice to potential family cruisers? If you didn't pre-plan your dinners with dried beans the day before at home, you're unlikely to do so at sea. We'll be sticking to the cans from now on.
On the positive side, I now have a completely up to date provisions list and a very clean under bunk storage space. And our salad cream stock was unaffected, thank the Lord!
At lunchtime yesterday, Mia started to complain that she wasn't feeling very well and we realised that, for the first time on our trip, she was feeling seasick at anchorage. It was REALLY swelly, and I was quite glad to take the kids to shore and spend the afternoon chilling out around the marina with Luna and Goody. There's been a strong wind for the past couple of days and you can see the surf crashing over the outer reef. However, in the last couple of hours, all is calm again which is good for our stomachs but not so good for the batteries which really benefited from the extra wind power.
Tomorrow, we will check out of Tahiti, collect final packages, fill up with water and gas, lightly provision (don't want to break the bank!) and Tuesday will see Luna, Goody and us off to Moorea.