What a glorious night’s sleep, quiet and still as a mill pond, meant a solid 9 hours sleep for me! We had a very lazy morning with the Sunday papers and a chat with Phoebe in Budapest.
One of the sailors had recommended going to a restaurant here on a Sunday when they do a big Polynesian buffet of food cooked in a fire pit. Rowan had managed to book us in. We had to arrive at 11am to see the food coming out the pit. All the food is cooked wrapped in banana leaves. It was pretty impressive, the restaurant is in a stunning location, right on the water’s edge with big trees giving wonderful shade. We had our plate piled high with food from the servers, no wonder they are a large nation! A lot of cava, starchy vegetables, coconut bread, banana bread. The chicken and pork were definitely the best bits. It was lovely to see lots of locals eating there too, besides all the French tourists.
The hot stones in the enormous fire pit
Preparing the food
The food all wrapped in leaves
Lovely decor of plants everywhere
The groaning buffet table
Our jolly local band, they all love playing these tiny ukuleles, we saw lots for sale on the streets in Papeete
My plate of food, PolePole in the distance
The water colour is magnificent
Leaving the restaurant
Feeling really stuffed we returned to PolePole thinking we might just relax, but it was such glorious sunshine and so calm, we decided to go and snorkel out on the reef. We went further south into the next bay, along a passage only navigable by small boats. We stopped quite near the breaking waves, there was a passage through the reef which had a whole lot of surfers catching big breaking waves. The snorkelling was ok in pockets with some nice small fish, but the current was pretty strong and it was very shallow. Some clouds came over, amazing how quickly things can change, so the visibility was not the best. We headed back to PolePole and got the new canoe out the locker, pumped it up and paddled to shore for a walk along the beach which was very pleasant. It was an incredibly hot evening, we’ve put our blankets away and will have both fans on tonight!
We snorkelled the other side of this spit
A lovely old wooden boat
Some charming rustic bungalows along the beach
Rowan got his new drone out, just one small cut to his hand and it came back safely!
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