Raroia, French Polynesia

by Andrew and Clare Payne on 7 Jul 2016 Today, 5th July, is Charles Payne's (Andrew's Dad) 90th Birthday. We hope Charles and Andrew's Mum, Jo, are enjoying the celebrations in Hobart Tasmania. Our thoughts are with them on this very special day. Ninety years is quite an achievement and so congratulations and our best wishes. Let's hope we can all achieve the same.

Happy Holiday

So meanwhile back in Raroia, French Polynesia on the sunny side of the street it is a magnificent day. We are anchored against a palm studded atoll in glassy blue water in total peace. We are in company with an American couple Sue and Rob on 'Athanor' and so we have some playmates. Tonight Rob and Andrew are going crab hunting on the island.

Apparently the rather large coconut crabs are good eating and best caught at night by putting your foot on them and tying the two front claws together. So they will be off tonight with flash lights, bits of string and buckets and I hope we won't hear any screaming coming from the island. I'm glad I am staying on the boat, why not just open a tin of tuna I say?

We have spent the last week or so polishing Eye Candy. We just do a few hours a day and it has been quite pleasurable without the pressure of a completion date. The deck, the hull and stainless are gleaming. The bottom of the boat is barnacle free and the white waterline is once again white. I still have a few inside jobs, like polishing the clocks, but it won't be long before we have everything ship shape.

Life in the Slow Lane

Raroia has a small village with about forty houses. The main industry is a pearl farm and copra. The local French shop keeper Gerard, who speaks good English, told us that a kilo of dried copra pays $1.40 US and this is a set figure throughout the Islands. To collect the coconuts, split them open and dry them seems a lot of work for not much money, especially when one orange cost me $1.30 US. The cost of goods is a little higher than the Marquesas. However nothing in the shop is priced so visitors might pay more than locals.

Andrew bought 40 liters of diesel (at $1.80 per litre) in two twenty litre containers. He had quite a distance to carry them back to the wharf but fortunately Gerard said we could use his car. I was surprised as we had only seen bicycles on the island.

Anyhow the car duly arrived out the front of the shop in the form of a green wheelbarrow; better than no wheels at all. The little village seems to be well supported by the French Government with an airport, good public buildings, a school, concrete roads and a substantial wharf. The people in the village are very friendly and seem to have a simple but happy life.

It is now the next day and so I can report that Rob an Andrew caught seven crabs for dinner last night. Rob who comes from Seattle and is familiar with crabbing cleaned and cooked them for us. They were quite tasty but very messy. We didn't have to worry about getting indigestion from eating too quickly, it took forever to prize the meat out of the shells. It was good fun and a great local experience but I think once is enough unless we find some much bigger crabs. By the way, the hunters were very efficient, no bites were suffered and consequently no screaming was heard coming from the island.

We have been here now for nearly three weeks and the time has passed very quickly. We are enjoying being on the boat in such calm conditions within the lagoon. We can see and hear the ocean waves crashing on the surrounding reef. There are a number of small islands or Motus dotted along the reef. These are mostly covered with coconut palms and offer good protection from the wind.

Occasionally we find a Motu covered with leafy green trees. The birds claim these and build their nests, it is lovely to see and hear them each morning. It is hard to comprehend that in such calm conditions we are in the middle of the Pacific ocean. It is almost like the eighth wonder of the world, we are loving it.

So What's Next

All the boats we arrived here with have now left Raroia and moved further west. We have to get used to being left behind. A new experience for us but I'm sure it is good therapy. We might move on to the next Atoll of Makemo later this week if the weather is right.