May 13, 2011 (Happy Friday the 13th!!!)
Well, we've been having way too much fun!! We got to go out with Tony, Alfred's son and 2 of their workers to gather the oysters to harvest the black pearls the day after we got to Apataki Carenage at Alfred’s mooring and anchorage area. It was so interesting as they have buoys everywhere tied together with nylon rope with heavy plastic round cages to hold 20 seeded oysters each. They brought in at least 100 of these cages! Then we got to go back and watch as they extracted the pearls. Don, of course, got right in there to help extract. The farmer he is loved doing this kind of farming too! It took most of the day, after stopping a couple of hours for lunch, to get all of the oysters done. There were so many to do with Alfred, Tony, Alfreds’ son and two of their workers and, of course, Don helping right in the middle of it;>) Pretty little Caroline, Tony’s wife, helped some too. Alfred said he had been harvesting the oysters 4Xs a year but has cut it down to 2 Xs as the price of the pearls have dropped so badly. Does that sound like farming (of any kind)? We certainly understand his position there!! Anyway, after doing that Don went with Alfred to feed his chickens as he has another enterprise of selling eggs. he has probably close to 200 chickens in pens with no rooster. He says the rooster aren't any good and just make a lot of noise! So he kills them and eats them. The chickens are special chickens from New Zealand. They are small chickens that produce regular sized eggs. They also have a copra operation which is coconut meat that is extracted and dried and then sold to Tahiti. That operation is actually his fathers’ Au sham. Alfred is just getting his dry storage area for boats up and going and, although at the moment it is very small operation as it's only 1 1/2 years along, he now has 9 boats in the dry storage area. It lifts up to 20 tons and 6' of draft. And he had a special lift made to lift catamaran boats. It’s supposedly good place to put your boat during the cyclone season which is November to March or so. Anyway, we had a great time at Alfreds’ and met several other cruisers. When leaving on May 14th it felt like we were telling family goodbye again! Everyone was so nice and made our stay there one we’ll remember forever.
We left Apataki Atoll on 5/14 and headed for another atoll about 20 miles away which is owned by Alfred’s cousins. Valentine and Gaston operate a mooring area and a restaurant which only caters to cruisers. The are very remote and it’s rustic as rustic can be. The Polynesian People are all so friendly and we absolutely love them. We were the only boat at this place, called Anse Amyot. Don and I have a hard time pronouncing all of these names, but have found that they are actually pronounced just as they’re spelled. We talked Valentine in fixing us a wonderful meal she’s famous for. She wasn’t real thrilled to make a big meal just for 2 but she did it and it was everything everyone had said it would be!!! She made fresh bread with coconut milk which was not only beautiful to look at was wonderful to taste. Gaston barbied fresh lobsters and tuna on the grill and Valentine fixed a ceviche with tuna that was great also. Also a tuna with a soy sauce (Don wasn’t too hip on that as it wasn’t cooked) which I thought was great, surprisingly! We ate so much food and were so stuffed when we finally left at 10:30. Late for cruisers! We usually go to bed at least by 8:PM. Anyway, we didn’t get to dive this time there but are planning on returning someday. They say the diving here is out of this world, so we certainly want to come back to dive the area.
Well, that’s it for now. Update on Fakarava & Rangiroa to come soon;>)