Weaving

At 9:00 one morning we made muffins and went into shore for a weaving class.  We picked up a few people on the way in and we were a full boat when we got there.  The family had caught a fish that morning and they served it grilled for lunch.  For dessert everyone on the boats contributed, there were lots of different kinds of brownies, cherry coconut muffins, blueberry muffins, chocolate coconut cookies and hot chocolate.  After the kids had lunch we sat on the sand playing games and talking, mostly games that did not involve running around because I had a hurt foot and couldn’t run.

Soon the adults were done and the local family gathered us on the beach and started weaving.  One Sister cut palm fronds a certain length and skinned the ends, one sister showed us how to start by weaving the outside rim of the hat, and a third sister showed us how to weave the top and hardest  part of the hat.  I did all right with the rim but I had to hand it over to the woman to finish when I got to the top part, I watched her and when I understood I grabbed up another one and did it myself.  After I had made two hats I wandered around the beach an saw the mother of the family teaching a group of cruisers how to make little things like stars and cubes and plates and bags.  I sat in then taught my sisters and mom. 

After the class was done we drove home laden with christmas ornaments, hats , plates and bags all made from palm fronds.

Mualpihaa (Mal-pee-ha)

After Boring-Boring aka Bora-Bora, we sailed past the rough waters of Malpeete (Mal-pee-tee) and into the lagoon of Malpihaa.  It’s super calm and deserted except for one family who came here against all odds and are living peacefully by themselves.  We joined up with Remi De, who we hadn’t seen in a while and welcomed Elena, Breeze, and Field Trip when they came in. We had a fire on the beach again which we had been missing, and toasted sausages and marshmallows on the open flames.

We were excited to be back together with our friends that we had sleepovers almost every night and were so tired at the end of the week that I got sick.  Luckily it only last one day and I was better when I woke up the next day. 

Elena dad used to be a professional sailor so he gave us sailing lessons everyday on our little optis. every night we had fun on the beach and we all brought food so it was kind of like a potluck.  we stayed on the beach by the fire late into the night and fell right asleep when we got back to the boat.

Hike

We're back at the dock in Riatea and having just as much fun as before, everyday as part od school we have a physics lesson with Caminante dad and learn formula's and do experiments for 2 hours.  We always try to do our school as quickly as possible so we can get off the boat and go to town for ice-cream and ripsticking.  Yesterday after school we got on hiking clothes and grabbed bottles of water and sharpies (for drawing tattoos when we got bored), we walked along the street 'til we found the path up the mountain.  As we walked we talked and joked around with the boys off Moana Roa playing Truth or Dare, our new obsession, and drawing weird pictures and words on our arms, we walked real slow so we were soon way behind but we were having fun so we didn't care.

At the top we joked about throwing rocks down and hitting people (we didn't do it of course), and they told us about a time when they had caught a chicken on a hike, carried it all the way home and kept it in a chicken pen. There was a rooster on the mountain and I laughed as they asked their mom, "If we catch it can we keep it?"


We walked home and took showers before heading over to the boys boat for a movie night, we had fun and stayed up late into the night.

Huahine

Huahine is a just a morning sail from Raitea so we got in right after lunch. As soon as the anchor was down I was off the boat and in the water.  We played in the grass for a while then jumped on the paddle board for a “paddle” around, (like I could paddle 7 kids on a sinking board with one paddle).  The parents came in small groups and we divided into teams for volleyball, my team won 2 games and the other team won 1.  

It grew late and we lit a bonfire to toast marshmallows on sticks and ate brownies for desert, we told ghost stories by the fire and played tag games until late into the night when the stars and moon were out.

We did the same  thing for 3 days with small differences, like going surfing in the morning some days, and wake boarding some days.  I fell in love with surfing and got better and better at volleyball every day, I played and joked around with the boys off Moana Roa all day and had so much fun.  This morning my dad and Cleo and I jumped in the dinghy with the paddle board and kayak and headed off to the surfing spot we go to every morning before school, I caught a few waves but mostly either fell off my board or joked around with Bo off Moana Roa. 

I’m having so much fun I want to stray here forever but unfortunately we have to leave for internet and connection to the real world outside of my paradise.

Raitea

After Moorea we moved onto Raitea so we could do repairs, like getting new batteries, fixing the computer, sewing the stackpack.  Most of the time we were tied up to the town docks and we spent our days skateboarding, ripsticking, and getting ice cream, we made trailers to horor movies for fun and every night was a party.  We had a great time playing with all of our friends who were with us at the docks too, Moana Roa, Remi De, Elena, Moxie.



One day we decided to hike up to the top of the hill shadowing the harbor, at least a 5 mile hike.  We went with the Elena boys and had fun making bows and arrows out of bendy sticks and getting chased by a very protective mama cow.  We told stories about other hikes we'd been on and finally got to the top, we spent some time on the top of the hill, eating bananas and looking at the wonderful view from the mountain.  You could see everything, we saw the docks where our boats were, we saw the parking lot with all the food trucks, we saw the town square and the ice cream shop.



When we got back down our feet were sore and our knees aching from climbing that hill, but we got showered and dressed for dinner out that night, we walked along the pier, looking for anything that struck our fancy but we didn't find very much, finally we went back to the first food truck we had seen and all had steak frite for dinner.

Lil' Savages

From Tahiti we moved to Moorea the distant mountain blocking the sunset from Papeete harbor.  It was only a day sail and we got in in time to have drinks on shore and play around with friends while watching half-naked polynesian fire throwers.  Apparently this was the evening celebration of the puddle-jumpers regata, wich had taken place that day.  We ran around played with glowing party toys late into the and discovered an olympic type event tomorrow in wich anyone over 12 could participate in teams, paddling conoes, husking coconuts, running with weights and a game of tug-o-war.  Eagerly Cassedy, Travis, Beau and I, the only kids over 12, signed up, naming our team the Lil' Savages.  Although the four of us were the only kids old enough to actually compete in the games, there were many other kids in the harbor so we had plenty of cheerleaders and supporters.

The next day at a little before 10:00, we all drove over to the hotel that was hosting the games, my team mates were there and we drew markings on our faces like savages, now we looked the part.  We waited for our time and gathered fans and sponsors (virtual sponsors of course), all the other teams were adults around our parents age so we were by far the youngest people out there, so naturally we gained a lot of support.

At last it was time for us to get into our outrigger and prepare for the race, obviously the leader of the celebration sympathized with us because he gave us a little bit of a headstart so we could afford to lose a little bit of time when we started, but it turned out we didn't need it we won easily and smoothly, with out crashing flipping or cheating, encouraged we cheered and clapped along with our gigantic crowd of fans.

We didn't race again for a little while but we watched our dads get there butts kicked when they raced against a couple of other adult teams, we booed along with the crowd as they came in third, disqualified from the next conoe races, we teased them about losing badly to a bunch of teenagers then rushed to pick the best canoe with the best drivers, last time winners.  This time we didn't get a headstart because we had obviously proven ourselves last race.

We won and won, but in the last and final race, the one determining the winners, we got second place and not first.  It was still a very good score, but we were all disappointed just a little, but not too much!

Tahiti

The sail from Rangiroa to Tahiti was a day and 2 nights, for the first night and half of the next day, we went as fast as we could so we could get there with out spending another night out at sea, but when it became apparent that we weren't going to make we slowed down.  As soon as we slowed down it was much more comfortable, and we stopped rocking so much.

It was early morning when we motored through the pass and even from far away I could tell that there were a lot boats in this anchorage, maybe even more than Cartegena.

As soon as we anchored we all packed up to get off the boat and onto land, we walked up to the marina office and dropped off my dad and Jade to wait for it to open and then continued up the road to the grocery store.  We hadn't been food shopping for so long and we were almost out of food, so we had to buy a lot.  I got a cart and tried to push it but the back wheels moved also so it went sideways when it was pointing straight ahead, Cleo and my mom thought this was so funny and laughed their heads off when I tried to get through the doors to the store.

We shopped and shopped and shopped and shopped, and when my dad came back with not only Jade but also Remi and her parents, we did more shopping all together.  It was really fun, running around the store playing hide and seek and spying on the parents, and when we got hungry we went and got lunch at the cafe and ordered paninis a foot long!  Soon we got tired and the parents finished shopping so we went home, but it had been really fun.

My Birthday

A few days after my grandparents came we celebrated my Birthday. 

I had toasted baguettes with strawberry jam for breakfast, then I went back down and read.  At about 10:00 Nanna and Nonno came and we got ready for snorkeling.  We spent half an hour snorkeling and swimming then came back for lunch.  For lunch we had quiche, cabbage salad and bread, it was really good.  

Later Daddy and Nonno went scuba diving and my mom went for a spa treatment, so Nanna took me and my sisters to the pool.  When we got tired of the pool we went back to the room for showers and pedicures.  

We did each others toes and I got mine a gorgeous blue color that was kind of iridescent.

When everyone got back my mom produced a delicious Key Lime pie for a birthday cake, we stuck candles in it and sang the happy birthday song, then we ate it and it was soooo good!

My sisters then brought their presents and begged me to open them so I did, because i’m such a nice sister.  

Cleo and Jade both gave me bracelets and Nanna gave me clothes and jewelry, my mom got me a fancy headset that has its own 3 gig. storage, and even though Mimi and Pop weren’t here they had sent me presents.  

It was a good Birthday.

Pearl Farm

The Tuamotan islands are famous for their pearls so we decided to take a look at on of the pearl farms in Rangiroa.  The bus took us to a small gazebo like seating area outside of the giftshop and a tour guide told us about the difficult task of extracting a pearl from an oyster.

He explained how each oyster is specially raised for 5 years until it can produce a pearl sac.  Once   it has grown to a good size the technicians use the lip from a younger oyster (also called the graph) and insert it into the older oyster so that the pearl it will produce will have good color shinyness.



After the oysters have the graph they are placed back into the ocean with nets to keep away predators, they sit there for 2 more years until the pearl has developed enough to be extracted.  A separate technician then takes the finished pearl, determines if it is worth keeping, then places a bead, a small ball made from the shell of the oyster, into the pearl sac so that the oyster can continue producing pearls.

We watched the workers at work for a while then wandered into the shop so we could look at the finished pearl jewelry.  We mostly browsed but Nanna, my grandmother, let me pick out 2 pearls so that the lady could make them into earrings!  They are beautiful and unique, made from the black pearls of the Tuamotan atolls.

Bagels

Today we're making bagels, first time, from scratch.  It sounds hard, and it is, but I think it's worth it.

Like any bread type recipe, it starts the same, one big bowl, yeast mixture, let it sit.

 I followed instructions, adding flour and sugar and salt until I had a nice and sticky dough.

I let it rise in a greased and covered bowl for a while until it had nearly doubled in size.  Turning it onto a floured surface I kneaded it until it turned smooth and elastic.

I then seperated the dough into small pieces, kneaded them and punched holes in them then let them rise on a greased oven sheet.

When they were round and fluffy I dropped them into boiling water for 1 minute each side until they were bloated and greasy.  I then placed them back onto the greased sheet.

When all of them had been boiled I baked them on high heat until they began to brown.  We arranged them on a platter and had them for lunch, hot with butter.

Fatu Hiva

After 3 weeks at sea any island would've looked magnificen to us but Fatu Hiva was especially gorgeous.  We've been to the low lying San Blas islands with their palm trees and pearl white sands, the Galapagos, a volcanic wonderland, even Bonaire a desert island, but we've never been to the French Polynesian islands.  Lush hills rose steeply on all sides of the bay full of clear deep blue water, valleys full of waving ferns and gurgling mountain streams met us on our hikes.

We spent days taking hikes, swimming and playing with friends, in addition to Remi De; Moana Roa, Camanante and Field Trip soon arrived and we became fast friends with a new boat named Voahangy, already friends with Remi De.  

We spent a day tubing and playing in the water by a small bay with a beach of water-rounded stones Remi De discovered.  On the beach there is a small creek of ice cold fresh water that trickles through the stone to the sea, we propped a dead palm branch up to catch the water and make a spout for it. Soon we had a tap to wash our hands and clean shells we found, we also used coconut shells as cups and filled them at the tap then dumped them over ourselves for showers.  

We tried building shelters out of palm  fronds but that didn't work out so we played house on a large flat rock that we found, we wove palm fronds into beds for ourselves and delt out jobs around the "household" for everyone, for example, Cleo smashed and cut cocnuts for meals, Jade cleaned up after the ladies of the house [who were Remi from Remi De and Anne from Voahangy], Cara from Moana Roa was the bodygaurd and I tended the fire and collected the water for meals and showers.  We ate ceviche and crackers on the smooth stones for lunch and had coconut for dessert, I ate so much cocnut it's gonna last me a life time.

We tubed all the way back from the small bay and took a few turns around in it before getting dropped off so we could get ready for the welcoming feast we were all attending that night.  I showered and dressed then got in the dinghy with everybody else, we're now sailing with my uncle who joined us in the Galapagos.  At land we all gathered in a warehouse where the locals had set up a gigantic feast for us.  On the table were all different kinds of delicacies ranging from chicken and rice to pickled bananas.  As we ate musicians filed in and started playing a kind of loud musiisic in the native language.   After a while dancers came in and lined up, one woman announced them and they began dancing they did a lot of difficult looking moves, then the woman came up again and explained what the moves meant.  We stayed there late into the night, watching the performances and plaing tag when we got bored,finally we dragged ourselves away to head back home but we all agreed it was really fun.